ng to the gods. Then Odysseus rose up and placed in the Queen's
hands a two-handled cup, and he said, 'Farewell to thee, O Queen! Mayst
thou long rejoice in thy house and thy children, and in thy husband,
Alcinous, the renowned King.'

He passed over the threshold of the King's house, and he went down to
the ship. He went aboard and lay down on the deck on a sheet and rug
that had been spread for him. Straightway the mariners took to their
oars, and hoisted their sails, and the ship sped on like a strong
sea-bird. Odysseus slept. And lightly the ship sped on, bearing that man
who had suffered so much sorrow of heart in passing through wars of men
and through troublous seas--the ship sped on, and he slept, and was
forgetful of all he had passed through.

When the dawn came the ship was near to the Island of Ithaka. The
mariners drove to a harbour near which there was a great cave. They ran
the ship ashore and lifted out Odysseus, wrapped in the sheet and the
rugs, and still sleeping. They left him on the sandy shore of his own
land. Then they took the gifts which the King and Queen, the Princes,
Captains and Councillors of the Phaeacians had given him, and they set
them by an olive tree, a little apart from the road, so that no
wandering person might come upon them before Odysseus had awakened. Then
they went back to their ship and departed from Ithaka for their own
land.

Odysseus awakened on the beach of his own land. A mist lay over all, and
he did not know what land he had come to. He thought that the Phaeacians
had left him forsaken on a strange shore. As he looked around him in his
bewilderment he saw one who was like a King's son approaching.

Now the one who came near him was not a young man, but the goddess,
Pallas Athene, who had made herself look like a young man. Odysseus
arose, and questioned her as to the land he had come to. The goddess
answered him and said, 'This is Ithaka, a land good for goats and
cattle, a land of woods and wells,'

Even as she spoke she changed from the semblance of a young man and was
seen by Odysseus as a woman tall and fair. 'Dost thou not know me,
Pallas Athene, the daughter of Zeus, who has always helped thee?' the
goddess said. 'I would have been more often by thy side, only I did not
want to go openly against my brother, Poseidon, the god of the sea,
whose son, Polyphemus, thou didst blind.'

As the goddess spoke the mist that lay on the land scattered and
Odysseus saw