ith the axe, and
lay deckings high thereupon, that it may bear thee over the misty deep.
And I will place therein bread and water, and red wine to thy heart's
desire, to keep hunger far away. And I will put raiment upon thee, and
send a fair gale, that so thou mayest come all unharmed to thine own
country, if indeed it be the good pleasure of the gods who hold wide
heaven, who are stronger than I am both to will and to do.'

Then Ulysses was glad and sad: glad that the Gods took thought for him,
and sad to think of crossing alone the wide unsailed seas. Calypso said
to him:

'So it is indeed thy wish to get thee home to thine own dear country
even in this hour? Good fortune go with thee even so! Yet didst thou
know in thine heart what thou art ordained to suffer, or ever thou reach
thine own country, here, even here, thou wouldst abide with me and keep
this house, and wouldst never taste of death, though thou longest to see
thy wife, for whom thou hast ever a desire day by day. Not, in sooth,
that I avow me to be less noble than she in form or fashion, for it is
in no wise meet that mortal women should match them with immortals in
shape and comeliness.'

And Ulysses of many counsels answered, and spake unto her: 'Be not wroth
with me, goddess and queen. Myself I know it well, how wise Penelope is
meaner to look upon than thou in comeliness and stature. But she is
mortal, and thou knowest not age nor death. Yet, even so, I wish and
long day by day to fare homeward and see the day of my returning. Yea,
and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep, even so I will
endure, with a heart within me patient of affliction. For already have I
suffered full much, and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war;
let this be added to the tale of those.'

Next day Calypso brought to Ulysses carpenters' tools, and he felled
trees, and made a great raft, and a mast, and sails out of canvas. In
five days he had finished his raft and launched it, and Calypso placed
in it skins full of wine and water, and flour and many pleasant things
to eat, and so they kissed for that last time and took farewell, he
going alone on the wide sea, and she turning lonely to her own home. He
might have lived for ever with the beautiful fairy, but he chose to live
and die, if he could, with his wife Penelope.

VI

HOW ULYSSES WAS WRECKED, YET REACHED PHAEACIA

As long as the fair wind blew Ulysses sat and steered his raft, never
see