Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

ODYSSEUS IN ITHAKA. 179
comrades will but abstain from hurting the cattle of Helios CHAP,
in the island of Thrinakia—or in other words, as we have .
seen, if they will not waste time by the way. Coming back
to Kirke he is further warned against other foes in the air
and the waters in the Seirens and Skylla and Charybdis.
Worse than all, however, is the fate which awaits him in
Thrinakia. The storm which is sent after the death of the
oxen of Helios destroys all his ships and all his comrades,
and Odysseus alone reaches the island of Kalypso, who, like
Eos, promises him immortality if he will but tarry with her
for ever. But it may not be. The yearning for his home
and his wife may be repressed for a time, but it cannot be
extinguished ; and Athene has exacted from Zeus an oath
that Odysseus shall assuredly be avenged of all who have
wronged him. So at the bidding of Hermes Kalypso helps
Odysseus to build a raft, which bears him towards Scheria,
until Poseidon again hurls him from it. But Ino Leukothea
is at hand to save him, and he is at last thrown up almost
dead on the shore of the Phaiakian ]and, where Athene brings
Nausikaa to his rescue. He is now in the true cloudland of
his friends, where everything is beautiful and radiant ; and
in one of the magic ships of Alkinoos he is wafted to Ithaka,
and landed on his native soil, buried in a profound slumber.
Here the wanderer of twenty years, who finds himself an
outcast from his own home, where the suitors have been
wasting his substance with riotous living, prepares for his
last great work of vengeance, and for a battle which answers
to the fatal conflict between Achilleus and Hektor. He is
himself but just returned from the search and the recovery
of a stolen treasure ; but before he can rest in peace, there
remains yet another woman whom he must rescue, and
another treasure on which he must lay his hands. Of the
incidents of this struggle it is unnecessary here to say more
than that they exhibit the victory of the poor despised out-
cast, whether it be Boots, or Cinderella, or Jack the Giant
Killer, over those who pride themselves on their grandeur
and their strength. He stands a beggar in his own hall.
Athene herself has taken all beauty from his face, all colour
from his golden hair ;
but there remains yet the bow which
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