BOOK V.

ARGUMENT

THE DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES FROM CALYPSO

Pallas in a council of the gods complains of the detention of

Ulysses in the Island of Calypso: whereupon Mercury is sent to

command his removal. The seat of Calypso described. She consents

with much difficulty; and Ulysses builds a vessel with his own

hands, in which he embarks. Neptune overtakes him with a terrible

tempest, in which he is shipwrecked, and in the last danger of

death; till Lencothea, a sea-goddess, assists him, and, after

innumerable perils, he gets ashore on Phaeacia.

The saffron morn, with early blushes spread,

Now rose refulgent from Tithonus' bed;

With new-born day to gladden mortal sight,

And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light.

Then met the eternal synod of the sky,

Before the god, who thunders from on high,

Supreme in might, sublime in majesty.

Pallas, to these, deplores the unequal fates

Of wise Ulysses and his toils relates:

120

The Odyssey of Homer