Meanwhile Eurylochus gave the others evil counsel. All deaths are hateful, he said, but to die of hunger is the worst. Better to drive off the best of Helios’s cattle, sacrifice to the deathless gods, and if they ever reached Ithaca build a rich temple to the Sun. If Helios wrecked the ship in rage he would rather gulp cold water and die at once than waste away on a desolate island. They agreed. They killed the nearest cattle — fine beasts with straight horns — and made sacrifice as best they could without barley. They roasted the meat on spits.
The sweet savor woke me. I cried out to Zeus and the other gods: they had lulled me with pitiless sleep while my men planned this monstrous thing. Lampetie went straight to Helios and told him we had killed his cows. He raged to the immortals: they must punish Odysseus’s men, or he would go down into Hades and shine among the dead. Zeus told him to keep shining on gods and men; he himself would shatter the ship with a bright thunderbolt in mid-ocean. Calypso told me this later; she said she heard it from Hermes.
When I reached the shore I rebuked each man, but we could do nothing — the cattle were already dead. The gods then showed omens hard to bear: the hides crawled, the meat on the spits lowed, raw and roast alike. For six days my men feasted on the best of Helios’s herd. On the seventh the gale stopped. We launched, set mast and sail, and put out.
When we were out of sight of land and only sky and sea showed, Zeus set a dark cloud over the hollow ship. The sea went black beneath it. Suddenly a howling West Wind snapped both forestays; the mast fell aft, and the tackle piled on the stern. It struck the helmsman’s head and crushed his bones; he dropped like a diver from the deck, and his proud spirit left his bones.
Zeus thundered and cast a bolt into the ship. She spun and filled with sulfur. Men pitched overboard and bobbed on the waves like sea-crows round the black ship; the god took their homecoming from them. I paced the deck till the sea tore her sides from the keel. The mast and keel were still bound by the backstay of oxhide; I lashed them together and rode them.