Dawn rose from her bed beside lordly Tithonus to bring light to immortals and to mortals. The gods sat in council, and among them Zeus who thunders on high. Athena told them of Odysseus’s many pains, mindful of him in the nymph’s halls: never again let any scepter-bearing king be kind and gentle — seeing that none of the people whose lord he was remember godlike Odysseus, and he was gentle as a father.
“He lies on an island suffering bitter pains in Calypso’s halls, who holds him by force. He cannot come to his own native land. He has no ships with oars and no companions who might send him over the broad back of the sea. Now they are minded to kill his beloved son as he comes home. He went for news of his father to sacred Pylos and shining Lacedaemon.”
Cloud-gathering Zeus answered: “My child, what word has escaped the fence of your teeth? Did you yourself not plan this — so that Odysseus might take vengeance on those men when he comes? As for Telemachus — escort him skillfully; you can do it. Bring him unharmed to his own native land, and let the suitors go back in their ship as they came.”
Hermes — you are our messenger in other things too. Tell the fair-haired nymph our fixed resolve: enduring Odysseus is to return against her will. No escort of gods or mortal men will bring him.
On a tightly bound raft, suffering pains, on the twentieth day he will reach fertile Scheria, land of the Phaeacians, near of kin to the gods. They will honor him like a god and send him home with bronze and gold and clothing in plenty — more than he could have taken from Troy. So it is his destiny to see his friends and reach his high-roofed house and his own native land.”