Ino, Cadmus’s daughter — Leucothea, once mortal, now honored in the salt waters — rose like a seabird, pitied him, and sat on the raft. Poseidon would not destroy him utterly for all his eagerness. He must leave the raft, swim for the Phaeacians’ shore, and spread her immortal veil under his chest; when he touched land, undo it and throw it far back into the wine-dark sea, and turn away. She gave the veil and dived; the dark wave covered her.
Odysseus feared another snare and stayed on the timbers while they held. Then Poseidon drove a high-arching wave that scattered the raft like dry chaff. Odysseus mounted one beam like a horse, stripped Calypso’s clothes, spread the veil, and threw himself headlong into the sea. Poseidon, shaking his head, left him to wander until he came among people nurtured by Zeus, and drove his horses to Aegae where he has his famous house.
Athena bound the other winds to sleep and raised the swift North Wind to break the waves before him. Two nights and two days he was driven on the thick waves; often his heart foresaw destruction. On the third dawn the wind fell calm. He sighted land as welcome as life to children when the gods free a long-sick father — and swam, eager to set foot ashore.
But when a shout’s distance off he heard the boom on the reefs — no harbors, only jutting headlands and cliffs foaming. His knees loosed: if he climbed out a wave might dash him on rock; if he swam on, wind or some monster of Amphitrite might take him. A wave carried him to the rough shore; Athena put a thought in him — he caught a rock with both hands until the wave passed, then the backwash stripped the skin from his hands like a cuttlefish torn from its hole and threw him out again.
He swam outside looking for a beach and came to a fair-flowing river’s mouth, clear of rocks, sheltered from wind. He prayed to the river as a wanderer and suppliant fleeing Poseidon’s threats. The god stilled his stream and brought him safe in. Knees and hands loosed; seawater gushed from mouth and nostrils; he lay breathless, scarcely alive, terrible weariness upon him.
When breath returned he threw Ino’s veil into the seaward current; she caught it in her hands. He kissed the grain-giving earth, then dreaded frost by the river or wild beasts in the wood.
He crept under two olives grown from one stock — wild and cultivated — so thick wind and sun and rain could not pass. He heaped a bed of leaves enough for two or three in winter, covered himself like a brand under dark embers, and Athena shed sleep on his eyes to free him from toilsome weariness.