So speaking she touched the mules with the shining whip. They quickly left the streams of the river. They trotted well; they worked skillfully with their feet. She drove so that they who went on foot with the mules and Odysseus might follow. She laid on the lash with judgment. The sun set and they came to the famous grove sacred to Athena. There godlike Odysseus sat down. At once he prayed to the daughter of great Zeus:
“Hear me, child of Zeus who bears the aegis, unweariable. Hear me now at least, since you did not hear me before when I was being wrecked — when the famous earth-shaker wrecked me. Grant that I come among the Phaeacians as one loved and pitied.”
So he spoke in prayer. Pallas Athena heard him. But she did not yet appear to him face to face. She stood in awe of her father’s brother. He raged furiously against godlike Odysseus until he reached his own land.