to hew down the timber. Twenty trees he felled with his axe of bronze,
and he smoothed them and made straight the line. Calypso came to him at
the dawn of the next day; she brought augers for boring and he made the
beams fast. He built a raft, making it very broad, and set a mast upon
it and fixed a rudder to guide it. To make it more secure, he wove out
of osier rods a fence that went from stem to stern as a bulwark against
the waves, and he strengthened the bulwark with wood placed behind.
Calypso wove him a web of cloth for sails, and these he made very
skilfully. Then he fastened the braces and the halyards and sheets, and
he pushed the raft, with levers down to the sea.

That was on the fourth day. On the fifth Calypso gave him garments for
the journey and brought provision down to the raft--two skins of wine
and a great skin of water; corn and many dainties. She showed Odysseus
how to guide his course by the star that some call the Bear and others
the Wain, and she bade farewell to him. He took his place on the raft
and set his sail to the breeze and he sailed away from Ogygia, the
island where Calypso had held him for so long.

But not easily or safely did he make his way across the sea. The winds
blew upon his raft and the waves dashed against it; a fierce blast came
and broke the mast in the middle; the sail and the arm-yard fell into
the deep. Then Odysseus was flung down on the bottom of the raft. For a
long time he lay there overwhelmed by the water that broke over him. The
winds drove the raft to and fro--the South wind tossed it to the North
to bear along, and the East wind tossed it to the West to chase.

In the depths of the sea there was a Nymph who saw his toils and his
troubles and who had pity upon him. Ino was her name. She rose from the
waves in the likeness of a seagull and she sat upon the raft and she