Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/440

408 BOOK II.

Odysseus and Kalypso.

interference of Odj'sseus, who has received from Hermes an antidote which deprives the charms of Kirke of all power to hurt him. The Herakles of Prodikos is after all the Herakles whom we see in the myths of Echidna or of the daughters of Thestios, and thus Odysseus dallies with Kirke as he listens also to the song of the Seirens. True, he has not forgotten his home or his wife, but he is ready to avail himself of all enjoyments which will not hinder him from reaching home at last. So he tarries with Kirke and with the fairer Kalypso, whose beautiful abode is the palace of Tara Bai in the Hindu legend, while she herself is Ursula, the moon, wandering, like Asterodia, among the myriad stars, — the lovely being who throws a veil over the Sun while he sojourns in her peaceful home.

From the abode of Kirke Odysseus betakes himself to the regions of Hades, where from Teiresias he learns that he may yet escape from the anger of Poseidon, if he and his comrades will but abstain from hurting the cattle of Helios in the island of Thrinakia — or in other words, as we have seen, if they will not waste time by the way. Coming back to Kirke he is further warned against other foes in the air and the waters in the Seirens and Skylla and Charybdis. Worse than all, however, is the fate which awaits him in Thrinakia. The storm which is sent after the death of the oxen of Helios destroys all his ships and all his comrades, and Odysseus alone reaches the island of Kalypso, who, like Eos, promises him immortality if he will but tarry with her for ever. But it may not be. The yearning for his home and his wife may be repressed for a time, but it cannot be extinguished ; and Athene has exacted from Zeus an oath that Odysseus shall assuredly be avenged of all who have WTonged him. So at the bidding of Hermes Kalypso helps Odysseus to build a raft, which bears him towards Scheria, until Poseidon again hurls him from it. But Ino Leukothea is at hand to save him, and he is at last thrown up almost dead on the shore of the Phaiakian land, where Athene brings Nausikaa to his rescue. He is now in the true cloud- land of his friends, where everything is beautiful and radiant ; and in one of the magic ships of Alkinoos he is wafted to Ithaka, and landed on his native soil, buried in a profound slumber. Here the wanderer of twenty years, who finds himself an outcast from his own home, where the suitors have been wasting his substance with riotous living, prepares for his last great work of vengeance, and for a battle which answers to the fatal conflict between Achilleus and Hektor. He is himself but just returned from the search and the recovery of a stolen treasure; but before he can rest in peace, there remains yet another woman whom he must rescue, and another treasure on which he must