The Lost Books of the Odyssey - By Zachary Mason Page 0,38

but the seal, if there was a seal, soon dove and was seen no more.

By the tenth night he was out of water and bone-weary and there had been no land in a long time. Though it was hours till dawn he put up his paddle and rested, soothed by the swell and the wind. There was a splashing by the side of the canoe. He looked over and saw the young woman holding the side, smiling up at him, her mass of wet hair shining in the starlight. She said, “Where are you going, stranger so far from home?” “To the bright lands in the west,” he replied, in what voice he had left, “where virtue flows from the tops of the mountains.” “And evil flows in from the ocean,” said she. “I know the place well, and you’ll never get there in your little canoe. All you’ll find is ocean and sky and never a sight of an island though you break your back with paddling. But I know the way and I can take you there, so take my hand and come along.” He put down his paddle, which had grown very heavy, took her hand, and went over the side with her, disappearing into the warm sea with scarcely a ripple.

What happened then? In the end did his clean white bones float slowly down to settle on the abyssal plain, or did he marry her and become a prince of the seals, living in the deep and forgetting his life as a man, or did he one day drag himself through the surf onto what his heart knew at once for the bright lands? The sea does not tell.

*There is a tradition, albeit present in only a few fragmentary sources, that Odysseus’s son Telemachus was pale to the point of albinism.

ISLANDS ON THE WAY

Odysseus’s ship rose in the water as his men carried the stolen treasure of many cities from its hold to his new hall. Alcinous, the island’s king, stood by watching, well pleased with his son-in-law-to-be. As soon as Odysseus had unloaded the ship he hitched a team of oxen to it with strong cables and dragged it up onto the beach. He took a crackling pine torch and, heart sinking despite his resolve, held it to the beached ship’s flank, but the sea-worn timber would not catch and the sun was setting so he went home. The next day was his wedding day, and then it took weeks to set his new house and lands in order, and by then the wind had covered the ship with sand and it was easily ignored.

Staying on the island had been a natural decision, reached in the course of all the frigid nights guiding the ship by the faint luminescence of the waves and the occasional glimpse of the moon through ragged cirrus. Somewhere in the Middle Sea the stars Odysseus had relied on for navigation had changed like ships come unmoored and after that he was altogether lost. Privately terrified, Odysseus had confidently told his men that this ominous event was just the gods translating new heroes into the sidereal sphere after the war in Troy. He pointed up and pretended to recognize Patroclus and Achilles (their constellations intertwined), Hector and even great, sad Ajax of Telamon. Then there were the seasons that did not seem to come when expected, though no one managed to keep an exact count of the days—hash marks on the hull rotted, a jar full of white stones was shattered in a storm, knotted leather threads turned into damp-swollen, hopelessly entangled snarls.

They saw many islands and many marvels, most of them inimical. One evening a sickly green radiance passed below them, deep among the waves, and the lookout swore it had had the shape of a man. On another night all their fires went out and every light, from the stars to the moon to the glow of the waves, disappeared in an instant. In total darkness they tried to turn the ship around, botched it, and before an hour had passed they were expecting to drift forever. Odysseus tossed a coin over the bow and there was no splash. They held themselves together in the dark by sitting on deck and telling stories, each in turn. They were never more surprised than when the sun rose.

Now and then they found an island set down on their map. Invariably it had just been visited by Phoenician or Cretan merchants, elements