So next day the Sea-kings went down to the ship and put their gifts on board and then returned to the palace and sacrificed an ox to Zeus.  And then they feasted and drank their good wine and waited till the sun went down.  And the minstrel sang to them, but Ulysses kept looking at the sun impatiently, like a hungry ploughman tired out at the close of day.  At last the time arrived, and then Ulysses said, “Alcinous, let me go now, and fare you well.  My escort and my gifts are all prepared, and I could wish no more.  May I but find my wife and my dear ones all safe and sound at home!  And may Heaven grant you, too, happy homes and every blessing and no distress among your people!” And to Queen Arete he said, “Lady, may you live happily with your husband and children, and all this people, till old age comes to you and death, which must come to all!”

Then the herald led the way and Ulysses followed to the ship, and the queen sent her servants with him to carry warm clothing for the voyage and food and drink.  And when they had stored the ship he lay down silently in the stern, and the rowers took their places in the benches and plied their oars, while a deep, sweet sleep fell upon him, like the sleep of death.  Then the wonderful ship leapt forward on her way, like a team of chariot horses plunging beneath the whip, and the great dark wave roared round the stern.  No hawk could fly so quickly as that ship flew through the waves, and the hawk is the swiftest of all birds.  And as she sped, the man who had suffered so much and was as wise as the Gods lay peacefully asleep, and forgot his sufferings.

But when the bright star rose that tells of the approach of day, the ship drew near the island of Ithaca.  There is a haven there between two steep headlands which break the waves, so that ships can ride in safety without a mooring rope, and at the head of it an olive-tree, and a shadowy cave where the water fairies come and tend their bees and weave their sea-blue garments on the hanging looms and mix their wine in bowls and jars of stone.  There are springs of water in the cave, and two ways into it, one to the north for men to enter, and one to the south where none but the Gods may pass.

The Sea-kings knew this harbor and rowed straight into it and ran their ship half a keel’s length ashore.  Then they lifted Ulysses out of the stern, wrapt in the rugs and coverlet, and laid him still asleep upon the sand.  And the gifts they placed in a heap by the trunk of the olive-tree, a little out of the road, so that no passer-by might rob him as he slept.

Then they sailed away; and after they were gone Ulysses awoke, but he could not recognize the land where he lay, for Athene had cast a mist about him so that everything looked strange, though he was the lord of it all.  There were the mountain paths and the sheltering creeks, the high, steep rocks and the trees in bloom; but he could not see it aright, and started up and smote his hands upon his thighs and cried aloud,—­