place of anchorage.  Now at the harbour’s head is a long-leaved olive tree, and hard by is a pleasant cave and shadowy, sacred to the nymphs, that are called the Naiads.  And therein are mixing bowls and jars of stone, and there moreover do bees hive.  And there are great looms of stone, whereon the nymphs weave raiment of purple stain, a marvel to behold, and therein are waters welling evermore.  Two gates there are to the cave, the one set toward the North Wind whereby men may go down, but the portals toward the South pertain rather to the gods, whereby men may not enter:  it is the way of the immortals.

Thither they, as having knowledge of that place, let drive their ship; and now the vessel in full course ran ashore, half her keel’s length high; so well was she sped by the hands of the oarsmen.  Then they alighted from the benched ship upon the land, and first they lifted Odysseus from out the hollow ship, all as he was in the sheet of linen and the bright rug, and laid him yet heavy with slumber on the sand.  And they took forth the goods which the lordly Phaeacians had given him on his homeward way by grace of the great-hearted Athene.  These they set in a heap by the trunk of the olive tree, a little aside from the road, lest some wayfaring man, before Odysseus awakened, should come and spoil them.  Then themselves departed homeward again.  But the shaker of the earth forgat not the threats, wherewith at the first he had threatened god like Odysseus, and he inquired into the counsel of Zeus, saying: 

’Father Zeus, I for one shall no longer be of worship among the deathless gods, when mortal men hold me in no regard, even Phaeacians, who moreover are of mine own lineage.  Lo, now I said that after much affliction Odysseus should come home, for I had no mind to rob him utterly of his return, when once thou hadst promised it and given assent; but behold, in his sleep they have borne him in a swift ship over the sea, and set him down in Ithaca, and given him gifts out of measure, bronze and gold in plenty and woven raiment, much store, such as never would Odysseus have won for himself out of Troy; yea, though he had returned unhurt with the share of the spoil that fell to him.’

And Zeus, the cloud gatherer, answered him saying:  ’Lo, now, shaker of the earth, of widest power, what a word hast thou spoken!  The gods nowise dishonour thee; hard would it be to assail with dishonour our eldest and our best.  But if any man, giving place to his own hardihood and strength, holds thee not in worship, thou hast always thy revenge for the same, even in the time to come.  Do thou as thou wilt, and as seems thee good.’

Then Poseidon, shaker of the earth, answered him:  ’Straightway would I do even as thou sayest, O god of the dark clouds; but thy wrath I always hold in awe and avoid.  Howbeit, now I fain would smite a fair ship of the Phaeacians, as she comes home from a convoy on the misty deep, that thereby they may learn to hold their hands, and cease from giving escort to men; and I would overshadow their city with a great mountain.’