Now the lord, the shaker of the earth, on his way from the Ethiopians espied him afar off from the mountains of the Solymi:  even thence he saw Odysseus as he sailed over the deep; and he was mightily angered in spirit, and shaking his head he communed with his own heart.  ’Lo now, it must be that the gods at the last have changed their purpose concerning Odysseus, while I was away among the Ethiopians.  And now he is nigh to the Phaeacian land, where it is ordained that he escape the great issues of the woe which hath come upon him.  But, methinks, that even yet I will drive him far enough in the path of suffering.’

With that he gathered the clouds and troubled the waters of the deep, grasping his trident in his hands; and he roused all storms of all manner of winds, and shrouded in clouds the land and sea:  and down sped night from heaven.  The East Wind and the South Wind clashed, and the stormy West, and the North, that is born in the bright air, rolling onward a great wave.  Then were the knees of Odysseus loosened and his heart melted, and heavily he spake to his own great spirit: 

’Oh, wretched man that I am! what is to befal me at the last?  I fear that indeed the goddess spake all things truly, who said that I should fill up the measure of sorrow on the deep, or ever I came to mine own country; and lo, all these things have an end.  In such wise doth Zeus crown the wide heaven with clouds, and hath troubled the deep, and the blasts rush on of all the winds; yea, now is utter doom assured me.  Thrice blessed those Danaans, yea, four times blessed, who perished on a time in wide Troy-land, doing a pleasure to the sons of Atreus!  Would to God that I too had died, and met my fate on that day when the press of Trojans cast their bronze-shod spears upon me, fighting for the body of the son of Peleus!  So should I have gotten my dues of burial, and the Achaeans would have spread my fame; but now it is my fate to be overtaken by a pitiful death.’

Even as he spake, the great wave smote down upon him, driving on in terrible wise, that the raft reeled again.  And far therefrom he fell, and lost the helm from his hand; and the fierce blast of the jostling winds came and brake his mast in the midst, and sail and yard-arm fell afar into the deep.  Long time the water kept him under, nor could he speedily rise from beneath the rush of the mighty wave:  for the garments hung heavy which fair Calypso gave him.  But late and at length he came up, and spat forth from his mouth the bitter salt water, which ran down in streams from his head.  Yet even so forgat he not his raft, for all his wretched plight, but made a spring after it in the waves, and clutched it to him, and sat in the midst thereof, avoiding the issues of death; and the great wave swept it hither and thither along the stream.  And as the North Wind in the harvest tide sweeps the thistle-down along the plain, and close the tufts cling each to other, even so the winds bare the raft hither and thither along the main.  Now the South would toss it to the North to carry, and now again the East would yield it to the West to chase.