With a high degree of technological skill—and a little divine help—the hero Odysseus constructed the raft on which he escaped from the island of Ogygia.

He chopped down twenty [trees] in all, and trimmed them well with his bronze ax, planed them expertly, trued them straight to a-chalkline.

Kalypso, the shining goddess, at that time came back, bringing him an auger, and he bored through them all and pinned them together with dowels, and then with cords he lashed his raft together . . .

Next, setting up the deck boards and fitting them to close uprights he worked them on, and closed in the ends with broad gunwales.

Then he fashioned the mast, with an upper deck fitted to it, and made in addition a steering oar by which to direct it, and fenced it down the...