Without Effort

'A certain man has been abroad for many years; he is alone, and the god Poseidon keeps a hostile eye on him. Then after suffering storm and shipwreck, he comes home.' Aristotle's Summary of Homer's 2nd Epic In my mind's eye I see Odysseus, the king with empty hands, stand by the great ship glowing with his riches and legend. The sun in Phaeacia blurs ocean and land: shore and plain converge with waves and winds. Odysseus, on the day of departure, blinks into the wine-bright Aegean. Time and again he turns craning toward the sun, impatient for day's end, for the open sea. He no longer needs to bear hope: Ithaca he can reach without effort. He could do it in his sleep. The Phaeacians spread a rug and linen blanket on deck. Odysseus embarks, lies down, lies still. They ferry his sleep across the foaming purple night-sea. Ghosts, busy with oars and sail, flit passed his dreamless eyes, as he surrenders, falls deeper into the moon-life of sleep. They pray his long-tried mind will dissolve like sea-mist engulfed in spreading sunlight. At dawn they place him, still asleep, on his native shore. In utter silence they leave him, a secret king alone among ancestors and enemies, a man equipped with the gods' own wisdom. In the near distance the gray-eyed goddess waits, without sleep, smiling over his mortal needs. She muses, 'Soon the sleeper and his mission will be one.'