|
They all carried the provisions down, and stowed them in the strong-benched
vessel, in the way the dear son of Odysseus directed them.
Telemachos went abord the ship, but Athene went first
and took her place in the stern of the ship, and close beside her
Telemachos took his place. The men cast off the stern cables
and themselves also went aboard and sat to the oarlocks.
The goddess gray-eyed Athene sent them a favoring stern wind,
strong Zephyros, who murmured over the wine-blue water.
Telemachos then gave the sign and urged his companions
to lay hold of the tackle, and they listened to his urging
and, raising the mast pole made of fir, they set it upright
in the hollow hole in the box, and made it fast with forestays,
and with halyards strongly twisted of leather pulled up the white sails.
The wind blew into the middle of the sail, and at the cutwater
a blue wave rose and sang strongly as the ship went onward.
She ran swiftly, cutting across the swell her pathway.
When they had made fast the running gear all along the black ship,
then they set up mixing bowls, filling them brimful
with wine, and poured to the gods immortal and everlasting
but beyond all other gods they poured to Zeus' gray-eyed daughter.
All night long and into the dawn she ran on her journey.
|