In the small hours of the third watch, when stars that shone out in the first dusk of evening had gone down to their setting, a giant wind blew from heaven, and clouds driven by Zeus were visible over the land and sea. We knew a storm was arising. We sailed to a sea cave. Our ship's food was running out and my men were starving. I mustered all the crew and said,
"Shipmates, our stores are in the ship's hold, food and drink; the cattle here are not for our provision, or we pay dearly for it." I warned my men not to eat the cattle, for I remembered my fortune that Circe foretold.
It stormed nearly every day, day in and day out. Soon, all the barley on the ship was gone; hunger drove my men to scour the wild shore to search for food. One day I withdrew from the ship to pray the gods in solitude, for hope that one might show me some way of salvation. Soon I found myself in a daze, a dream almost. And I slipped off into a deep sleep, at the time I did not know was caused by the gods. Now on the shore Eurylochus made a plea. He explained to the men that all the deaths had been hateful, mortal wretches, but that famine is the most pitiful, the worst end that a man can come to. He said that they would cut out the noblest of the cattle and sacrifice it to the god and once they return home that they would build a temple in honor of the god. It would be better to die at sea, rather than starve to death. So, the men ate the cattle while I was sleeping and made sacrifices to the god. Just then, I awoke from my slumber. When I saw my men, I cried up at Zeus: ‘O father Zeus and gods in bliss forever, you made me sleep away this day of mischief!’ For, I knew what the fate of my men would be. Helios was angry at Odysseus’s men for eating his cattle. So, he requested that the men be punished or he would make the sun shine on the underworld.
When the men got back on the ship Zeus threw lightning bolts. And by then, the rest of my men were killed. I floated off into the sea on a part of the mast of the ship. For days, I wandered the ocean, but soon winds carried me to Charybdis. The ship was sucked down in the whirlpool and I panicked as I grabbed onto a nearby tree. Waiting nearly a day for my ship to arise, it finally resurfaced. I grabbed onto the ship once it was out of the whirlpool and began my journey home…
