Odyssey 5.237 · Book 5, lines 237–240
To the tall trees at the island's edge
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δῶκε δʼ ἔπειτα σκέπαρνον ἐύξοον· ἦρχε δʼ ὁδοῖο νήσου ἐπʼ ἐσχατιῆς, ὅθι δένδρεα μακρὰ πεφύκει, κλήθρη τʼ αἴγειρός τʼ, ἐλάτη τʼ ἦν οὐρανομήκης, αὖα πάλαι, περίκηλα, τά οἱ πλώοιεν ἐλαφρῶς.
And next she gave a well-polished adze, and led the way to the edge of the island, where tall trees had grown — alder and poplar, and a fir that was sky-high, long dry, well seasoned, which would float lightly for him.
Word by word
The setting
The second tool and the walk to the timber. Calypso hands over the adze and leads Odysseus to the far shore of Ogygia, to a stand of tall trees long dead and dry — the raw material of the raft that will carry him off her island.
A note on this passage
With the adze given, the goddess leads him to the timber: alder, poplar, and a sky-high fir at the island's edge, all long dead and thoroughly seasoned so that they will ride the water lightly. The detail is a shipwright's — dry, cured wood floats; green wood does not — and the poem knows it.
The undercurrent is direction. For seven years Ogygia has been a place with no way out; now Calypso herself walks him to its ἐσχατιή, its farthest edge, where the trees grow that become the road home. The goddess who was his prison is briefly his outfitter, guiding him to the boundary she once was. The escape begins, characteristically, not with a miracle but with the right dry wood.
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