Odyssey 5.256 · Book 5, lines 256–261
A wicker bulwark, the sails, and the launch
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φράξε δέ μιν ῥίπεσσι διαμπερὲς οἰσυΐνῃσι κύματος εἶλαρ ἔμεν· πολλὴν δʼ ἐπεχεύατο ὕλην. τόφρα δὲ φάρεʼ ἔνεικε Καλυψώ, δῖα θεάων, ἱστία ποιήσασθαι· ὁ δʼ εὖ τεχνήσατο καὶ τά. ἐν δʼ ὑπέρας τε κάλους τε πόδας τʼ ἐνέδησεν ἐν αὐτῇ, μοχλοῖσιν δʼ ἄρα τήν γε κατείρυσεν εἰς ἅλα δῖαν.
He fenced it from end to end with willow wickerwork, to be a bulwark against the wave; and he strewed on much brushwood. Meanwhile Calypso, shining among goddesses, brought cloth to make into sails; and these too he skilfully fashioned. He bound fast braces and ropes and sheets in it; then with levers he launched her into the shining sea.
Word by word
The setting
The raft is nearly done. Odysseus fits a wicker weather-screen against the waves, Calypso supplies the sailcloth, and he rigs and launches the finished craft into the sea.
A note on this passage
The raft is finished and floated. Odysseus screens its sides with a wicker fence of willow, ‘to be a bulwark against the wave,’ and heaps on brush; Calypso brings the sailcloth, he cuts and rigs the sails, makes fast the braces, ropes, and sheets, and levers the whole thing down into the sea.
Hold on the phrase ‘a bulwark against the wave.’ It is a woven screen of willow shoots — the frailest imaginable guard against open water, and the poem says so plainly. In a dozen lines Poseidon's storm will fall on exactly this raft, and no wickerwork will hold. Homer lets the builder's hope and the sea's power sit in the same short clause, and does not comment.
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