Odyssey 5.276 · Book 5, lines 276–280
Calypso's sailing order, and the eighteenth day
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τὴν γὰρ δή μιν ἄνωγε Καλυψώ, δῖα θεάων, ποντοπορευέμεναι ἐπʼ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἔχοντα. ἑπτὰ δὲ καὶ δέκα μὲν πλέεν ἤματα ποντοπορεύων, ὀκτωκαιδεκάτῃ δʼ ἐφάνη ὄρεα σκιόεντα γαίης Φαιήκων, ὅθι τʼ ἄγχιστον πέλεν αὐτῷ·
For that star Calypso, divine among goddesses, had bidden him to keep it on the left hand as he crossed the sea. Seventeen days he sailed, crossing the deep, and on the eighteenth appeared the shadowy hills of the land of the Phaeacians, where it lay nearest to him.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus keeps his raft on course by the constellations Calypso named for him. These lines give her actual sailing directions, then compress the long solo crossing toward the land of the Phaeacians.
A note on this passage
The star-lore of the previous lines turns out to be a sailing order: Calypso told him to keep the Bear on his left, which holds an eastward course. Homer then compresses the whole crossing into a single counted span — seventeen days at the oar, and on the eighteenth the hills of Scheria lift over the horizon.
The undercurrent is how the poem measures endurance. Not in feelings but in days: seventeen of them, alone, sleepless, holding one line across open water. The land, when it comes, is only 'shadowy' and far — nearest, but not near. The reader is being set up: this first sight of safety is exactly the moment the poem has chosen for the storm.
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