
He sleeps a day and a night
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ἔνθα μὲν ἐν φύλλοισι φίλον τετιημένος ἦτορ εὗδον παννύχιος καὶ ἐπʼ ἠῶ καὶ μέσον ἦμαρ. δείλετό τʼ ἠέλιος καί με γλυκὺς ὕπνος ἀνῆκεν.
There among the leaves, grieved in my own heart, I slept all night long, and through the dawn, and midday; then the sun was sinking, and sweet sleep released me.
Odysseus finishes the account of his first rest on the island: he slept in the leaves, grieving, from that evening straight through until the next day was ending.
Odysseus sleeps in the leaves, grieved at heart, straight through the night, the dawn, and past midday. Only as the sun begins to sink does sweet sleep let him go.
The grief under the rest is the point. Even a body this spent lies down 'grieving in its own heart' — the sleep is not peace but collapse. And the sheer length of it, a full day and more, measures how far past its limits he had been driven before the leaves and the god's mercy caught him.
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