I floated on for nine days. (12.465)
Book 12 ¾
At the beginning of the ninth day after the death of Odysseus' crew
And cunning Odysseus' escape from dread Charybdis and monstrous Scylla,
Godlike Odysseus washed up on the shore of a small island.
The island looked like paradise,
With tall trees loaded with fruit and clear lakes of fresh water,
But no animals, the godlike hero was the only living thing
As far as the eye could see.
But still Odysseus, delirious with hunger and dying of thirst,
Ventured to the water's edge and drank until he was almost drowned.
Then took a fruit from a branch dangling down from a tall tree
And ate until his stomach, a man's worst enemy, was full.
Suddenly, a sound of horrible pinching and hissing filled the air.
And to Odysseus' horror, monstrous creatures emerged,
Scorpions, larger than any man,
With stingers in the air poised to strike.
Quickly godlike Odysseus pulled his sword and poised himself
To attack the vicious looking creatures.
Then faster than the blink of an eye the first scorpion, the leader of the pack,
Struck out catching Odysseus in the leg.
The godlike hero looked weak as he collapsed to the ground
Unable to move, for the stinger had paralyzed his leg.
And so Odysseus lay on the ground unable to get up,
Leg splayed below him.
But the cunning hero would not give up,
He pulled his sword in front of his face
Looking both threatening and protective.
The scorpions started circling him,
Wolves encircle their prey once it has fallen
It cannot escape and now the predator is merely
Looking for the best way to kill.
So the scorpions encircled the hero of the Trojan War.
And cunning Odysseus tried desperately to strike out
And possibly destroy one of the evil creatures.
But as his arm moved forward a scorpion struck out from behind
And caught Odysseus in the arm.
Fire,
His arm felt as if it were on fire,
And with a cry cunning Odysseus dropped the sword
Where it clattered on the sand and was ignored by the evil predators.
Godlike Odysseus glanced down at his sword arm
And screamed in shock,
A goat that has roasted on a fire to long
Is black and charred on the surface
With cooked meat hiding below
So was Odysseus' arm.
With this revelation black spots crept across the cunning hero's vision;
The last thing he felt was another stinger striking his chest,
And his body going unwillingly stiff.
Thus the evil creatures took the great hero by the ankles
And dragged his paralyzed, unconscious body across the sand,
To the colony where his feet would be decided by the great Queen.
In a language consisting only of clicks and pinches
The great Queen decided that the cunning hero
Would make a wondrous feast meal,
And that he was to be taken to the cells below to rot.
The Grey eyed goddess watched Odysseus' plight with cold eyes,
The cunning hero needed to suffer a bit more before safety could be obtained.
But so that godlike Odysseus would have a chance
Zeus' grey eyed daughter counter-acted the paralyses so the cunning warrior
Could fight his way out.
When the Odysseus woke the first thing he noticed was the pain.
His whole body felt alight with fire,
Bruises and cuts marred every surface,
And cursed sand had entered every wound,
Filling the wound on his chest with yellow pus,
This was draining wherever more cuts had been made.
Odysseus was in a small cell, barley large enough for him;
Moss hung from the walls and dripped onto the heroes face
Leaving tear marks of green.
Outside the cell stood two scorpions,
Smaller than the ones who attacked him,
But still large enough to eat Odysseus for dinner.
With a snarl Odysseus grabbed his dagger with his uninjured arm.
Luckily they had not seen it as a threatening weapon and left it on his belt,
And launched himself at the two guards.
Quickly the two stingers crashed to the ground
Followed shortly by the bodies, already cooling in death.
Slowly Odysseus, still aware of his wounded arm,
Made his way up the stairs, to the nest of the queen.
The Queen was a gruesome creature with a stinger the size of a small child
And eyes that pierced your soul.
Around her stood twenty scorpions
And as they became aware of an intruder in their mist
They turned to godlike Odysseus, stingers poised ready to strike.
With strength only a god could bestow on a mortal
Odysseus flung into battle.
Faster than the eye could see, one scorpion dropped,
Then two, and before long the entire throne room
Was littered with the bodies of scorpions, splayed this way and that,
As the bodies of prisoners fall
After the guardsman decides they are no longer worth keeping
Splattered on the floor, heads separated from bodies
And the guardsman stands in the sea of bodies
One man above the dead
So Odysseus.
The Queen slunk away to her chambers far below the earth.
Cunning Odysseus waivered on his feet for a moment
Before Pallas Athena breathed strength into him and sent him on his way
Back to the poor excuse for a raft he had left on the beach.
Odysseus did not realize the steep slope he was climbing,
Or how his pace had slowed until it was almost a shuffle.
Nor did he realize how his arm was leaving a steady trail of blood.
No, the hero of Troy only saw the path to the raft.
And when he was on it he only had enough energy to push it out to sea
And ensure that the current would take it away from the horrible island.
Before Pallas Athena relieved him from pain and fatigue,
And closed his eyelids.
On the tenth night
The gods brought me to Oygyia
And to Calypso, the dread, beautiful goddess,
Who loved me a took care of me. (12.465-468)