Odysseus's ship rose in the water as his men carried the stolen treasure of many cities from its hold to his new hall. Alkinoos, the island's king, stood by watching, well pleased with his son-in-law-to-be. As soon as Odysseus had unloaded the ship he hitched a team of oxen to it with strong cables and dragged it up onto the beach. He took a crackling pine torch and, heart sinking despite his resolve, held it to the beached ship's flank, but the sea-worn timber would not catch and the sun was setting so he went home. The next day was his wedding day, and then it took weeks to set his new house and lands in order, and by then the wind had covered the ship with sand and it was easily ignored.
Staying on the island had been a natural decision, reached in the course of all the frigid nights guiding the ship by the faint luminescence of the waves and the occasional glimpse of the moon through ragged cirrus. Somewhere in the Middle Sea the stars Odysseus had relied on for navigation had changed like ships come unmoored and after that he was altogether lost. Privately terrified, Odysseus had confidently told his men that this ominous event was just the gods translating new heroes into the sidereal sphere after the war in Troy. He pointed up and pretended to recognize Patroclus and Achilles (their constellations intertwined), Hector and even great, sad Ajax of Telamon. Then there were the seasons that did not seem to come when expected, though no one managed to keep an exact count of the days--hash marks on the hull rotted, a jar full of white stones was shattered in a storm, knotted leather threads turned into damp-swollen, hopelessly entangled snarls.
They saw many islands and many marvels, most of them inimical. One night a sickly green radiance passed below them, deep among the waves, and the lookout swore it had had the shape of a man. On another night all their fires went out and every light, from the stars to the moon to the glow of the waves, disappeared in an instant. In total darkness they tried to turn the ship around, botched it, and in the space of an hour were expecting to drift forever. Odysseus tossed a coin over the bow and there was no splash. They held themselves together in the dark by sitting on deck and telling stories, each in turn. They were never more surprised than when the sun rose.
Now and then they found an island set down on their map. Invariably it had just been visited by Phoenician or Cretan merchants, elements of the world they knew, and Odysseus and his men took heart, got directions and advice, and sailed off in the expectation of finding familiar lands that never, in the event, materialized. And so, gradually, the longing for Ithaca's shores was supplanted by the wish for any kind of an end to wandering.
When Odysseus and his men washed up on Alkinoos's island he received them graciously, being particularly attentive to Odysseus--he mentioned in passing that he had a daughter but had not yet found the right husband for her. Odysseus weighed the benefits of a new marriage against the open trackless sea and, his spirit much eroded, asked to meet her. A wedding was soon arranged and consummated and not long after the rest of the Greeks followed suit. They had children, bought land, acquired standing and thought less and less and finally never of their wives in Ithaca. They told and retold their travel tales so many times that they became less memories than fables, even to the tellers. The hardness of their youth and of the War left them slowly but it left them and eventually there was not a head among the crew that was not white and their swords gathered dust on their mantles.
Like their wandering, this seemed like it must go on forever but ended abruptly. One night Odysseus had a dream that Athena was standing smiling over him, leaning on her spear, her eyes like white coals. He could feel the chill radiating from her. She had been speaking but he could not remember anything she had said, though his mind was full of a confusion of demons haunting narrow sea-lanes, a witch in silver bowers praying in a wolf's voice to the moon, and the echoing screams of men packed close in a low-ceilinged room as black arrows sprouted from their throats and hearts. ``It's time to go,'' she whispered.
He sat up, wide awake--there was no one but his wife Nausicaa, asleep beside him. The moon shone full through the window and he was as alert as if it had been noon. Odysseus stood straight for the first time in years, throwing off the stoop that he now realized had been a concession to the expectations of age. He took his sword down from the wall, drew it and turned it in the moonlight, the metal flickering like water. He hesitated, enjoying the stillness of the house and regretting the warmth of Nausicaa's bed. Then he went out, closing the door carefully behind him and, leaning into the strong wind blowing through the empty streets, walked out of the city and along the strand to the spot where the ship had beached. The racing wind that threatened to tear his cloak away had exhumed it and a loose pennant flapped wildly on its mast. His surviving men were there, standing straight as pine trees, and he could not tell if the white in their hair was age or moonlight. Without a word, they set their shoulders to the ship and pushed it toward the sea, wallowing in the sand, redoubling their efforts as her hull touched water. They clambered aboard as the tide took her and pulled her past the breakers and out to sea, bound, they thought, for Ithaca.