r of all Ulysses' wealth, they decide to man a vessel
to guard the port and slay Telemachus on his return. This plot is
overheard by a servant, who hastens to report it to Penelope. On
learning her son has ventured out to sea, she wrings her hands, and
reviles the nurse who abetted his departure until this wise woman
advises her rather to pray for her son's safe return! While Penelope
is offering propitiatory sacrifices, the suitors despatch a vessel in
Antinous' charge to lie in wait for the youth. But, during the sleep
which overcomes Penelope after her prayers, she is favored by a
vision, in which her sister assures her Telemachus will soon be
restored to her arms, although she refuses to give her any information
in regard to Ulysses.

_Book V._ Aurora has barely announced the return of day to gods and
men, when Jupiter assembles his council on Mount Olympus. There
Minerva rehearses Ulysses' grievances, demanding that he be at last
allowed to return home and his son saved from the suitors' ambush. In
reply Jupiter sends Mercury to bid Calypso provide her unwilling guest
with the means to leave her shores. Donning his golden sandals, the
messenger-god flits to the Island of Ogygia, enters Calypso's
wonderful cave, and delivers his message. Although reluctant to let
Ulysses depart, Calypso--not daring oppose the will of Jupiter--goes
in quest of her guest. Finding him gazing tearfully in the direction
of home, she promises to supply him with the means to build a raft
which, thanks to the gods, will enable him to reach Ithaca.

After a copious repast and a night's rest, Ulysses fells twenty trees
and constructs a raft, in which, after it has been provisioned by
Calypso, he sets sail. For seventeen days the stars serve as his
guides, and he is nearing the island of Phaeacia, when Neptune becomes
aware that his hated foe is about to escape. One stroke of the
sea-god's mighty trident then stirs up a tempest which dashes the raft
to pieces, and Ulysses is in imminent danger of perishing, when the
sea-nymph Leucothea gives him her life-preserving scarf, bidding him
cast it back into the waves when it has borne him safely to land!
Buoyed up by this scarf, Ulysses finally reaches the shore, where,
after obeying the nymph's injunctions, he buries himself in dead
leaves and sinks into an exhausted sleep.

Close to the cliff with both his hands he clung,
And stuck adherent, and suspended hung;
Till the huge surge roll'd