"The next morning I spake to my company, saying: 'Friends, we have yet food, both bread and wine. Keep, therefore, your hands from the flocks and herds, lest some mischief overtake us, for they are the flocks and herds of the Sun, a mighty god whose eye none may escape.' "With these words I persuaded them. But for a month the south wind blew without ceasing; there was no other wind, unless it were haply the east. So long, indeed, as the bread and wine failed not the men, they harmed not the herds, fearing to die. And afterwards, when our stores were consumed, they wandered about the island, and searched for food, snaring fishes and birds with hooks, for hunger pressed them sorely. But I roamed by myself, praying to the gods that they would send us deliverance. So it chanced one day that slumber overcame me, and I slept far away from my companions. "Meanwhile Eurylochus spake to the others, using fatal craft: 'Friends, listen to one who suffers affliction with you. Always is death a thing to be avoided; but of all deaths the most to be feared is death by hunger. Come, therefore, let us sacrifice to the gods in heaven the best of the oxen of the Sun. And we will vow to build to the Sun, when we shall reach the land of Ithaca, a great temple which we will adorn with gifts many and precious. But if he be minded to sink our ship, being wroth for his oxen's sake, verily I would rather drown than waste slowly to death upon this island.' "To this they all gave consent. Then Eurylochus drave the fattest of the kine,--for they grazed near the ship,--and the men sacrificed it to the gods. "And one of the nymphs that herded the kine flew to the Sun with tidings of that which had been done. Then spake the Sun among the other gods: 'Avenge me now on the guilty comrades of Ulysses; for they have slain the herds which I delight to see both when I mount the heavens and when I descend therefrom. Verily, if they pay not the due penalty for their wrong-doing, I will go down and give my light to the regions of the dead.' "Then Zeus made answer: 'Shine, thou Sun, as aforetime, on the earth. Verily, my thunderbolt can easily reach the bark of these sinners, and break it in the middle of the sea.' "All these things I heard afterwards from the nymph Calypso, and she had heard them from Hermes, the messenger. "With angry words did I rebuke my comrades, but found no remedy for their wrong-doing, seeing that the kine were dead. For six days my friends feasted on the cattle of the Sun; but when the seventh day came, we launched our ship upon the sea, and set sail.