Poseidon the Sea-god was still wrathful with Odysseus for the injury done to his son, the Cyclops. But having gone on a long journey to the land of the ‘blameless Æthiopians,’ Athena had compassed in his absence the escape of the hero. He had sailed joyfully from Calypso’s island, and for seventeen days had fared onward steadily, with a following wind. The wine and food that Calypso had given him were still unspent, when on the eighteenth day there loomed before him the island of Phaeacia, vast and shadowy in the morning mist. Here, he knew, were friendly hands and hearts; people who had never been known to refuse safe convoy to distressed mariners. And Odysseus, feeling that now at last the end of his struggles had come, steered straight ahead. But he reckoned without Poseidon. For that angry god, speeding on his homeward journey from Æthiopia to Olympus, looked down from the mountains of the Solymi and spied the raft of Odysseus, making for the safety of a Phaeacian harbour. Amazement smote him; then indignation, and then a furious desire for instant revenge. So this was what the immortals had been doing in his absence—plotting to befriend the man who had so foully mis-used his son. But no matter! If Athena must needs win in the end—and even the might of Poseidon could not eventually withstand her calm wisdom—her success should be at bitter cost to this artful rascal whom she favoured. So: _The clouds at his command Gathered, and with the trident in his hand He stirred the sea and roused the hurricane Of all the winds, and blotted sea and land_ _With clouds: night swept across the firmament:_ _... a monstrous wave abaft Came towering up, and crashed into the raft: And the raft reeled, and off it far he fell, And from his hand shot out the rudder-shaft._[12] It would take long to tell all that Odysseus suffered from that awful storm. Only the lion-heart that he was could have endured the terrible strain of it. The raft was lost, and for two days and nights the fury of the storm lashed him unceasingly. He was buffeted out of his course, and when at last a calm fell and he saw land ahead, he had only just enough strength left to strike out for it, with a great prayer in his heart for deliverance from the wrath of Poseidon. It is this exciting incident, told with tremendous vigour, which is the prelude to the story of Nausicaa. For on the very night when the waves flung Odysseus ashore on her father’s island, she had a strange dream. A goddess stood by her bedside, in the likeness of a girl friend; and with hints of a happy marriage, bade her rise and go down to the washing pools. _The grey-eyed Goddess, inly counselling Odysseus mighty-hearted home to bring; To the richly-carven chamber went Where slept a maid, the daughter of the king,_