WEBVTT 00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:06.370 [Sounds of the sea] 00:00:06.370 --> 00:00:10.820 Episode 8: Shipwrecked 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:19.750 [Sounds of the sea] 00:00:19.750 --> 00:00:24.890 Once we had escaped the dragon and the whirlpool we could do nothing. 00:00:24.890 --> 00:00:27.540 We sat at our benches and wept. 00:00:27.540 --> 00:00:30.900 The ship drifted where it would. 00:00:30.900 --> 00:00:33.530 Then one of my men sighted land. 00:00:33.530 --> 00:00:34.510 He pointed. 00:00:34.510 --> 00:00:35.190 I looked. 00:00:35.190 --> 00:00:36.660 I saw cattle grazing, 00:00:36.660 --> 00:00:38.040 no sign of human life. 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:43.890 I saw the sun staring down and I remembered the prophecy of Tiresias. 00:00:43.890 --> 00:00:46.440 I told them we would voyage on. 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:49.840 At this something snapped inside my crew. 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:53.820 One of them, Eurylochus was his name, spat and stood. 00:00:53.820 --> 00:00:55.250 “Odysseus,” he said, 00:00:55.250 --> 00:00:57.600 “I am beginning to suspect you’re not a man at all. 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:00.080 I think you are one of the gods in disguise. 00:01:00.080 --> 00:01:03.800 For like the gods, you have no pity! 00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:06.320 We want to mourn the deaths of our friends! 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:11.200 We want to recover from this awful ordeal and yet you insist we sail on, 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:12.870 blindly into the night, 00:01:12.870 --> 00:01:16.910 across a foreign sea when a friendly coast beckons us! 00:01:16.910 --> 00:01:19.830 I say we listen to our desires, 00:01:19.830 --> 00:01:23.240 not the rantings of a dead man!” 00:01:23.240 --> 00:01:25.740 By the nodding of the heads around me, 00:01:25.740 --> 00:01:29.300 I saw it would be hard to cheat Poseidon of his quarry. 00:01:29.300 --> 00:01:34.220 I made them all solemnly promise me they wouldn’t harm any of the cattle on the island. 00:01:34.220 --> 00:01:35.520 They did this at once. 00:01:35.520 --> 00:01:39.100 We still had plenty of food from the gifts of the witch Circe. 00:01:39.100 --> 00:01:40.780 And so we beached the ship, 00:01:40.780 --> 00:01:46.260 we lit a fire, we tried to eat but none of us had any appetite. 00:01:46.260 --> 00:01:50.510 All of us were thinking of the victims of the dragon Scylla, 00:01:50.510 --> 00:01:53.920 our friends with whom we had seen so much. 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:59.690 Many of us fell asleep with tears still coursing down our cheeks. 00:01:59.690 --> 00:02:04.180 I was woken during the third watch by Eurylochus shaking my shoulders. 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:06.780 As soon as I opened my eyes I could see why – 00:02:06.780 --> 00:02:08.700 there was a terrible storm. 00:02:08.700 --> 00:02:12.380 It was as though the sea and the sky were at war with one another. 00:02:12.380 --> 00:02:13.040 “You see!” 00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:14.550 shouted Eurylochus, 00:02:14.550 --> 00:02:17.430 “If we had been out there now as you had wanted us to be, 00:02:17.430 --> 00:02:20.840 by the morning our bones would have been rolling across the ocean bed. 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:26.160 The crabs would have been plucking the flesh from our bones!” 00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:30.570 That storm raged all through the night, 00:02:30.570 --> 00:02:34.030 all through the following day, 00:02:34.030 --> 00:02:37.410 all through the next week. 00:02:37.410 --> 00:02:42.690 First we ran out of bread, then meat, then wine, 00:02:42.690 --> 00:02:45.090 then everything else we had. 00:02:45.090 --> 00:02:48.390 Now we were living on what we could find, what we could catch – 00:02:48.390 --> 00:02:52.490 a few birds’ eggs, a few fish and it was not enough. 00:02:52.490 --> 00:02:56.880 I began to understand the nature of the trap in which we were caught. 00:02:56.880 --> 00:02:59.930 I could see hunger gnawing at the patience, 00:02:59.930 --> 00:03:01.680 at the bellies of my crew. 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:04.940 I could see them looking longingly at the cattle. 00:03:04.940 --> 00:03:07.630 One morning I clambered over the dunes, 00:03:07.630 --> 00:03:08.900 I left them behind. 00:03:08.900 --> 00:03:12.660 I found a place where the ground was dry and I lit a fire there. 00:03:12.660 --> 00:03:24.300 I made what offerings I could and I prayed to the mighty immortals that they would end this storm so we could sail away from this place that posed us such a danger. 00:03:24.300 --> 00:03:28.270 In exchange for my act of devotion, 00:03:28.270 --> 00:03:36.530 some god or goddess kissed my eyelids and I fell into a deep sleep. 00:03:36.530 --> 00:03:41.730 When I opened my eyes the sky was high and blue. 00:03:41.730 --> 00:03:45.240 No moaning wind now, only birdsong. 00:03:45.240 --> 00:03:48.440 My clothes were dry, the storm had ended. 00:03:48.440 --> 00:03:50.660 Joyfully I climbed over the dunes, 00:03:50.660 --> 00:03:51.320 I looked down. 00:03:51.320 --> 00:03:52.090 There was the ship, 00:03:52.090 --> 00:03:54.800 beside the ship there were my men squatting round a fire, 00:03:54.800 --> 00:04:00.090 and on the fire the carcasses of two of those cattle. 00:04:00.090 --> 00:04:02.150 I ran down the sand, 00:04:02.150 --> 00:04:03.840 Eurylochus saw me approaching. 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:06.040 He pulled a lump of meat from one of the carcasses, 00:04:06.040 --> 00:04:07.170 he held it up, he said, 00:04:07.170 --> 00:04:10.530 “Odysseus, the gods are not angry with us! 00:04:10.530 --> 00:04:11.410 We made offerings, 00:04:11.410 --> 00:04:16.700 the best cuts of the meat we gave to the mighty gods and goddesses and as soon as we had done so, 00:04:16.700 --> 00:04:19.370 the storm ended within moments. 00:04:19.370 --> 00:04:21.190 They feel hunger too – 00:04:21.190 --> 00:04:24.830 all they expected was the respect they deserved! 00:04:24.830 --> 00:04:26.610 Eat!” 00:04:26.610 --> 00:04:32.470 I looked at that meat and I think I saw a sight then they could not see. 00:04:32.470 --> 00:04:38.930 The two carcasses on the fire opened their lipless mouths and moaned. 00:04:38.930 --> 00:04:41.910 That meat was cursed! 00:04:41.910 --> 00:04:45.650 I could not eat it even though I was starving. 00:04:45.650 --> 00:04:52.540 My men ate their fill and sealed their fates. 00:04:52.540 --> 00:04:55.910 They wrapped the hides around the remains of the carcasses, 00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:57.630 they loaded them aboard the ship, 00:04:57.630 --> 00:04:59.960 we dragged it into the shallows, 00:04:59.960 --> 00:05:04.370 we rowed away from the island, then we unfurled a sail, 00:05:04.370 --> 00:05:07.550 we lifted the oars. 00:05:07.550 --> 00:05:09.770 I shivered. 00:05:09.770 --> 00:05:11.850 I looked around me. 00:05:11.850 --> 00:05:16.010 Suddenly the ship was in shadow. 00:05:16.010 --> 00:05:17.830 I looked up; 00:05:17.830 --> 00:05:21.610 blotting out the sun there was a cloud – 00:05:21.610 --> 00:05:25.380 the strangest cloud I had ever seen. 00:05:25.380 --> 00:05:30.380 It was as if blood was being dropped into clear water. 00:05:30.380 --> 00:05:34.450 The cloud was swelling out and staining the sky. 00:05:34.450 --> 00:05:35.990 Then I heard a cry - 00:05:35.990 --> 00:05:45.710 Hyperion, the sun-god’s cry for vengeance and Zeus answered that cry with a thunderbolt that struck our ship where the mast reached the deck. 00:05:45.710 --> 00:05:47.610 The mast came toppling down – 00:05:47.610 --> 00:05:49.990 it cracked open the head of my helmsman, 00:05:49.990 --> 00:05:52.160 the whole ship bucked. 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:54.090 A wall of a wave rose against us. 00:05:54.090 --> 00:05:55.270 I could see into it, 00:05:55.270 --> 00:06:02.480 the brown weed quivering at the heart of it and then it broke with a white roar and our ship was dashed to pieces, 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:05.800 fuming breakers tore at every plank. 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:07.730 I sank beneath the surface. 00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:09.310 For a moment all was silent. 00:06:09.310 --> 00:06:12.000 I could feel the sea god pressing against my eyelids, 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.240 my nostrils, my lips, my ears, 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:17.610 then I broke the surface and the world was filled with sound: 00:06:17.610 --> 00:06:20.830 the rumble of thunder, Poseidon’s laughter, 00:06:20.830 --> 00:06:24.490 the crashing of the waves, the screams of my friends. 00:06:24.490 --> 00:06:27.130 Time and again I fought against the storm, 00:06:27.130 --> 00:06:31.270 time and again I was sure the darkness would descend over my eyes. 00:06:31.270 --> 00:06:38.900 But then I looked around me and the surface of the ocean was white, hissing, boiling. 00:06:38.900 --> 00:06:42.400 The whirlpool, the swallower Charybdis – 00:06:42.400 --> 00:06:44.990 we were caught in the grip of her current. 00:06:44.990 --> 00:06:47.150 This was to be our fate. 00:06:47.150 --> 00:06:50.330 I saw her then, the great swirl of her. 00:06:50.330 --> 00:06:53.230 I kicked and fought but she was far too strong. 00:06:53.230 --> 00:06:54.590 A wave lifted me a little, 00:06:54.590 --> 00:06:57.000 I looked up, there was something blacker than the night sky. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:05.620 I reached up and I clutched it and it was one of the branches of the fig tree that grew from the island beside Charybdis. 00:07:05.620 --> 00:07:07.630 I was hanging from the tree. 00:07:07.630 --> 00:07:10.940 I was looking down shivering, moaning, 00:07:10.940 --> 00:07:17.880 as I saw her pull my men down, down, down until they were black specks, 00:07:17.880 --> 00:07:23.840 and then she spat out their corpses and they bobbed lifeless in the brine. 00:07:23.840 --> 00:07:26.030 With a cry I let go of the branch. 00:07:26.030 --> 00:07:33.530 Taking advantage of the few moments between suck and spout I hit the water near a piece of the ship and I grabbed it. 00:07:33.530 --> 00:07:34.790 And then I fought, 00:07:34.790 --> 00:07:43.550 I kicked and I prayed to the mighty gods and goddesses that I would pass out of these straits before the draw of the whirlpool began. 00:07:43.550 --> 00:07:54.930 Surely some god or goddess was smiling on me for somehow I made my way away from her before the whirlpool began to suck again. 00:07:54.930 --> 00:08:00.590 And for many days and nights I clung to that piece of wood, 00:08:00.590 --> 00:08:12.640 as when a little boy is taken by his mother to the market for the first time and the sound, the movement, the commotion frightens him. 00:08:12.640 --> 00:08:14.710 And he stands behind his mother, 00:08:14.710 --> 00:08:16.370 he clings to her legs, 00:08:16.370 --> 00:08:20.330 he presses his face into the backs of her knees. 00:08:20.330 --> 00:08:26.700 So I clung tightly to that piece of wood. 00:08:26.700 --> 00:08:29.270 More dead than alive, 00:08:29.270 --> 00:08:34.600 I was found on the shore of an island by a nymph. 00:08:34.600 --> 00:08:37.510 Her name was Calypso. 00:08:37.510 --> 00:08:40.230 She carried me to her cave, 00:08:40.230 --> 00:08:43.590 she nursed me back to health. 00:08:43.590 --> 00:08:50.990 As she nursed me she fell in love with me. 00:08:50.990 --> 00:08:55.360 She offered me immortal life, 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:58.440 if I would only stay there with her. 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:02.370 But as I lay there, unable to move, 00:09:02.370 --> 00:09:10.290 I knew all I wanted from the rest of my life was a simple human thing – 00:09:10.290 --> 00:09:16.920 I wanted to live and grow old and die with my wife, 00:09:16.920 --> 00:09:20.550 the woman I loved. 00:09:20.550 --> 00:09:24.770 So I refused the offer of eternal life. 00:09:24.770 --> 00:09:27.970 Seven years that nymph kept me on that island. 00:09:27.970 --> 00:09:30.370 Every day she tried to persuade me. 00:09:30.370 --> 00:09:34.150 For seven years I walk the coast of the island, 00:09:34.150 --> 00:09:37.770 staring out across the restless waves of the sea, 00:09:37.770 --> 00:09:40.440 longing for my homeland. 00:09:40.440 --> 00:09:43.880 Seven years to think about my life, 00:09:43.880 --> 00:09:48.110 to ponder all my moments of bravery and honour, 00:09:48.110 --> 00:09:53.290 all my moments of arrogance and folly. 00:09:53.290 --> 00:10:01.640 Seven years to wonder that I had made a horse foal men. 00:10:01.640 --> 00:10:07.820 I had put my trust in the kindness of a witch and the vision of a blind man. 00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:10.870 Seven years to wonder that I had become nobody, 00:10:10.870 --> 00:10:14.830 and I had heard the song nobody should hear. 00:10:14.830 --> 00:10:26.170 Seven years to wonder that I had refused the chance to live forever for the sake of a woman I hadn’t seen for half my life. 00:10:26.170 --> 00:10:34.960 Eventually, thanks to the intervention of the goddess Athene I was given the chance to build a raft, 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:38.480 to lift a mast, to put a sail upon it, 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:44.310 and once again I rowed the broad, bucking back of Poseidon. 00:10:44.310 --> 00:10:49.920 He saw me and he raised a terrible storm. 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:58.010 Naked, I was found on the shores of this island, King Alcinous. 00:10:58.010 --> 00:11:01.350 Everything I took from Troy is gone – 00:11:01.350 --> 00:11:07.420 all that treasure, my ship, my friends – 00:11:07.420 --> 00:11:11.970 all I have left now is my name. 00:11:11.970 --> 00:11:20.430 And a longing as sharp as pain to see the land that gave me life. 00:11:20.430 --> 00:11:23.310 And King Alcinous said, 00:11:23.310 --> 00:11:24.910 “Odysseus, 00:11:24.910 --> 00:11:30.590 you have suffered much in your wanderings across the broad face of the world. 00:11:30.590 --> 00:11:34.910 But now that you have reached my bronze-floored feasting hall, 00:11:34.910 --> 00:11:37.870 I swear by the mighty gods, 00:11:37.870 --> 00:11:46.810 I will send a high-prowed ship to carry you home to rocky Ithaca.” 00:11:46.810 --> 00:12:30.550 [Closing music]