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Updated: April 30, 2025
One instant he stood with the water rushing about his ankles, gasped and drew long breaths, then turned his face toward the sea. “Are you crazed?” he heard voices clamouring—they seemed a great way off,—“a miracle that you lived through the surf once! Leave the other to fate. Phorcys has doomed him already.” But Glaucon was past acting by reason now. His head seemed a ball of fire.
His mother was the nymph Thoosa, daughter of Phorcys, lord of the unharvested sea, and in the hollow caves she lay with Poseidon. From that day forth Poseidon the earth-shaker doth not indeed slay Odysseus, but driveth him wandering from his own country.
Lo, here is the haven of Phorcys, the ancient one of the sea, and here at the haven's head is the olive tree with spreading leaves, and hard by it is the pleasant cave and shadowy, sacred to the nymphs that are called the Naiads. Yonder, behold, is the roofed cavern, where thou offeredst many an acceptable sacrifice of hecatombs to the nymphs; and lo, this hill is Neriton, all clothed in forest.
And let them not fall in their helplessness into Charybdis lest she swallow them at one gulp, or approach the hideous lair of Scylla, Ausonian Scylla the deadly, whom night-wandering Hecate, who is called Crataeis, bare to Phorcys, lest swooping upon them with her horrible jaws she destroy the chiefest of the heroes.
"Ancient daughters of Phorcys," he said, "Graiai, I would not rob from you. I have come to your cave only to ask the way to a place." "Ah, it is a mortal, a mortal," screamed the sisters. "Well, mortal, what would you have from the Graiai?"
Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys; therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to return; Neptune will then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us."
He went about among them and cheered them on Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon, Thersilochus, Asteropaeus, Deisenor and Hippothous, Phorcys, Chromius and Ennomus the augur.
Come now, I wilt show thee this land of Ithaca, that thou mayest be assured in thy heart. Lo! here is the harbour of Phorcys; here at the harbour's head is the olive tree; here also is the pleasant cave that is sacred to the nymphs, and there, behold, is the wooded hill." Then the goddess scattered the mist, so that he saw the land.
When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to show, the ship drew near to land. Now there is in Ithaca a haven of the old merman Phorcys, which lies between two points that break the line of the sea and shut the harbour in. These shelter it from the storms of wind and sea that rage outside, so that, when once within it, a ship may lie without being even moored.
And straightway he chose in haste and raising the victim slew it over the stern, and prayed with these words: "Thou god, who hast manifested thyself on the borders of this land, whether the daughters born of the sea call thee Triton, the great sea-marvel, or Phorcys, or Nereus, be gracious, and grant the return home dear to our hearts."
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