raft

The improvised craft

The Homeric Odyssey takes some time to describe to us the construction of an improvised craft that will carry Odysseus on an eighteen-day journey from Ogygia. The story tells how Kalypsō selects the trees. Odysseus then cuts the trees and axes them smooth. He bores holes in them. He configures them into a raft that is as wide “as the beam of a large vessel.” We compare the description of… Read more