Item · Individual

Ulysses’ raft

Published entity metadata

Read-only identity and editorial metadata.

Canonical name: Ulysses’ raft
Disambiguator: None
Kind: Item
Scope: Individual
Editorial note: No editorial note published.

Aliases

large raft

Descriptive reference · Reported

Location presence

Phase 6 currently covers 24 processed books.

place of the largest trees at the far end of Calypso’s island1 observation

·Direct

Ulysses built his raft at the far-end tree site.

See evidence text

“When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Ulysses put on his shirt and cloak, while the goddess wore a dress of a light gossamer fabric, very fine and graceful, with a beautiful golden girdle about her waist and a veil to cover her head. She at once set herself to think how she could speed Ulysses on his way. So she gave him a great bronze axe that suited his hands; it was sharpened on both sides, and had a beautiful olive-wood handle fitted firmly on to it. She also gave him a sharp adze, and then led the way to the far end of the island where the largest trees grew—alder, poplar and pine, that reached the sky—very dry and well seasoned, so as to sail light for him in the water. {53} Then, when she had shown him where the best trees grew, Calypso went home, leaving him to cut them, which he soon finished doing. He cut down twenty trees in all and adzed them smooth, squaring them by rule in good workmanlike fashion. Meanwhile Calypso came back with some augers, so he bored holes with them and fitted the timbers together with bolts and rivets. He made the raft as broad as a skilled shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel, and he fixed a deck on top of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it. He also made a mast with a yard arm, and a rudder to steer with. He fenced the raft all round with wicker hurdles as a protection against the waves, and then he threw on a quantity of wood. By and by Calypso brought him some linen to make the sails, and he made these too, excellently, making them fast with braces and sheets. Last of all, with the help of levers, he drew the raft down into the water.”

Claims

·Hypothetical

The planned raft is large and has an upper deck for safety at sea.

See evidence text

“make yourself a large raft with an upper deck that it may carry you safely over the sea”

·Direct

Ulysses builds the raft as broad as a large vessel, with deck, gunwale, mast, yard, rudder, wicker wave-guards, and extra wood.

See evidence text

“He made the raft as broad as a skilled shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel, and he fixed a deck on top of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it. He also made a mast with a yard arm, and a rudder to steer with. He fenced the raft all round with wicker hurdles as a protection against the waves, and then he threw on a quantity of wood”

·Direct

Ulysses spreads the raft’s sail to the fair wind and guides it skilfully by rudder.

See evidence text

“gladly did Ulysses spread his sail before it, while he sat and guided the raft skilfully by means of the rudder”

·Direct

The raft reels, its mast breaks halfway, its sail and yard go overboard, and the sea tosses it round and round.

See evidence text

“the raft reeled again, and he was carried overboard a long way off. He let go the helm, and the force of the hurricane was so great that it broke the mast half way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea. For a long time Ulysses was under water, and it was all he could do to rise to the surface again, for the clothes Calypso had given him weighed him down; but at last he got his head above water and spat out the bitter brine that was running down his face in streams. In spite of all this, however, he did not lose sight of his raft, but swam as fast as he could towards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board again so as to escape drowning. The sea took the raft and tossed it about as Autumn winds whirl thistledown round and round upon a road. It was as though the South, North, East, and West winds were all playing battledore and shuttlecock with it at once”

·Hypothetical

Ulysses expects to remain on the raft until the sea breaks its timbers apart.

See evidence text

“stick to the raft as long as her timbers hold together, but when the sea breaks her up”

·Simile

Neptune’s wave breaks the raft into pieces like dry chaff tossed by a whirlwind.

See evidence text

“broke right over the raft, which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed about by a whirlwind”

·Remembered

Ulysses’s raft breaks apart under the fury of Neptune’s gale.

See evidence text

“Neptune would let me go no further, and raised a great storm against me; the sea was so terribly high that I could no longer keep to my raft, which went to pieces under the fury of the gale”

Additional evidence

Evidence records not already represented by a claim.

·Direct

“He made the raft as broad as a skilled shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel”

·Direct

“the raft reeled again”

·Remembered

“She sent me from her island on a raft”