1 The Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced labour for them.
2 '"'Mother,' said I, 'I was forced to come here to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias.'
3 Then he picked up a rock much larger than the first, swung it aloft and hurled it with prodigious force.
4 Minerva now made the suitors fall to laughing immoderately, and set their wits wandering; but they were laughing with a forced laughter.
5 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.
6 No one shall force me one way or the other, not even though I choose to make the stranger a present of the bow outright, and let him take it away with him.
7 The outer court has a wall with battlements all round it; the doors are double folding, and of good workmanship; it would be a hard matter to take it by force of arms.
8 We let the ships run before the gale, but the force of the wind tore our sails to tatters, so we took them down for fear of shipwreck, and rowed our hardest towards the land.
9 While he was thus in two minds a wave caught him and took him with such force against the rocks that he would have been smashed and torn to pieces if Minerva had not shown him what to do.
10 As for the sheep and goats which the wicked suitors have eaten, I will take many myself by force from other people, and will compel the Achaeans to make good the rest till they shall have filled all my yards.
11 Three of his men were out herding the pigs in one place or another, and he had sent the fourth to town with a boar that he had been forced to send the suitors that they might sacrifice it and have their fill of meat.
12 The Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced labour for them; as for myself, they gave me to a friend who met them, to take to Cyprus, Dmetor by name, son of Iasus, who was a great man in Cyprus.
13 He was so overcome with dismay that though he tried to speak he could find no words to do so; his eyes filled with tears and he could only sob and sigh, till at last we forced his story out of him, and he told us what had happened to the others.
14 She found him sitting upon the beach with his eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer home sickness; for he had got tired of Calypso, and though he was forced to sleep with her in the cave by night, it was she, not he, that would have it so.