The Cruise of the Branwen

CRUISE OF THE BRANWEN "'ll ' 'll , I\.LUOV e1,yuut ,Yat'J~ , e ,... ,, " Jl>]t OrJ llC€/\.OV • • • This rock, then, must be near the harbour of Alcinous, for the Phreacians saw their black cruiser smitten into stone before their eyes. Further, that harbour is described in detail by Nausicaa : "There is a fair haven on either side of the town, and narrow is the entrance, and curved ships are drawn up on either hand of the mole, for all the folk have stations for their vessels, each man one for himself." Now on the English map (which M. Berard found was exactly copied by his French Hydrographic Chart, No. 3052) two little bays, called Port Alipa and Port San Spiridione will be seen just beneath Palreo Castrizza, divided by a little peninsula which ends in a conical rock. In Port Alipa, where the narrow entrance is only 300 metres wide, the shore is divided by rocks into little compart– ments, "each man one for himself," and the beach is fringed with soft sand. The isthmus joining the peninsula to the mainland · is flat, and this is "the place of assembly about the goodly ternple of Poseidon (Od. vi. 266) furnished with heavy stones deep-bedded in the earth. There men look to the gear of the black ships, hawsers and sails, and there they fine down the oars." From here it is an easy walk up the slope to the mountain island which held the Palace of Alcinous, ringed in by lofty overshadowing hills (Od. xiii. 177). I 54-