Ino / Leucothea

Ino appears once, in the worst moment. The raft is gone. The clothes Calypso gave him are filling with seawater and dragging him under. He claws at a floating beam, kicks his face above the waves, and there she is, perched on the crest of a swell as though the sea were solid ground. She tells him plainly. The raft is finished. Those clothes will drown him. She unwinds a veil from her head, hands it to him, tells him to tie it across his chest and swim for shore, and when he reaches land to throw it back into the sea. He strips. He sinks the heavy cloth. He winds the veil around his ribs and swims for two days and two sleepless nights, and the veil keeps him alive. When he crawls out at the river mouth on Phaeacia, he unwinds it and throws it back. The current carries it out. He thinks he sees her in the surf, retrieve it, turn, and dive out of sight. She owes him no explanation and gives him none. A small mercy from the sea inside the larger cruelty of it.