Poseidon shatters the raft and Odysseus is going under in clothes too heavy for swimming. Ino comes up out of the sea balanced on a wave-crest as if the water were solid. She tells him the raft is finished. She tells him the clothes will drown him. She unwinds a veil from her head and offers it. Tie this across your chest and swim for shore. When you reach land, throw it back. He strips, takes the veil, winds it tight against his ribs, lets the beam go, and swims. Two days and two sleepless nights. On the third morning he crawls through a river mouth onto grass. He unwinds the veil and throws it into the current. He thinks he sees her in the surf catching it before she dives. The veil is the gift you do not get to keep. You are only borrowing the goddess’s mercy.
Ino's Veil
A sea goddess's chest-wrap. Wound across the ribs it keeps a man afloat. Thrown back to the water when he reaches land.