Telepylos

A coast that looks, from the sea, like a gift. Rock and green, a harbor cut deep into the cliffs, a narrow mouth opening into water that lies clear and flat. Eleven of the twelve ships file in and moor. Odysseus alone ties up to a rock outside the harbor mouth, on instinct. Then the cliff rims fill with shapes. Men, but so much larger. Shoulders wider than a sail is tall. They start tossing rocks the size of horses down into the cove, casually, working their way along the rim. Ships split. Men spill into the water. The giants wade in with spears longer than the masts and skewer the swimmers like fishermen working a pool. Eleven ships. Over five hundred men. The greatest single loss of Odysseus’s homeward journey, and one of the least famous, because there is no cunning in it, no trick, no monologue, just a captain on the cliff edge sitting with his legs dangling over the drop while another man’s people die in the water below.