In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, Louis Golding sailed passed Ithaca.  Minds were on other things than Homer and Odysseus, but this evocative statement about the island, uttered by a sailor on the boat deck, must have contributed to his long-delayed but never forgotten quest to visit Ithaca by way of Odysseus’ journey. 

It took him nearly three decades, and another World War, even longer than it took Odysseus himself to arrive home. 

“There’s a wall of bronze around it,” the old man said, “and the cliffs run up sheer from the sea.” 

Source: Louis Golding, Good-bye to Ithaca (London: Hutchinson, 1955), p. 13

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