i
- Say hello to Hector and some of the other fisherman. They prepare to cast off for a day of fishing, but Philoctete retreats in pain from the rotting wound on his leg.
- He goes to Ma Kilman's shop for some "medicinal" white rum, while the other men corral the newly cut logs on the water.
- Hector spreads his canvas in hopes of getting his work done before dark.
ii
- We meet Seven Seas, a man who has lost his sight because of disease—instead, he is "seeing" his way through the morning by listening to the familiar sounds around him.
- The first-person narrator is introduced here, invoking Omeros (Homer) to begin his day's work with the "conch's moan."
- The narrator explains that it's only through the earlier epic that he can make sense of his own island's experiences.
- To this end, he uses other references to Greek mythology to make the comparison—for instance, the eye of Cyclops is compared to a lighthouse light, and the sheep of Cyclops to the white breakers and surf lines.
iii
- The narrator speaks of another motivation to write: Antigone and her foam bust of Homer.
- She teaches him the name for Homer in Greek (Omeros), which he quickly takes up and tweaks to find connections between the Greek poet and his own craft and place.
- Antigone tells him that she misses Greece and wants to return.
- The narrator maps the geography of his island onto Antigone's body and reflects on the horrors of a colonial past that would have shocked the unfeeling eyes of plaster-bust Homer into awareness.
- He sees the prow of Odysseus's ship in Antigone's black hair and hears the call to write epic poetry, but not about the traditional Homeric heroes—nope, he'll write about fishermen instead.