Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/124

104 I seated me upon those monstrous shoulders;

I wished to say, and yet the voice came not

As I believed, "Take heed that thou embrace me."

But he, who other times had rescued me

In other peril, soon as I had mounted,

Within his arms encircled and sustained me,

And said: "Now, Geryon, bestir thyself;

The circles large, and the descent be little;

Think of the novel burden which thou hast."

Even as the little vessel shoves from shore,

Backward, still backward, so he thence withdrew;

And when he wholly felt himself afloat,

There where his breast had been he turned his tail,

And that extended like an eel he moved,

And with his paws drew to himself the air.

A greater fear I do not think there was

What time abandoned Phaeton the reins,

Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched;

Nor when the wretched Icarus his flanks

Felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax,

His father crying, "An ill way thou takest!"

Than was my own, when I perceived myself

On all sides in the air, and saw extinguished

The sight of everything but of the monster.