Page:The Anglo-Saxon version of the story of Apollonius of Tyre.djvu/47

10-11] forward on their way, then was the serenity of the sea changed suddenly between two tides, and a great storm was raised, so that the sea [11] dashed the heavenly stars, and the rolling of the waves raged with the winds, and the fierce south-west wind stood against him, and the ship brake all to pieces in this terrible tempest. The companions of Apollonius all perished, and Apollonius alone came with swimming to Pentapolis the Cyrenian country, and there went up on the strand. Then he stood naked on the strand, and beheld the sea, and said: "O thou Neptune of the sea, bereaver of men, and deceiver of the innocent! thou art more cruel than Antiochus the king; on my account hast thou reserved this cruelty, that I through thee might become poor and needy, and that the cruel king might the more easily destroy me. Whither can I now go? for what can I beg, or who will give an unknown the support of life?"

While he was speaking these things to himself, then on a sudden he saw a fisherman going, towards whom he looked, and thus mournfully spake: "Pity me, thou old man! be whatever thou mayest, pity me naked, shipwrecked! I was not born of poor birth; and that thou mayest already know beforehand whom thou pitiest, I am Apollonius, the Tyrian prince." Then immediately as the fisherman saw that the young man was lying at his feet, he with compassion raised him up, and led him with him to his house, and 2