Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/136

128 Thy stream, and clasp thy knees, after long toil. I am thy suppliant. Oh King! pity me. He said; the river God at once repress'd His current, and it ceas'd; smooth he prepared The way before Ulysses, and the land Vouchsafed him easy at his channel's mouth. There, once again he bent for ease his limbs Both arms and knees, in conflict with the floods Exhausted; swoln his body was all o'er, And from his mouth and nostrils stream'd the brine. Breathless and speechless, and of life well nigh Bereft he lay, through dreadful toil immense. But when, revived, his dissipated pow'rs He recollected, loosing from beneath His breast the zone divine, he cast it far Into the brackish stream, and a huge wave Returning bore it downward to the sea, Where Ino caught it. Then, the river's brink Abandoning, among the rushes prone He lay, kiss'd oft the soil, and sighing, said, Ah me! what suff'rings must I now sustain, What doom, at last, awaits me? If I watch This woeful night, here, at the river's side, What hope but that the frost and copious dews, Weak as I am, my remnant small of life Shall quite extinguish, and the chilly air Breath'd from the river at the dawn of day? But if, ascending this declivity