Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/301

Book XII. His bolts; she, smitten by the fires of Jove, Quaked all her length; with sulphur fill'd she reek'd, And o'er her sides headlong my people plunged Like sea-mews, interdicted by that stroke Of wrath divine to hope their country more. But I, the vessel still paced to and fro, Till, fever'd by the boist'rous waves, her sides Forsook the keel now left to float alone. Snapp'd where it join'd the keel the mast had fall'n, But fell encircled with a leathern brace, Which it retain'd; binding with this the mast And keel together, on them both I sat, Borne helpless onward by the dreadful gale. And now the West subsided, and the South Arose instead, with mis'ry charged for me, That I might measure back my course again To dire Charybdis. All night long I drove, And when the sun arose, at Scylla's rock Once more, and at Charybdis' gulph arrived. It was the time when she absorb'd profound The briny flood, but by a wave upborne I seized the branches fast of the wild-fig. To which, bat-like, I clung; yet where to fix My foot secure found not, or where to ascend, For distant lay the roots, and distant shot The largest arms erect into the air,