Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/369

Book XV. To summon down the woman to the shore. A mariner of theirs, subtle and shrewd, Then, ent'ring at my father's gate, produced A splendid collar, gold with amber strung. My mother (then at home) with all her maids Handling and gazing on it with delight, Proposed to purchase it, and he the nod Significant, gave unobserv'd, the while, To the Phœnician woman, and return'd. She, thus informed, leading me by the hand Went forth, and finding in the vestibule The cups and tables which my father's guests Had used, (but they were to the forum gone For converse with their friends assembled there) Convey'd three cups into her bosom-folds, And bore them off, whom I a thoughtless child Accompanied, at the decline of day, When dusky evening had embrown'd the shore. We, stepping nimbly on, soon reach'd the port Renown'd, where that Phœnician vessel lay. They shipp'd us both, and all embarking cleav'd Their liquid road, by favourable gales, Jove's gift, impell'd. Six days we day and night Continual sailed, but when Saturnian Jove Now bade the sev'nth bright morn illume the skies, Then, shaft-arm'd Dian struck the woman dead. At once she pitch'd headlong into the bilge Like a sea-coot, whence heaving her again,