Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/112

76 I must escape. But thus will I do, and it seems to me to be the best; as long as the planks are firm in the cramps, so long will I remain here, and will endure to suffer toils. But when indeed the wave has shaken my raft to pieces, I will swim; since it is not in my power to devise any thing better."

While he meditated these things in his breast and in his mind, earth-shaking Neptune raised a mighty wave against him, terrible, severe and lofty, and drove him. But as a violently blowing wind shakes a heap of dry chaff, which it scatters in different places; so it scattered its long planks. But Ulysses mounted on one plank, driving it on as a single horse, and he put off the garments, which divine Calypso had given him. And he immediately spread the scarf under his breast; and he fell prone into the sea, stretching out his hands, seeking to swim; but king Neptune saw him, and shaking his head, spoke to his own mind:

"Thus now wander over the sea, suffering many evils, until thou art mixed with Jove-nurtured men, but not even so do I think that thou wilt make little of thy toil."

Thus having spoken, he scourged his beautiful-haired horses, and came to Ægæ, where are his illustrious palaces. But Minerva, the daughter of Jove, meditated other things; for she bound the courses of the other winds, and commanded all of them to cease, and be laid to sleep: but she roused the nimble North, and broke the waves before, until that noble Ulysses should be mixed with the oar-loving Phæacians, having avoided death and the Fate. Here he wandered two nights and two days on the compact (not broken) wave; and his heart often saw death before his eyes. But when at length fair-haired Aurora completed the third day, then indeed the wind ceased, and there was a breathless calm; and he saw the land near, looking very sharply forward, being lifted aloft by a great wave. As when the life of a father appears welcome to his children, who lies in a disease suffering severe pain, wasting away a long time, and a hateful deity has grazed near upon him; and the gods have freed him welcome from his evil