Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/377

89—111. back, having stretched out his pallid body on the white stream." But his moistened hairs drew a very great weight upon him, and at length, perishing, he spoke such words:

"Thou shalt not escape notice, O Puff-Cheeks, having done these things deceitfully, having cast [me] shipwrecked from thy body, as from a rock. On the earth, O basest one, thou wast not my better in the pancratium, nor in wrestling, nor the course. But having deluded me, thou hast cast me into the water. God has an avenging eye, who, forsooth, will straightway requite a just punishment and revenge, (with which indeed the army of the mice shall punish thee, nor shalt thou escape.)"

Having spoken thus, he breathed his last in the water, but him Lick-Dish perceived, as he sate upon the soft banks, (and he truly went to the mice, a most swift messenger of his fate,) and he uttered a dreadful cry, and ran and told it to the mice.

But when they heard [their companion's] fate, bitter wrath entered them all, and they then gave orders to their heralds, at dawn to summon a council to the house of Bread-Muncher, the unhappy sire of Crumb-Filcher, who was floating on his back in the marsh, a lifeless corse, nor was unhappy he any longer near the banks, but was swimming in the middle of the stream. But when they hastening came at dawn, first arose Bread-Muncher, enraged on account of his son, and spoke thus:

"O friends, although I alone among the frogs have suffered many ills, yet evil fate is the appointed destiny of all. But I am now an object of pity, since I have lost three sons.