Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/92

56 the Egyptian river filled by Jove, and shall offer sacred hecatombs to the immortal gods, who possess the wide heaven: and then the gods will grant thee the journey for which thou art anxious.'

"Thus he spoke; but my clear heart was grievously afflicted, because he commanded me to go again to Egypt over the shadowy sea, a long and difficult journey. But even so answering him with words I addressed him: 'These things I will indeed so perform, O old man, as thou commandest. But come, tell me this and relate it truly, if all the Grecians have returned with their ships, unhurt, whom Nestor and I left when we set out from Troy, or has any one perished with unlooked-for death in his ship, or in the hands of his friends after he had brought the war to an end?'

"Thus I spoke; but he again answering addressed me: 'O son of Atreus, why dost thou ask me these things? It is not at all fit that thou shouldst know or learn my mind; nor do I think that thou wilt long be without weeping, when thou hast heard all things rightly. Many of these have been subdued and many have been left. But two leaders only of the brazen breastplated Grecians have perished in their return; for thou also wast present at the battle: and one is still detained some where alive on the wide sea. Ajax indeed was subdued amongst the long-oared ships; first Neptune made him approach to the great rocks Gyræ, and saved him from the sea; and now he would have escaped death, although hated by Minerva, had he not thrown out a haughty expression, and he was greatly hurt: for he said that he would escape the mighty wave of the sea against the will of the gods. And Neptune heard him boasting great things. Immediately then taking his trident in his sturdy hands, he struck the Gyrean rock, and cut it off. And one [part] remained there, but another fragment fell into the sea; upon this Ajax at first sitting was greatly hurt, for it carried him into the vast billowy sea. [Thus he perished there, when he drank salt water.] But thy brother by some means avoided death, and escaped in his hollow ships; for venerable Juno preserved