mail rang fearfully. Askance He fled; the water with a mighty roar Followed him close. As, when a husbandman Leads forth, from some dark spring of earth, a rill Among his planted garden-beds, and clears Its channel, spade in hand, the pebbles there Move with the current, which runs murmuring down The sloping surface and outstrips its guide— So rushed the waves where’er Achilles ran, Swift as he was; for mightier are the gods Than men. As often as the noble son Of Peleus made a stand in hope to know Whether the deathless gods of the great heaven Conspired to make him flee, so often came A mighty billow of the Jove-born stream And drenched his shoulders. Then again he sprang Away; the rapid torrent made his knees To tremble, while it swept, where’er he trod, The earth from underneath his feet. He looked To the broad heaven above him, and complained:—
“Will not some god, O Father Jove, put forth His power to save me in my hour of need From this fierce river? Any fate but this I am resigned to suffer. None of all The immortal ones is more in fault than she To whom I owe my birth; her treacherous words Deluded me to think that I should fall Beneath