Book V

But Pallas, child of Jove, had other thoughts. She stayed the course of every wind beside, And bade them rest, and lulled them into sleep, But summoned the swift north to break the waves, That so Ulysses, the highborn, escaped From death and from the fates, might be the guest Of the Phaeacians⁠—men who love the sea. Two days and nights among the mighty waves He floated, oft his heart foreboding death. But when the bright-haired Eos had fulfilled The third day’s course, and all the winds were laid, And calm was on the watery waste, he saw That land was near, as, lifted on the crest Of a huge swell, he looked with sharpened sight; And as a father’s life preserved makes glad His children’s hearts, when long time he has lain Sick, wrung with pain, and wasting by the power Of some malignant genius, till at length The gracious gods bestow a welcome cure, So welcome to Ulysses was the sight Of woods and fields. By swimming on he thought To climb and tread the shore; but when he drew So near that one who shouted could be heard From land, the sound of ocean on the rocks Came to his