eager to go on, that he might lay His friend in earth and pay the funeral rites. But setting sail again with all his fleet Upon the dark-blue sea, all-seeing Jove Decreed a perilous voyage. He sent forth His shrill-voiced hurricane, and heaped on high The mountain waves. There, scattering the barques Far from each other, part he drove to Crete, Where the Cydonians dwell, beside the stream Of Jardanus. A smooth and pointed rock Just on the bounds of Gortys stands amidst The dark-blue deep. The south wind thitherward Sweeps a great sea towards Phoestus, and against The headland on the left, where that small rock Meets and withstands the mighty wave. The ships Were driven on this, and scarce the crews escaped With life; the ships were dashed against the crags And wrecked, save five, and these, with their black prows, Were swept toward Egypt by the winds and waves.
“Thus adding to his wealth and gathering gold He roamed the ocean in his ships among Men of strange speech. Aegisthus meantime planned His guilty deeds at home; he slew the king Atrides, and the people took his yoke. Seven years in rich Mycenae he bore rule, And on the eighth, to his destruction, came The nobly-born Orestes, just returned From Athens, and cut