Of all the winds, and covered earth and sky At once with mists, while from above the night Fell suddenly. The east wind and the south Pushed forth at once, with the strong-blowing west, And the clear north rolled up his mighty waves. Ulysses trembled in his knees and heart, And thus to his great soul, lamenting, said:—
“What will become of me? unhappy man! I fear that all the goddess said was true, Foretelling what disasters should o’ertake My voyage ere I reach my native land. Now are her words fulfilled. How Jupiter Wraps the great heaven in clouds and stirs the deep To tumult! Wilder grow the hurricanes Of all the winds, and now my fate is sure. Thrice happy, four times happy, they who fell On Troy’s wide field, warring for Atreus’ sons: O, had I met my fate and perished there, That very day on which the Trojan host, Around the dead Achilles, hurled at me Their brazen javelins, I had then received Due burial, and great glory with the Greeks; Now must I die a miserable death.”
As thus he spake, upon him, from on high, A huge and frightful billow broke; it whirled The raft around, and far from it he fell. His hands let go the rudder; a fierce rush Of all the winds together snapped in twain The mast; far off the yard and canvas flew Into the deep; the billow held him long Beneath the waters, and he strove in vain Quickly to rise to air from that huge swell Of ocean, for the garments weighed him down Which fair Calypso gave him. But at length Emerging, he rejected from his throat The bitter brine that down his forehead streamed. Even then, though hopeless with dismay, his thought Was on the raft; and, struggling through the waves, He seized it, sprang on board, and, seated there, Escaped the threatened death. Still to and fro The rolling billows drave it. As the wind In autumn sweeps the thistles o’er the field, Clinging together, so the blasts of heaven Hither and thither drove it o’er the sea. And now the south wind flung it to the north To buffet; now the east wind to the west.