Ino Leucothea saw him clinging there— The delicate-footed child of Cadmus, once A mortal, speaking with a mortal voice, Though now within the ocean gulfs she shares The honors of the gods. With pity she Beheld Ulysses struggling thus distressed, And, rising from the abyss below, in form A cormorant, the sea-nymph took her perch On the well-banded raft, and thus she said:—
“Ah, luckless man! how hast thou angered thus Earthshaking Neptune, that he visits thee With these disasters? Yet he cannot take, Although he seek it earnestly, thy life. Now do my bidding, for thou seemest wise. Laying aside thy garments, let the raft Drift with the winds, while thou, by strength of arm, Makest thy way in swimming to the land Of the Phaeacians, where thy safety lies. Receive this veil, and bind its heavenly woof Beneath thy breast, and have no further fear Of hardship or of danger. But, as soon As thou shalt touch the island, take it off, And turn away thy face, and fling it far From where thou standest into the black deep.”
The goddess gave the veil as thus she spoke, And to the tossing deep went down, in form A cormorant; the black wave covered her. But still Ulysses, mighty sufferer, Pondered, and thus to his great soul he said:—
“Ah me! perhaps some god is planning here Some other fraud against me, bidding me Forsake my raft. I will not yet obey, For still far off I see the land in which ’Tis said my refuge lies. This will I do, For this seems wisest. While the fastenings last That hold these timbers, I will keep my place And bide the tempest here; but when the waves Shall dash my raft in pieces, I will swim, For nothing better will remain to do.”
As he revolved this purpose in his mind, Earthshaking Neptune sent a mighty wave, Horrid and huge and high, and where he sat It smote him. As a violent wind uplifts The dry chaff heaped upon a threshing-floor, And sends it scattered through the air abroad, So did that wave fling