“Strange! now I see the gods have new designs For this Ulysses, formed while I was yet In Ethiopia. He draws near the land Of the Phaeacians, where it is decreed He shall o’erpass the boundary of his woes; But first, I think, he will have much to bear.”
He spake, and round about him called the clouds And roused the ocean—wielding in his hand The trident—summoned all the hurricanes 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