mall,
While earth and air yelled o'er the wreck, and whirled
And plunged and fell the whole sea down thereon.
They in the ship were all together flung
Forth: all about them swept the giant waves,
Round them leapt lightnings flaming through the dark.
Choked with the strangling surf of hissing brine,
Gasping out life, they drifted o'er the sea.

But even in death those captive maids rejoiced,
As some ill-starred ones, clasping to their breasts
Their babes, sank in the sea; some flung their arms
Round Danaans' horror-stricken heads, and dragged
These down with them, so rendering to their foes
Requital for foul outrage down to them.
And from on high the haughty Trito-born
Looked down on all this, and her heart was glad.

But Aias floated now on a galley's plank,
Now through the brine with strong hands oared his path,
Like some old Titan in his tireless might.
Cleft was the salt sea-surge by the sinewy hands
Of that undaunted man: the Gods beheld
And marvelled at his courage and his strength.
But now the billows swung him up on high
Through misty air, as though to a mountain's peak,
Now whelmed him down, as they would bury him
In ravening whirlpits: yet his stubborn hands
Toiled on unwearied. Aye to right and left
Flashed lightnings down, and quenched them in the sea;
For not yet was the Child of Thunderer Zeus
Purposed to smite him dead, despite her wrath,
Ere he had drained the cup of travail and pain
Down to the dregs; so in the deep long time
Affliction wore him down, tormented sore
On every side. Grim Fates stood round the man
Unnumbered; yet despair still kindled strength.
He cried: "Though all the Olympians banded come
In wrath, and rouse against me all the sea,
I will escape them!" But no whit did he
Elude the Gods' wrath; for the Shaker of Earth
In fierceness of his indignation marked
Where his hands clung to the Gyraean Rock,
And in stern anger with an earthquake shook
Both sea and land. Around on all sides crashed
Caphereus' cliffs: beneath the Sea-king's wrath
The surf-tormented beaches shrieked and roared.
The broad crag rifted reeled into the sea,
The rock whereto his desperate hands had clung;
Yet did he writhe up round its jutting spurs,
While flayed his hands were, and from 'neath his nails
The blood ran. Wrestling with him roared the waves,
And the foam whitened all his hair and beard.