Thy stream, and clasp thy knees, after long toil. 540
I am thy suppliant. Oh King! pity me.
He said; the river God at once repress'd
His current, and it ceas'd; smooth he prepared
The way before Ulysses, and the land
Vouchsafed him easy at his channel's mouth.
There, once again he bent for ease his limbs
Both arms and knees, in conflict with the floods
Exhausted; swoln his body was all o'er,
And from his mouth and nostrils stream'd the brine.
Breathless and speechless, and of life well nigh 550
Bereft he lay, through dreadful toil immense.
But when, revived, his dissipated pow'rs
He recollected, loosing from beneath
His breast the zone divine, he cast it far
Into the brackish stream, and a huge wave
Returning bore it downward to the sea,
Where Ino caught it. Then, the river's brink
Abandoning, among the rushes prone
He lay, kiss'd oft the soil, and sighing, said,
Ah me! what suff'rings must I now sustain, 560
What doom, at last, awaits me? If I watch
This woeful night, here, at the river's side,
What hope but that the frost and copious dews,
Weak as I am, my remnant small of life
Shall quite extinguish, and the chilly air
Breath'd from the river at the dawn of day?
But if, ascending this declivity
I gain the woods, and in some thicket sleep,
(If sleep indeed can find me overtoil'd
And cold-benumb'd) then I have cause to fear 570
Lest I be torn by wild beasts, and devour'd.
Long time he mused, but, at the last, his course
Bent to the woods, which not remote he saw
From the sea-brink, conspicuous on a hill.
Arrived, between two neighbour shrubs he crept,
Both olives, this the fruitful, that the wild;
A covert, which nor rough winds blowing moist
Could penetrate, nor could the noon-day sun
Smite through it, or unceasing show'rs pervade,
So thick a roof the ample branches form'd 580
Close interwoven; under these the Chief
Retiring, with industrious hands a bed
Collected broad of leaves, which there he found
Abundant strew'd, such store as had sufficed
Two travellers or three for cov'ring warm,
Though winter's roughest blasts had rag'd the while.
That bed with joy the suff'ring Chief renown'd
Contemplated, and occupying s