Nor yet, her latest gift, a gentle gale
And manageable, which Ulysses spread,
Exulting, all his canvas to receive.
Beside the helm he sat, steering expert,
Nor sleep fell ever on his eyes that watch'd 325
Intent the Pleiads, tardy in decline
Bootes, and the Bear, call'd else the Wain,
Which, in his polar prison circling, looks
Direct toward Orion, and alone
Of these sinks never to the briny Deep. 330
That star the lovely Goddess bade him hold
Continual on his left through all his course.
Ten days and sev'n, he, navigating, cleav'd
The brine, and on the eighteenth day, at length,
The shadowy mountains of Phæacia's land 335
Descried, where nearest to his course it lay
Like a broad buckler on the waves afloat.
But Neptune, now returning from the land
Of Ethiopia, mark'd him on his raft
Skimming the billows, from the mountain-tops 340
Of distant Solyma.[1] With tenfold wrath
Inflamed that sight he view'd, his brows he shook,
And thus within himself, indignant, spake.
So then—new counsels in the skies, it seems,
Propitious to Ulysses, have prevail'd 345
Since Æthiopia hath been my abode.
- ↑ The Solymi were the ancient inhabitants of Pisidia in Asia-Minor.
He
