Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/136

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. 545
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 555
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 565
Breath'd from the river at the dawn of day?
But if, ascending this declivity