Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/369

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Book XV.
HOMER's ODYSSEY.
361

To summon down the woman to the shore.
A mariner of theirs, subtle and shrewd,
Then, ent'ring at my father's gate, produced 555
A splendid collar, gold with amber strung.
My mother (then at home) with all her maids
Handling and gazing on it with delight,
Proposed to purchase it, and he the nod
Significant, gave unobserv'd, the while, 560
To the Phœnician woman, and return'd.
She, thus informed, leading me by the hand
Went forth, and finding in the vestibule
The cups and tables which my father's guests
Had used, (but they were to the forum gone 565
For converse with their friends assembled there)
Convey'd three cups into her bosom-folds,
And bore them off, whom I a thoughtless child
Accompanied, at the decline of day,
When dusky evening had embrown'd the shore. 570
We, stepping nimbly on, soon reach'd the port
Renown'd, where that Phœnician vessel lay.
They shipp'd us both, and all embarking cleav'd
Their liquid road, by favourable gales,
Jove's gift, impell'd. Six days we day and night 575
Continual sailed, but when Saturnian Jove
Now bade the sev'nth bright morn illume the skies,
Then, shaft-arm'd Dian struck the woman dead.
At once she pitch'd headlong into the bilge
Like a sea-coot, whence heaving her again, 580

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