Lo where he lies, amidst a shining store

Of brass, rich garments, and refulgent ore;

And bears triumphant to his native isle

A prize more worth than Ilion’s noble spoil.”


To whom the Father of the immortal powers,

Who swells the clouds, and gladdens earth with showers,

“Can mighty Neptune thus of man complain?

Neptune, tremendous o’er the boundless main!

Revered and awful e’en in heaven’s abodes,

Ancient and great! a god above the gods!

If that low race offend thy power divine

(Weak, daring creatures!) is not vengeance thine?

Go, then, the guilty at thy will chastise.”

He said. The shaker of the earth replies:


“This then, I doom: to fix the gallant ship,

A mark of vengeance on the sable deep;

To warn the thoughtless, self-confiding train,

No more unlicensed thus to brave the main.

Full in their port a Shady hill shall rise,

If such thy will.”—“We will it (Jove replies).

E’en when with transport blackening all the strand,

The swarming people hail their ship to land,

Fix her for ever, a memorial stone:

Still let her seem to sail, and seem alone.

The trembling crowds shall see the sudden shade

Of whelming mountains overhang their head!”


With that the god whose earthquakes rock the ground

Fierce to Phæacia cross’d the vast profound.

Swift as a swallow sweeps the liquid way,

The winged pinnace shot along the sea.

The god arrests her with a sudden stroke,

And roots her down an everlasting rock.

Aghast the Scherians stand in deep surprise;

All press to speak, all question with their eyes.

What hands unseen the rapid bark restrain!

And yet it swims, or seems to swim, the main!

Thus they, unconscious of the deed divine;

Till great Alcinous, rising, own’d the sign.


“Behold the long predestined day! (he cries;)

O certain faith of ancient prophecies

These ears have heard my royal sire disclose

A dreadful story, big with future woes;

How, moved with wrath, that careless we convey