Where in a beauteous grotto’s cool recess

Dance the green Nereids of the neighbouring seas.


“There while the wild winds whistled o’er the main,

Thus careful I address’d the listening train:


“‘O friends, be wise! nor dare the flocks destroy

Of these fair pastures: if ye touch, ye die.

Warn’d by the high command of Heaven, be awed:

Holy the flocks, and dreadful is the god!

That god who spreads the radiant beams of light,

And views wide earth and heaven’s unmeasured height.’


“And now the moon had run her monthly round,

The south-east blustering with a dreadful sound:

Unhurt the beeves, untouch’d the woolly train,

Low through the grove, or touch the flowery plain:

Then fail’d our food: then fish we make our prey,

Or fowl that screaming haunt the watery way.

Till now from sea or flood no succour found,

Famine and meagre want besieged us round.

Pensive and pale from grove to grove I stray’d,

From the loud storms to find a sylvan shade;

There o’er my hands the living wave I pour;

And Heaven and Heaven’s immortal thrones implore,

To calm the roarings of the stormy main,

And guide me peaceful to my realms again.

Then o’er my eyes the gods soft slumbers shed,

While thus Eurylochus arising said:


“‘O friends, a thousand ways frail mortals lead

To the cold tomb, and dreadful all to tread;

But dreadful most, when by a slow decay

Pale hunger wastes the manly strength away.

Why cease ye then to implore the powers above,

And offer hecatombs to thundering Jove?

Why seize ye not yon beeves, and fleecy prey?

Arise unanimous; arise and slay!

And if the gods ordain a safe return,

To Phœbus shrines shall rise, and altars burn.

But should the powers that o’er mankind preside

Decree to plunge us in the whelming tide,

Better to rush at once to shades below

Than linger life away, and nourish woe.’


“Thus he: the beeves around securely stray,

When swift to ruin they invade the prey;