bloom of youth, while his beauteous dark tresses were shaken around, and he wore a purple mantle about his sturdy shoulders. But quickly came Tyrrhenian pirates from the well-benched ship upon the dark sea, and evil fate led it on. But they, perceiving [him], beckoned to one another, and quickly leaped out, and speedily having seized him, they seated him in their ship, rejoicing at heart. For they said that he was a son of Jove-nurtured princes, and wished to bind him in grievous fetters. But him the fetters restrained not, and the withy bands fell far off from his hands and feet; and he sat smiling with his dark eyes, but the pilot, perceiving, straightway gave orders to his comrades, and addressed them.
"Miserable men! who is this powerful god who ye, having seized, have bound? Nor is the well-constructed ship able to bear him. For either he is Jove, or silver-bowed Apollo, or Neptune; since he is not like unto mortal men, but to the gods who possess the Olympian dwellings. But come, let us forthwith leave him upon the dark mainland, nor lay your hands upon him, lest, being at all enraged, he stir up troublesome gales and a mighty whirlwind."
Thus he spake, but him the captain rebuked with bitter speech: "My good man, look to the prosperous gale, and at the same time draw up the sail of the ship, having made full tackle. But this one shall be a care to men. I hope that he will come or to Egypt, or to Cyprus, or to the Hyperboreans, or yet farther, and that he will at last declare both his friends, and all his possessions, and his brethren; since fortune has presented him to us."
Thus having spoken, he drew up the mast and sail of the ship, and the wind breathed upon the middle of the sail and around it they stretched out the cordage. But quickly to them appeared wondrous deeds.[1] First indeed sweet-scented
- ↑ Cf. Seneca, Œd. 449. "Te Tyrrhena puer rapuit manus, Et tumidum Nereus posuit mare, Cœrula cum pratis mutat freta. Huic vernus platanus folio viret, Et Phœbo laurus carum nemus, Garrula per ramos
αἰγιαλοῖο παρ' ὄφρυσιν. He forgot Od. xxiv. 82, ἀκτῇ ἔπι προὐχούσῃ, which Hesych. t. i. p. 212, interprets, ἐν τῷ ἐξέχοντι μέρει τοῦ αἰγιαλοῦ. The same grammarian also explains it by παραθαλάσσιος τόπος. There is the same distinction between our words "shore" and "beach." Moreover, that ἀκτὴ means the projecting rocky parts of the shore, which are most beaten by the waves, but θῖνες the sandy, is evident from the Schol. on Il. ii. 395, on Soph. Aj. 414, and Ammonius, p. 9, where see Valck.
