第57章 BOOK IX(4)

And there lay herbs and healing leaves, the which, Spread on his deadly wound, assuaged its pangs.

Wild tangled elf-locks hung about his head.

He seemed a wild beast, that hath set its foot, Prowling by night, upon a hidden trap, And so hath been constrained in agony To bite with fierce teeth through the prisoned limb Ere it could win back to its cave, and there In hunger and torturing pains it languisheth.

So in that wide cave suffering crushed the man;

And all his frame was wasted: naught but skin Covered his bones. Unwashen there he crouched With famine-haggard cheeks, with sunken eyes Glaring his misery 'neath cavernous brows.

Never his groaning ceased, for evermore The ulcerous black wound, eating to the bone, Festered with thrills of agonizing pain.

As when a beetling cliff, by seething seas Aye buffeted, is carved and underscooped, For all its stubborn strength, by tireless waves, Till, scourged by winds and lashed by tempest-flails, The sea into deep caves hath gnawed its base;

So greater 'neath his foot grew evermore The festering wound, dealt when the envenomed fangs Tare him of that fell water-snake, which men Say dealeth ghastly wounds incurable, When the hot sun hath parched it as it crawls Over the sands; and so that mightiest man Lay faint and wasted with his cureless pain;

And from the ulcerous wound aye streamed to earth Fetid corruption fouling all the floor Of that wide cave, a marvel to be heard Of men unborn. Beside his stony bed Lay a long quiver full of arrows, some For hunting, some to smite his foes withal;

With deadly venom of that fell water-snake Were these besmeared. Before it, nigh to his hand, Lay the great bow, with curving tips of horn, Wrought by the mighty hands of Hercules.

Now when that solitary spied these twain Draw nigh his cave, he sprang to his bow, he laid The deadly arrow on the string; for now Fierce memory of his wrongs awoke against These, who had left him years agone, in pain Groaning upon the desolate sea-shore.

Yea, and his heart's stem will he had swiftly wrought, But, even as upon that godlike twain He gazed, Athena caused his bitter wrath To melt away. Then drew they nigh to him With looks of sad compassion, and sat down On either hand beside him in the cave, And of his deadly wound and grievous pangs Asked; and he told them all his sufferings.

And they spake hope and comfort; and they said:

"Thy woeful wound, thine anguish, shall be healed, If thou but come with us to Achaea's host -- The host that now is sorrowing after thee With all its kings. And no man of them all Was cause of thine affliction, but the Fates, The cruel ones, whom none that walk the earth Escape, but aye they visit hapless men Unseen; and day by day with pitiless hearts Now they afflict men, now again exalt To honour -- none knows why; for all the woes And all the joys of men do these devise After their pleasure." Hearkening he sat To Odysseus and to godlike Diomede;

And all the hoarded wrath for olden wrongs And all the torturing rage, melted away.

Straight to the strand dull-thundering and the ship, Laughing for joy, they bare him with his bow.

There washed they all his body and that foul wound With sponges, and with plenteous water bathed:

So was his soul refreshed. Then hasted they And made meat ready for the famished man, And in the galley supped with him. Then came The balmy night, and sleep slid down on them.

Till rose the dawn they tarried by the strand Of sea-girt Lemnos, but with dayspring cast The hawsers loose, and heaved the anchor-stones Out of the deep. Athena sent a breeze Blowing behind the galley taper-prowed.

They strained the sail with either stern-sheet taut;

Seaward they pointed the stout-girdered ship;

O'er the broad flood she leapt before the wind;

Broken to right and left the dark wave sighed, And seething all around was hoary foam, While thronging dolphins raced on either hand Flashing along the paths of silver sea.

Full soon to fish-fraught Hellespont they came And the far-stretching ships. Glad were the Greeks To see the longed-for faces. Forth the ship With joy they stepped; and Poeas' valiant son On those two heroes leaned thin wasted hands, Who bare him painfully halting to the shore Staying his weight upon their brawny arms.