Kitap 11
addressing trusted gods, lifting his hands
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up to that heaven unseen, as vainly he
implores some aid divine, and one in fright
recalls his brothers and his parent, while
another names his children and his home:
each frightened sailor thinks of all he left.
King Ceyx thinks only of Halcyone,
no other name is on his lips but hers:
and though he longs for her, yet he is glad
that she is safe at home. Ah, how he tried
to look back to the shore of his loved land,
to turn his last gaze towards his wife and home.
But he has lost direction.—The tossed sea
is raging in a hurricane so vast,
and all the sky is hidden by the gloom
of thickened storm-clouds, doubled in pitch-black.
The mast is shattered by the violence
of drenching tempests, and the useless helm
is broken. One undaunted giant wave
stands over wreck and spoil, and looks down like
a conqueror upon the other waves:
then falls as heavily as if some god
should hurl Mount Athos or Mount Pindus, torn
from rock foundations, into that wide sea:
so, with down-rushing weight and violence
it struck and plunged the ship to the lowest deeps.
And as the ship sank, many of the crew
sank overwhelmed in deep surrounding waves,
never to rise from suffocating death:
but some in desperation, clung for life
to broken timbers and escaped that fate.
King Ceyx clung to a fragment of the wreck
with that majestic hand which often before
had proudly swayed the sceptre. And in vain,
alas, he called upon his father's name,
alas, he begged his father-in-law's support.
But, while he swam, his lips most frequently
pronounced that dearest name, “Halcyone!”
He longs to have his body carried by waves
to her dear gaze and have at last,
