Kitap 3
and seemed to sob as he addressed the men;
580
‘Ah mariners, what alien shores are these?
'Tis not the land you promised nor the port
my heart desires. For what have I deserved
this cruel wrong? What honour can accrue
if strong men mock a boy; a lonely youth
if many should deceive?’ And as he spoke,
I, also, wept to see their wickedness.
“The impious gang made merry at our tears,
and lashed the billows with their quickening oars.
By Bacchus do I swear to you (and naught
celestial is more potent) all the things
I tell you are as true as they surpass
the limit of belief. The ship stood still
as if a dry dock held it in the sea.—
“The wondering sailors laboured at the oars,
and they unfurled the sails, in hopes to gain
some headway, with redoubled energies;
but twisting ivy tangled in the oars,
and interlacing held them by its weight.
And Bacchus in the midst of all stood crowned
with chaplets of grape-leaves, and shook a lance
covered with twisted fronds of leafy vines.
Around him crouched the visionary forms
of tigers, lynxes, and the mottled shapes
“Then the mariners leaped out,
possessed by fear or madness. Medon first
began to turn a swarthy hue, and fins
grew outward from his flattened trunk,
and with a curving spine his body bent.—
then Lycabas to him, ‘What prodigy
is this that I behold?’ Even as he spoke,
his jaws were broadened and his nose was bent;
his hardened skin was covered with bright scales.
And Libys, as he tried to pull the oars,
could see his own hands shrivel into fins;
another of the crew began to grasp
the twisted ropes, but even as he strove
to lift his arms they fastened to his sides;—
