The Fall of Troy [110]
haven: but sharp reefs and crags Gave awful welcome unto ships and men, Who, dashed to pieces on the cruel rocks In the black night, crowned ills with direr ills. Some few escaped, by a God or Power unseen Plucked from death's hand. Athena now rejoiced Her heart within, and now was racked with fears For prudent-souled Odysseus; for his weird Was through Poseidon's wrath to suffer woes Full many.
But Earth-shaker's jealousy now Burned against those long walls and towers uppiled By the strong Argives for a fence against The Trojans' battle-onset. Swiftly then He swelled to overbrimming all the sea That rolls from Euxine down to Hellespont, And hurled it on the shore of Troy: and Zeus, For a grace unto the glorious Shaker of Earth, Poured rain from heaven: withal Far-darter bare In that great work his part; from Ida's heights Into one channel led he all her streams, And flooded the Achaeans' work. The sea Dashed o'er it, and the roaring torrents still Rushed on it, swollen by the rains of Zeus; And the dark surge of the wide-moaning sea Still hurled them back from mingling with the deep, Till all the Danaan walls were blotted out Beneath their desolating flood. Then earth Was by Poseidon chasm-cleft: up rushed Deluge of water, slime and sand, while quaked Sigeum with the mighty shock, and roared The beach and the foundations of the land Dardanian. So vanished, whelmed from sight, That mighty rampart. Earth asunder yawned, And all sank down, and only sand was seen, When back the sea rolled, o'er the beach outspread Far down the heavy-booming shore. All this The Immortals' anger wrought. But in their ships The Argives storm-dispersed went sailing on. So came they home, as heaven guided each, Even all that 'scaped the fell sea-tempest blasts.
End
But Earth-shaker's jealousy now Burned against those long walls and towers uppiled By the strong Argives for a fence against The Trojans' battle-onset. Swiftly then He swelled to overbrimming all the sea That rolls from Euxine down to Hellespont, And hurled it on the shore of Troy: and Zeus, For a grace unto the glorious Shaker of Earth, Poured rain from heaven: withal Far-darter bare In that great work his part; from Ida's heights Into one channel led he all her streams, And flooded the Achaeans' work. The sea Dashed o'er it, and the roaring torrents still Rushed on it, swollen by the rains of Zeus; And the dark surge of the wide-moaning sea Still hurled them back from mingling with the deep, Till all the Danaan walls were blotted out Beneath their desolating flood. Then earth Was by Poseidon chasm-cleft: up rushed Deluge of water, slime and sand, while quaked Sigeum with the mighty shock, and roared The beach and the foundations of the land Dardanian. So vanished, whelmed from sight, That mighty rampart. Earth asunder yawned, And all sank down, and only sand was seen, When back the sea rolled, o'er the beach outspread Far down the heavy-booming shore. All this The Immortals' anger wrought. But in their ships The Argives storm-dispersed went sailing on. So came they home, as heaven guided each, Even all that 'scaped the fell sea-tempest blasts.
End