Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/197

the rudder that guides the curving bark; let there be some to make the heavy sounding-lead explore the depths, and others to fasten the skiff that will follow astern, and to dive down and drag the hooked anchor from the depths, and one to control the tides and make the sea flow eastward: let none of the sea-green sisterhood be without a task. Then let Proteus of manifold shape and twy-formed Triton swim before, and Glaucus^[1] whose loins vanished by sudden enchantment, and who, so oft as he glides up to his native shores, wistfully beats his fish-tail on Anthedon’s strand. But above all others thou, Palaemon, with thy goddess mother, be favourable, if ’tis thy desire that I should tell of thine own Thebes, and sing of Amphion, bard of Phoebus, with no unworthy quill. And may the father whose Aeolian prison constrains the winds, whom the various blasts obey, and every air that stirs on the world’s seas, and storms and cloudy tempests, keep the North wind and South and East in closer custody behind his wall of mountain; but may Zephyr alone have the freedom of the sky, alone drive vessels onward and skim unceasingly o’er the crests of the billows, until he bring without a storm thy glad sails safe to the Paraetonian^[2] haven.”

My prayer is heard. The West wind himself calls the ship and chides the laggard crew. Lo! already my heart sinks, chilled with fear, and I cannot, though the omen shocks me, hold back the tears that hover upon my eyelids’ verge. And already the sailor has loosed the rope and sundered the vessel