And now father Æneas feels a soft thrill of succeeding joy shoot through his anxious bosom; at once he bids every mast be reared, every sail stretched on its yard-arm. One and all strain the rope and loosen the sheet, now right, now left—one and all turn to and fro the sailyard’s lofty 20 horns; the fleet is wafted by the gales it loves. First, before all, Palinurus led the crowding ranks; after him the rest, as bidden, shaped their course. And now dewy Night had well-nigh reached the cope of heaven’s arch—in calm repose the sailors were relaxing their limbs, 25 stretched each by his oar along the hard benches—when Sleep’s power, dropping lightly down from the stars of heaven, parted the dusky air, and swam through the night, in quest of you, poor Palinurus, with a fatal freight of dreams for your guiltless head. The god has sat down 30 high on the stern, in the likeness of Phorbas, and these are the words he utters: “Son of Iasus, Palinurus, the sea itself is steering the fleet; the winds breathe evenly and fully; it is slumber’s own hour; come, relax that strained head, and let those weary eyes play truant from their toil. 35 I myself will undertake your functions awhile in your stead.” Hardly raising his eyes, Palinurus answered him thus:—“_I_ blind myself to smiling seas and sleeping waves: is that your will? _I_ place my faith on this fickle monster? What? trust Æneas to lying gales and fair skies, whose fraud I have rued so often?” So he said, and went on cleaving and clinging, never dropping his hand from the rudder, nor his eye from the stars. When 5 lo! the god waves over his two temples a bough dripping with Lethe’s[200] dews, and drugged by the charms of Styx, and in his own despite closes his swimming eyes. Scarce had sudden slumber begun to unstring his limbs, when the power, leaning over him, hurled him headlong into the 10 streaming waves, tearing away part of the vessel’s stern and the rudder as he fell, with many a cry for help that never came, while Sleep himself soared high on his wings into the yielding air. Safely, nevertheless, rides the fleet over the water, travelling undaunted in the strength of 15 Neptune’s royal promise. And now it was nearing the cliffs of the Sirens’[201] isle, cliffs unfriendly in days of old, and white with many a seaman’s bones, and the rocks were sounding hollow from afar with the untiring surge, when the great Father perceived the unsteady reel of the masterless 20 ship, and guided it himself through the night of waters, groaning oft, and staggering under the loss of his friend: “Victim of faith in the calm of sky and sea, you will lie, Palinurus, a naked[202] corpse on a strand unknown.” BOOK VI