His toils had rack’d t’ a labouring woman’s pains.[5] Dead weary was he. But when breath did find A pass reciprocal, and in his mind His spirit was recollected, up he rose, And from his neck did th’ amulet unloose, That Ino gave him; which he hurl’d from him To sea. It sounding fell, and back did swim With th’ ebbing waters, till it straight arriv’d Where Ino’s fair hand it again receiv’d. Then kiss’d he th’ humble earth; and on he goes, Till bulrushes show’d place for his repose, Where laid, he sigh’d, and thus said to his soul: “O me, what strange perplexities control The whole skill of thy pow’rs in this event! What feel I? If till care-nurse night be spent I watch amidst the flood, the sea’s chill breath, And vegetant dews, I fear will be my death, So low brought with my labours. Towards day A passing sharp air ever breathes at sea. If I the pitch of this next mountain scale, And shady wood, and in some thicket fall Into the hands of Sleep, though there the cold May well be check’d, and healthful slumbers hold Her sweet hand on my pow’rs, all care allay’d, Yet there will beasts devour me. Best appaid Doth that course make me yet; for there, some strife, Strength, and my spirit, may make me make for life; Which, though impair’d, may yet be fresh applied, Where peril possible of escape is tried. But he that fights with heav’n, or with the sea, To indiscretion adds impiety.” Thus to the woods he hasted; which he found Not far from sea, but on far-seeing ground, Where two twin underwoods he enter’d on, With olive-trees and oil-trees overgrown; Through which the moist force of the loud-voic’d wind Did never beat, nor ever Phœbus shin’d, Nor show’r beat through, they grew so one in one, And had, by turns, their pow’r t’ exclude the sun. Here enter’d our Ulysses; and a bed Of leaves huge, and of huge abundance, spread With all his speed. Large he made it, for there For two or three men ample cov’rings were, Such as might shield them from the winter’s worst, Though steel it breathed, and blew as it would burst.[6] Patient Ulysses joy’d, that ever day Show’d such a shelter. In the midst he lay, Store of leaves heaping high on ev’ry side. And as in some out-field a man doth hide A kindled brand, to keep the seed of fire, No neighbour dwelling near, and his desire Serv’d with self store, he else would ask of none, But of his fore-spent sparks rakes th’ ashes on; So this out-place Ulysses thus receives, And thus nak’d virtue’s seed lies hid in leaves. Yet Pallas made him sleep as soon as men Whom delicacies all their flatt’ries deign, And all that all his labours could comprise Quickly concluded in his closed eyes. FINIS LIBRI QUINTI HOM. ODYSS. [1] _᾽Επἱ σχεδἰης πογυδἐσμον, in rate multis vinculis ligatus._ [2] The piner—Hunger. [3] This four day days’ work (you will say) is too much for one man: and Pliny affirms, that Hiero (a king of Sicily) in five-and forty days built two hundred and twenty ships, rigged them, and put to sea with them.