Still from Olympus thundering AtrytoneWielded her Father's power unshamed, and stillThe welkin shrieked around. Her ruin of wrathNow upon Aias hurled she: on his shipDashed she a thunderbolt, and shivered itWide in a moment into fragments small,While earth and air yelled o'er the wreck, and whirledAnd plunged and fell the whole sea down thereon.They in the ship were all together flungForth: all about them swept the giant waves,Round them leapt lightnings flaming through the dark.Choked with the strangling surf of hissing brine,Gasping out life, they drifted o'er the sea.
But even in death those captive maids rejoiced,As some ill-starred ones, clasping to their breastsTheir babes, sank in the sea; some flung their armsRound Danaans' horror-stricken heads, and draggedThese down with them, so rendering to their foesRequital for foul outrage down to them.And from on high the haughty Trito-bornLooked down on all this, and her heart was glad.
But Aias floated now on a galley's plank,Now through the brine with strong hands oared his path,Like some old Titan in his tireless might.Cleft was the salt sea-surge by the sinewy handsOf that undaunted man: the Gods beheldAnd marvelled at his courage and his strength.But now the billows swung him up on highThrough misty air, as though to a mountain's peak,Now whelmed him down, as they would bury himIn ravening whirlpits: yet his stubborn handsToiled on unwearied. Aye to right and leftFlashed lightnings down, and quenched them in the sea;For not yet was the Child of Thunderer ZeusPurposed to smite him dead, despite her wrath,Ere he had drained the cup of travail and painDown to the dregs; so in the deep long timeAffliction wore him down, tormented soreOn every side. Grim Fates stood round the manUnnumbered; yet despair still kindled strength.He cried: "Though all the Olympians banded comeIn wrath, and rouse against me all the sea,I will escape them!" But no whit did heElude the Gods' wrath; for the Shaker of EarthIn fierceness of his indignation markedWhere his hands clung to the Gyraean Rock,And in stern anger with an earthquake shookBoth sea and land. Around on all sides crashedCaphereus' cliffs: beneath the Sea-king's wrathThe surf-tormented beaches shrieked and roared.The broad crag rifted reeled into the sea,The rock whereto his desperate hands had clung;Yet did he writhe up round its jutting spurs,While flayed his hands were, and from 'neath his nailsThe blood ran. Wrestling with him roared the waves,And the foam whitened all his hair and beard.
Yet had he 'scaped perchance his evil doom,Had not Poseidon, wroth with his hardihood,Cleaving the earth, hurled down the chasm the rock,As in the old time Pallas heaved on highSicily, and on huge EnceladusDashed down the isle, which burns with the burning yetOf that immortal giant, as he breathesFire underground; so did the mountain-crag,Hurled from on high, bury the Locrian king,Pinning the strong man down, a wretch crushed flat.And so on him death's black destruction cameWhom land and sea alike were leagued to slay.
Still over the great deep were swept the restOf those Achaeans, crouching terror-dazedDown in the ships, save those that mid the wavesHad fallen. Misery encompassed all;For some with heavily-plunging prows drave on,With keels upturned some drifted. Here were mastsSnapped from the hull by rushing gusts, and thereWere tempest-rifted wrecks of scattered beams;And some had sunk, whelmed in the mighty deep,Swamped by the torrent downpour from the clouds:For these endured not madness of wind-tossed seaLeagued with heaven's waterspout; for streamed the skyCeaselessly like a river, while the deepRaved round them. And one cried: "Such floods on menFell only when Deucalion's deluge came,When earth was drowned, and all was fathomless sea!"
So cried a Danaan, seeing soul-appalledThat wild storm. Thousands perished; corpses throngedThe great sea-highways: all the beaches wereToo strait for them: the surf belched multitudesForth on the land. The heavy-booming seaWith weltering beams of ships was wholly paved,And here and there the grey waves gleamed between.
So found they each his several evil fate,Some whelmed beneath broad-rushing billows, someWretchedly perishing with their shattered shipsBy Nauplius' devising on the rocks.Wroth for that son whom they had done to death,He; when the storm rose and the Argives died,Rejoiced amid his sorrow, seeing a GodGave to his hands revenge, which now he wreakedUpon the host he hated, as o'er the deepThey tossed sore-harassed. To his sea-god sireHe prayed that all might perish, ships and menWhelmed in the deep. Poseidon heard his prayer,And on the dark surge swept them nigh his land.He, like a harbour-warder, lifted highA blazing torch, and so by guile he trappedThe Achaean men, who deemed that they had wonA sheltering haven: but sharp reefs and cragsGave awful welcome unto ships and men,Who, dashed to pieces on the cruel rocksIn the black night, crowned ills with direr ills.Some few escaped, by a God or Power unseenPlucked from death's hand. Athena now rejoicedHer heart within, and now was racked with fearsFor prudent-souled Odysseus; for his weirdWas through Poseidon's wrath to suffer woesFull many.
But Earth-shaker's jealousy nowBurned against those long walls and towers uppiledBy the strong Argives for a fence againstThe Trojans' battle-onset. Swiftly thenHe swelled to overbrimming all the seaThat 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 bareIn that great work his part; from Ida's heightsInto one channel led he all her streams,And flooded the Achaeans' work. The seaDashed o'er it, and the roaring torrents stillRushed on it, swollen by the rains of Zeus;And the dark surge of the wide-moaning seaStill hurled them back from mingling with the deep,Till all the Danaan walls were blotted outBeneath their desolating flood. Then earthWas by Poseidon chasm-cleft: up rushedDeluge of water, slime and sand, while quakedSigeum with the mighty shock, and roaredThe beach and the foundations of the landDardanian. 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 outspreadFar down the heavy-booming shore. All thisThe Immortals' anger wrought. But in their shipsThe Argives storm-dispersed went sailing on.So came they home, as heaven guided each,Even all that 'scaped the fell sea-tempest blasts.