thus it is much more honourable. For these things are prepared on account of the venerable stranger, an escort, and grateful presents, which we entertaining [him] bestow on him. The stranger and suppliant is considered in the place of a brother by a man who partakes of understanding even a little. Do thou therefore now not conceal by crafty thoughts what I shall ask thee; but it is better that thou shouldst say. Tell the name, whatever both thy mother and father there called thee, and others who dwell in and around the city; for no one of men is altogether nameless, neither bad nor good, since he was first born, but parents give [names] to all, when they bring them forth. And tell me thy land, and people, and city: that our ships calculating in thought[1] may conduct thee thither. For there are no pilots for the Phæacians, nor are there rudders at all, which other ships have; but they themselves ken the thoughts and minds of men. And they ken the cities and rich fields of all men; and very swiftly pass over the ridge of the sea, covered with darkness and a cloud; nor is there fear at any time for them, that they will be either harmed at all or perish. But I have heard my father Nausithous sometime telling these things thus, who said that Neptune was indignant with us, because we are harmless conductors of all. He said that he would sometime destroy a well-worked ship of the Phæacian men returning from a conduct on the shadowy sea, and that a great mountain [of waves][2] should cover around our city. Thus the old man spoke; which things the god will either accomplish, or they will be not accomplished, as is grateful to his mind. But come, tell me this and inform me truly, both whither thou hast wandered, and to what lands of men thou hast come; both themselves and their well-inhabited cities. And how many are both cruel, and rough, and not just; and who [are] hospitable, and have a mind which regards the gods. Say too at what thou weepest, and art grieving within thine heart, on hearing the calamity of the Argives, Danaans, and Ilium. That [calamity] the gods indeed devised, and destined destruction for men, that it maybe a [subject of] song even to
- ↑ These "thinking ships" of Homer's are almost as clever as the "prophesying Argo" of Valerius Flaccus, i. 2.
- ↑ Virg. Æn. i. 109, "præruptus aquæ mons." Ovid. Trist. i. 2, 19, "quanto montes volvuntur aquarum;" ii. 10, 20, "Inque modum tumuli concava surgit aqua."
