Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/416

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Is smothered by the tenth and mightiest wave.
Here idly floats a mangled, shattered thing,
Of all its boastful decoration shorn;
And there a ship sans sails and oars and all.
No lofty mast with hanging spars remains, 505
But, helpless hulks, the shattered vessels drift
Upon the boundless sea. Amid such ills,
Of what avail the hardy sailor's art?
Cold horror holds our limbs. The sailors stand
In dumb amaze, and all their tasks forget;
While all, in abject terror, drop their oars,
And turn their wretched souls to heaven for aid. 510
Now (marvel of the fates!) with common vows
The Greeks and Trojans supplicate the skies.
Now Pyrrhus envies great Achilles' fate;
Ulysses, Ajax'; Menelaüs, Hector's;
And Priam seems to Agamemnon blest:
Yea all who perished on the plains of Troy,
Whose lot it was to die by human hand,
Are counted blest of heaven, secure in fame, 515
For they rest safely in the land they won.
"Shall winds and waves engulf in common fate
The faint of heart who nothing noble dare,
And those brave souls who quit themselves like men?
Must we for naught resign ourselves to death?
O thou of gods who art not even yet
With these our evil fortunes satisfied, 520
At last have pity on our woeful plight,
Which Ilium itself would weep to see.
If still thine anger holds, and 'tis decreed
That we of Greece must perish utterly,
Why doom these Trojans, for whose sake we die,
To share our fate? Allay the raging sea: 525
For this our fleet bears Greeks and Trojans too."
So prayed we, but in vain; our suppliant words
Were swallowed by the raging storm. And lo,
Another shape of death! For Pallas, armed
With those swift bolts her angry father wields,
Essays what ruin dire her threatening spear,