"Safe--so he sang--should'st thou escape the sea, And scatheless to Ausonia's coast attain.
Lo, this, his plighted promise!"-- "Nay," said he, "Nor answered Phoebus' oracle in vain, Nor did a god o'erwhelm me in the main.
For while I ruled the rudder, charged to keep Our course, and steered thee o'er the billowy plain, Sudden, I slipped, and, falling prone and steep, Snapped with sheer force the helm, and dragged it to the deep.
XLVIII.

"Naught--let the rough seas witness--but for thee I feared, lest rudderless, her pilot lost, Your ship should fail in such a towering sea.
Three wintry nights, nipt with the chilling frost, Upon the boundless waters I was tost, And on the fourth dawn from a wave at last Descried Italia.

Slowly to her coast I swam, and clutching at the rock, held fast, Cumbered with dripping clothes, and deemed the worst o'erpast.
XLIX.

"When lo! the savage folk, with sword and stave, Set on me, weening to have found rich prey.
And now my bones lie weltering on the wave, Now on strange shores winds blow them far away.
O! by the memory of thy sire, I pray, By young Iulus, and his hope so fair, By heaven's sweet breath and light of gladsome day, Relieve my misery, assuage my care, Sail back to Velia's port, great conqueror, and there L.

"Strew earth upon me, for the task is light; Or, if thy goddess-mother deign to show Some path--for never in the god's despite O'er these dread waters would'st thou dare to go, Thine aid in pity on a wretch bestow; Reach forth thy hand, and bear me to my rest, Dead with the dead to ease me of my woe." He spake, and him the prophetess addressed: "O Palinurus! whence so impious a request?
LI.