confidence he had in that charm which he wore about his middle, and in the
words of that divine bird. But the third morning the winds grew calm and
all the heavens were clear. Then he saw himself nigh land, which he knew
to be the coast of the Phaeacians, a people good to strangers and
abounding in ships, by whose favour he doubted not that he should soon
obtain a passage to his own country. And such joy he conceived in his
heart as good sons have that esteem their father's life dear, when long
sickness has held him down to his bed and wasted his body, and they see at
length health return to the old man, with restored strength and spirits,
in reward of their many prayers to the gods for his safety: so precious
was the prospect of home-return to Ulysses, that he might restore health
to his country (his better parent), that had long languished as full of
distempers in his absence. And then for his own safety's sake he had joy
to see the shores, the woods, so nigh and within his grasp as they seemed,
and he laboured with all the might of hands and feet to reach with
swimming that nigh-seeming land.

But when he approached near, a horrid sound of a huge sea beating against
rocks informed him that here was no place for landing, nor any harbour for
man's resort, but through the weeds and the foam which the sea belched up
against the land he could dimly discover the rugged shore all bristled
with flints, and all that part of the coast one impending rock that seemed
impossible to climb, and the water all about so deep that not a sand was
there for any tired foot to rest upon, and every moment he feared lest
some wave more cruel than the rest should crush him against a cliff,
rendering worse than vain all his landing; and should he swim to seek a
more commodious haven farther on, he was fearful lest, weak and spent as
he was, the winds would force him back a long way off into the main, where
the terrible god Neptune, for wrath that he had so nearly escaped his
power, having gotten him again into his domain, would send out some great