were grazing. Part they roasted and
eat, and part they offered in sacrifice to the gods, particularly
to Apollo, god of the Sun, vowing to build a temple to his godhead,
when they should arrive in Ithaca, and deck it with magnificent and
numerous gifts: Vain men! and superstition worse than that which they
so lately derided! to imagine that prospective penitence can excuse a
present violation of duty, and that the pure natures of the heavenly
powers will admit of compromise or dispensation for sin.

But to their feast they fell, dividing the roasted portions of the
flesh, savoury and pleasant meat to them, but a sad sight to the eyes,
and a savour of death in the nostrils, of the waking Ulysses; who
just woke in time to witness, but not soon enough to prevent, their
rash and sacrilegious banquet. He had scarce time to ask what great
mischief was this which they had done unto him, when behold, a
prodigy! the ox-hides which they had stripped, began to creep, as if
they had life; and the roasted flesh bellowed as the ox used to do
when he was living. The hair of Ulysses stood up on end with affright
at these omens; but his companions, like men whom the gods had
infatuated to their destruction, persisted in their horrible banquet.

The Sun from his burning chariot saw how Ulysses's men had slain his
oxen, and he cried to his father Jove, "Revenge me upon these impious
men who have slain my oxen, which it did me good to look upon when
I walked my heavenly round. In all my daily course I never saw such
bright and beautiful creatures as those my oxen were." The father
promised that ample retribution should be taken of those accursed men:
which was fulfilled shortly after, when they took their leaves of the
fatal island.

Six days they feasted in spite of the signs of heaven, and on the
seventh, the wind changing, they set their sails, and left the island;
and their hearts were cheerful with the banquets they had held; all
but the heart of Ulysses, which sank within him, as with wet eyes he
beheld his friends, and gave them for lost, as men devoted to divine
vengeance. Which soon overtook them: for they had not gone many
leagues before a dreadful tempest arose, which burst their cables;
down came their mast, crushing the scull of the pilot in its fall;
off he fell from the stern into the water, and the bark wanting his
management drove along at the wind's mercy: thunders roared, and
terrible lightnings of Jove came down; fir