Then at last the knees of Ulysses were loosened with fear, and his
heart was melted within him, and in heaviness of spirit he spake
to himself: "Woe is me! for now, when beyond all hope Zeus hath
given me the sight of land, there is no place where I may win to
shore from out of the sea. For the crags are sharp, and the waves
roar about them, and the smooth rock riseth sheer from the sea,
and the water is deep, so that I may gain no foothold. If I should
seek to land, then a great wave may dash me on the rocks. And if I
swim along the shore, to find some harbour, I fear lest the winds
may catch me again and bear me out into the deep; or it may be
that some god may send a monster of the sea against me; and verily
there are many such in the sea-pastures, and I know that Poseidon
is very wroth against me."

While he pondered these things in his heart a great wave bare him
to the rocks. Then would his skin have been stripped from him and
all his bones broken, had not Athene put a thought into his heart.
For he rushed in towards the shore, and clutched the rock with
both his hands, and clung thereto till the wave had passed. But as
it ebbed back, it caught him, and carried him again into the deep.
Even as a cuttle-fish is dragged from out its hole in the rock, so
was he dragged by the water, and the skin was stripped from his
hand against the rocks. Then would Ulysses have perished, if
Athene had not put a plan in his heart. He swam outside the
breakers, along the shore, looking for a place where the waves
might be broken, or there should be a harbour. At last he came to
where a river ran into the sea. Free was the place of rocks, and
sheltered from the wind, and Ulysses felt the stream of the river
as he ran. Then he prayed to the river-god:--