The third day after their solemn departure, as they were passing by the
Circean mount, it pleased them to go and see those antiquities, the
cave and fane of that goddess. When they were come there, the majesty of
the solitary place, the high, storm-beaten rocks, the murmur of the sea
waves which break amongst those caves, and many other circumstances of
the locality and the season combined, made them feel inspired; and one
of them I will tell thee, more bold than the others, spoke these words:
"Oh might it please heaven that in these days, as in the past more happy
ages, some wise Circe might make herself present who, with plants and
minerals working her incantations, would be able to curb nature. I
should believe that she, however proud, would surely be pitiful unto our
woes. She, solicited by our supplications and laments, would condescend
either to give a remedy or to concede a grateful vengeance for the
cruelty of our enemy."
Hardly had he finished uttering these words than there became visible to
them a palace, which, whoever had knowledge of human things, could
easily comprehend that it was not the work of man, nor of nature; the
form and manner of it I will explain to thee another time. Whence,
filled with great wonder and touched by hope that some propitious deity,
who must have placed this before them, would explain their condition and
fortunes, they said with one accord they could meet with nothing worse
than death, which they considered a less evil than to live in so much
anguish.
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