Seba.Health
The Odyssey 5.465–473
“Ah, woe is me! what is to befall me? What will happen to me at the last? If here in the river bed I keep watch throughout the weary night, I fear that together the bitter frost and the fresh dew may overcome me, when from feebleness I have breathed forth my spirit; and the breeze from the river blows cold in the early morning. But if I climb up the slope to the shady wood and lie down to rest in the thick brushwood, in the hope that the cold and weariness might leave me, and if sweet sleep comes over me, I fear me lest I become a prey and spoil to wild beasts.”
Then, as he pondered, this thing seemed to him the better:
ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τί πάθω; τί νύ μοι μήκιστα
γένηται;
εἰ μέν κʼ ἐν ποταμῷ δυσκηδέα νύκτα φυλάσσω,
μή μʼ ἄμυδις στίβη τε κακὴ καὶ θῆλυς ἐέρση
ἐξ ὀλιγηπελίης δαμάσῃ κεκαφηότα θυμόν·
αὔρη δʼ ἐκ ποταμοῦ ψυχρὴ πνέει ἠῶθι πρό.
εἰ δέ κεν ἐς κλιτὺν ἀναβὰς καὶ δάσκιον ὕλην
θάμνοις ἐν πυκινοῖσι καταδράθω, εἴ με μεθείη
ῥῖγος καὶ κάματος, γλυκερὸς δέ μοι ὕπνος ἐπέλθῃ,
δείδω, μὴ θήρεσσιν ἕλωρ καὶ κύρμα γένωμαι.