The ship or the wishes (6-10)

You could put the number of sailors at an army of soldiers. She was said to carry corn enough to feed all Attica for a year. And all this a little old man, a wee fellow, has kept from harm by turning the huge rudders with a tiny tiller. He was pointed out to me—a man with receding curly hair. Heron was his name, I believe.

He was wonderful at his job, those aboard said: wiser than Proteus at things to do with the sea.

Did you hear how he brought the ship here, what happened to those on board, and how they were saved by a star?

No, Timolaus, but I’d very much like to.

The captain himself told me—a good man, and good company. When they left Pharos, he said, the wind was not very strong, and they sighted Acamas in seven days. Then it blew against them from the west, and they were driven abeam to Sidon. After Sidon a severe storm broke and carried them through Aulon to reach the Chelidonenses on the tenth day. There they were all nearly drowned.

I myself have sailed by the Chelidonenses, and I know the size of the waves there, especially in a sou’westerly gale with a touch of south; this, you see, happens to be where the Pamphylian and Lycian seas divide. The swell is driven by numerous currents and is split on the headland—the rocks are knife-edged, razor-sharp at the sea’s edge. So the breakers are terrifying and make a great din, and the wave is often as high as the cliff itself.

This is what the captain said they found when it was still night and pitch dark. But the gods were moved by their lamentations, and showed fire from Lycia, so that they knew the place. One of the Dioscuri [*] put a bright star [*] on the masthead, and guided the ship in a turn to port into the open sea, just as it was driving on to the cliff. Then, having now lost their course, they sailed across the Aegean beating up with the trade winds against them, and yesterday, seventy days after leaving Egypt, they anchored in Piraeus, after being driven

Upon my word, that’s an amazing pilot you speak of, this Heron, as old as Nereus, [*] who went so far astray.

But what’s this? Is that not Adimantus?

So it is; Adimantus himself. Let’s give him a shout, Adimantus! You! Of Myrrinous! Strombichus’s son!

Well, either he’s annoyed with us or he’s gone deaf. It’s certainly Adimantus and no other. I see him now quite plainly—his cloak, his walk, his close-crop. Let’s put on speed, anyhow, and catch him up.