A moving cloud, swept on and hid the plain.
In the ninth book of the Iliad, where Phœnix reminds Achilles of the care he had taken of him while an infant, one circumstance extremely mean, and even disgusting, is found in the original.
οτε δη σ’ επ εμοισιν εγα γουνασσι καθισας,
Οψου τ’ ασαιμι προταμων, και οινον επισχων.
Πολλακι μοι κατεδευσας επι στηθεσσι χιτωνα,
Οινου αποβλυζων εν νηπιεη αλεγεινῆ.
“When I placed you before my knees, I filled you full with meat, and gave you wine, which you often vomited upon my bosom, and stained my clothes, in your troublesome infancy.” The English reader certainly feels an obligation to the translator for sinking altogether this nauseous image, which, instead of heightening the picture, greatly debases it:
Thy infant breast a like affection show’d,
Still in my arms, an ever pleasing load;
Or at my knee, by Phœnix would’st thou stand,