Many a falcon and owl, and crook-billed chattering sea-crows,
Birds of the brine which busy themselves with a life on the ocean.
Here too, stretching in front of the hollow mouth of the cavern,
Trailed a luxuriant vine rich-laden with many a cluster.
Four bright runnels of water arose from a neighbouring fountain,
Each one nigh to the other but turned to a different channel.
Spreading around soft meadows with violets blossomed and parsley
Richly bedight—yea e’en an immortal, if haply he came there,
All might wondering view and rejoice in his heart to behold it.[[10]]
Here it was, then, that Calypso, standing one morning in the sunny entrance to her cave, first saw Odysseus. The prophecy of Circe had been fulfilled. His crew had impiously laid hands on the sacred Oxen of the Sun, and smitten by an avenging storm sent by the wrathful Apollo, had every one paid the penalty with his life. Odysseus only had been spared; and for nine days and nights he had struggled alone with the waves on a shattered raft.