So sheer doth it spring from the sea, so sharply it cleaveth the air.
Now when ye have rounded the same, lo, stretcheth before you there
A great beach: far at the end of the gleaming strand’s long sweep
’Neath a jutting foreland the waters of Halys seaward leap
Terribly roaring; and hard thereby doth Iris go,
A lesser river, whose swirls soft-rippling gently flow.
And onward from thence is the bend of a huge cape towering high
Up from the land, and the mouth of the river Thermodon thereby, {370}
Where the height Themiskyrian watcheth the sleeping bay at its side,
Cometh murmuring still of her journeyings over the mainland wide.