{"id":110,"date":"2021-05-26T09:19:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T13:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/odyssey\/chapter\/book-iv\/"},"modified":"2022-02-01T10:50:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T15:50:58","slug":"4","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/chapter\/4\/","title":{"raw":"Book IV","rendered":"Book IV"},"content":{"raw":"

Argument<\/b><\/h2>\r\nTelemachus, with Pisistratus, arrives at the palace of Menelaus, from whom he receives some fresh information concerning the return of the Greecians, and is in particular told on the authority of Proteus, that his father is detained by Calypso. The suitors, plotting against the life of Telemachus, lie in wait to intercept him in his return to Ithaca. Penelope being informed of his departure, and of their designs to slay him, becomes inconsolable, but is relieved by a dream sent to her from Minerva.\r\n\r\nIn hollow Laced\u00e6mon\u2019s spacious vale\r\nArriving, to the house they drove direct\r\nOf royal Menelaus; him they found\r\nIn his own palace, all his num\u2019rous friends\r\nRegaling at a nuptial banquet giv\u2019n\r\nBoth for his daughter and the prince his son.\r\nHis daughter to renown\u2019d Achilles\u2019 heir\r\nHe sent, to whom he had at Troy engaged\r\nTo give her, and the Gods now made her his.\r\nWith chariots and with steeds he sent her forth\r\nTo the illustrious city where the prince,\r\nAchilles\u2019 offspring, ruled the Myrmidons.\r\nBut to his son he gave a Spartan fair,\r\nAlector\u2019s daughter; from an handmaid sprang\r\nThat son to Menelaus in his age,\r\nBrave Megapenthes; for the Gods no child\r\nTo Helen gave, made mother, once, of her\r\nWho vied in perfect loveliness of form\r\nWith golden Venus\u2019 self, Hermione.\r\nThus all the neighbour princes and the friends\r\nOf noble Menelaus, feasting sat\r\nWithin his spacious palace, among whom\r\nA sacred bard sang sweetly to his harp,\r\nWhile, in the midst, two dancers smote the ground\r\nWith measur\u2019d steps responsive to his song.\r\nAnd now the Heroes, Nestor\u2019s noble son\r\nAnd young Telemachus arrived within\r\nThe vestibule, whom, issuing from the hall,\r\nThe noble Eteoneus of the train\r\nOf Menelaus, saw; at once he ran\r\nAcross the palace to report the news\r\nTo his Lord\u2019s ear, and, standing at his side,\r\nIn accents wing\u2019d with haste thus greeted him.\r\nOh Menelaus! Heav\u2019n descended Chief!\r\nTwo guests arrive, both strangers, but the race\r\nOf Jove supreme resembling each in form.\r\nSay, shall we loose, ourselves, their rapid steeds,\r\nOr hence dismiss them to some other host?\r\nBut Menelaus, Hero golden-hair\u2019d,\r\nIndignant answer\u2019d him. Boethe\u2019s son!\r\nThou wast not, Eteoneus, heretofore,\r\nA babbler, who now pratest as a child.\r\nWe have ourselves arrived indebted much\r\nTo hospitality of other men,\r\nIf Jove shall, even here, some pause at last\r\nOf woe afford us. Therefore loose, at once,\r\nTheir steeds, and introduce them to the feast.\r\nHe said, and, issuing, Eteoneus call\u2019d\r\nThe brisk attendants to his aid, with whom\r\nHe loos\u2019d their foaming coursers from the yoke.\r\nThem first they bound to mangers, which with oats\r\nAnd mingled barley they supplied, then thrust\r\nThe chariot sidelong to the splendid wall.[footnote]Hesychius tells us, that the Greecians ornamented with much attention the front wall of their courts for the admiration of passengers.[\/footnote]\r\nThemselves he, next, into the royal house\r\nConducted, who survey\u2019d, wond\u2019ring, the abode\r\nOf the heav\u2019n-favour\u2019d King; for on all sides\r\nAs with the splendour of the sun or moon\r\nThe lofty dome of Menelaus blazed.\r\nSatiate, at length, with wonder at that sight,\r\nThey enter\u2019d each a bath, and by the hands\r\nOf maidens laved, and oil\u2019d, and cloath\u2019d again\r\nWith shaggy mantles and resplendent vests,\r\nSat both enthroned at Menelaus\u2019 side.\r\nAnd now a maiden charged with golden ew\u2019r,\r\nAnd with an argent laver, pouring first\r\nPure water on their hands, supplied them next\r\nWith a bright table, which the maiden, chief\r\nIn office, furnish\u2019d plenteously with bread\r\nAnd dainties, remnants of the last regale.\r\nThen came the sew\u2019r, who with delicious meats\r\nDish after dish, served them, and placed beside\r\nThe chargers cups magnificent of gold,\r\nWhen Menelaus grasp\u2019d their hands, and said.\r\nEat and rejoice, and when ye shall have shared\r\nOur nuptial banquet, we will then inquire\r\nWho are ye both, for, certain, not from those\r\nWhose generation perishes are ye,\r\nBut rather of some race of sceptred Chiefs\r\nHeav\u2019n-born; the base have never sons like you.\r\nSo saying, he from the board lifted his own\r\nDistinguish\u2019d portion, and the fatted chine\r\nGave to his guests; the sav\u2019ry viands they\r\nWith outstretch\u2019d hands assail\u2019d, and when the force\r\nNo longer now of appetite they felt,\r\nTelemachus, inclining close his head\r\nTo Nestor\u2019s son, lest others should his speech\r\nWitness, in whisper\u2019d words him thus address\u2019d.\r\nDearest Pisistratus, observe, my friend!\r\nHow all the echoing palace with the light\r\nOf beaming brass, of gold and amber shines\r\nSilver and ivory! for radiance such\r\nTh\u2019 interior mansion of Olympian Jove\r\nI deem. What wealth, how various, how immense\r\nIs here! astonish\u2019d I survey the sight!\r\nBut Menelaus, golden-hair\u2019d, his speech\r\nO\u2019erhearing, thus in accents wing\u2019d replied\r\nMy children! let no mortal man pretend\r\nComparison with Jove; for Jove\u2019s abode\r\nAnd all his stores are incorruptible.\r\nBut whether mortal man with me may vie\r\nIn the display of wealth, or whether not,\r\nThis know, that after many toils endured,\r\nAnd perilous wand\u2019rings wide, in the eighth year\r\nI brought my treasures home. Remote I roved\r\nTo Cyprus, to Ph\u0153nice, to the shores\r\nOf \u00c6gypt; \u00c6thiopia\u2019s land I reach\u2019d,\r\nTh\u2019 Erembi, the Sidonians, and the coasts\r\nOf Lybia, where the lambs their foreheads shew\r\nAt once with horns defended, soon as yean\u2019d.\r\nThere, thrice within the year the flocks produce,\r\nNor master, there, nor shepherd ever feels\r\nA dearth of cheese, of flesh, or of sweet milk\r\nDelicious, drawn from udders never dry.\r\nWhile, thus, commodities on various coasts\r\nGath\u2019ring I roam\u2019d, another, by the arts\r\nOf his pernicious spouse aided, of life\r\nBereav\u2019d my brother privily, and when least\r\nHe fear\u2019d to lose it. Therefore little joy\r\nTo me results from all that I possess.\r\nYour fathers (be those fathers who they may)\r\nThese things have doubtless told you; for immense\r\nHave been my suff\u2019rings, and I have destroy\u2019d\r\nA palace well inhabited and stored\r\nWith precious furniture in ev\u2019ry kind;\r\nSuch, that I would to heav\u2019n! I own\u2019d at home\r\nThough but the third of it, and that the Greeks\r\nWho perish\u2019d then, beneath the walls of Troy\r\nFar from steed-pastured Argos, still survived.\r\nYet while, sequester\u2019d here, I frequent mourn\r\nMy slaughter\u2019d friends, by turns I sooth my soul\r\nWith tears shed for them, and by turns again\r\nI cease; for grief soon satiates free indulged.\r\nBut of them all, although I all bewail,\r\nNone mourn I so as one, whom calling back\r\nTo memory, I both sleep and food abhor.\r\nFor, of Achaia\u2019s sons none ever toiled\r\nStrenuous as Ulysses; but his lot\r\nWas woe, and unremitting sorrow mine\r\nFor his long absence, who, if still he live,\r\nWe know not aught, or be already dead.\r\nHim doubtless, old Laertes mourns, and him\r\nDiscrete Penelope, nor less his son\r\nTelemachus, born newly when he sail\u2019d.\r\nSo saying, he kindled in him strong desire\r\nTo mourn his father; at his father\u2019s name\r\nFast fell his tears to ground, and with both hands\r\nHe spread his purple cloak before his eyes;\r\nWhich Menelaus marking, doubtful sat\r\nIf he should leave him leisure for his tears,\r\nOr question him, and tell him all at large.\r\nWhile thus he doubted, Helen (as it chanced)\r\nLeaving her fragrant chamber, came, august\r\nAs Dian, goddess of the golden bow.\r\nAdrasta, for her use, set forth a throne,\r\nAlcippe with soft arras cover\u2019d it,\r\nAnd Philo brought her silver basket, gift\r\nOf fair Alcandra, wife of Polybus,\r\nWhose mansion in \u00c6gyptian Thebes is rich\r\nIn untold treasure, and who gave, himself,\r\nTen golden talents, and two silver baths\r\nTo Menelaus, with two splendid tripods\r\nBeside the noble gifts which, at the hand\r\nOf his illustrious spouse, Helen receiv\u2019d;\r\nA golden spindle, and a basket wheel\u2019d,\r\nItself of silver, and its lip of gold.\r\nThat basket Philo, her own handmaid, placed\r\nAt beauteous Helen\u2019s side, charged to the brim\r\nWith slender threads, on which the spindle lay\r\nWith wool of purple lustre wrapp\u2019d around.\r\nApproaching, on her foot-stool\u2019d throne she sat,\r\nAnd, instant, of her royal spouse enquired.\r\nKnow we, my Menelaus, dear to Jove!\r\nThese guests of ours, and whence they have arrived?\r\nErroneous I may speak, yet speak I must;\r\nIn man or woman never have I seen\r\nSuch likeness to another (wonder-fixt\r\nI gaze) as in this stranger to the son\r\nOf brave Ulysses, whom that Hero left\r\nNew-born at home, when (shameless as I was)\r\nFor my unworthy sake the Greecians sailed\r\nTo Ilium, with fierce rage of battle fir\u2019d.\r\nThen Menelaus, thus, the golden-hair\u2019d.\r\nI also such resemblance find in him\r\nAs thou; such feet, such hands, the cast of eye[footnote]\u039f\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9.[\/footnote]<\/sup>\r\nSimilar, and the head and flowing locks.\r\nAnd even now, when I Ulysses named,\r\nAnd his great sufferings mention\u2019d, in my cause,\r\nThe bitter tear dropp\u2019d from his lids, while broad\r\nBefore his eyes his purple cloak he spread.\r\nTo whom the son of Nestor thus replied.\r\nAtrides! Menelaus! Chief renown\u2019d!\r\nHe is in truth his son, as thou hast said,\r\nBut he is modest, and would much himself\r\nCondemn, if, at his first arrival here,\r\nHe should loquacious seem and bold to thee,\r\nTo whom we listen, captived by thy voice,\r\nAs if some God had spoken. As for me,\r\nNestor, my father, the Gerenian Chief\r\nBade me conduct him hither, for he wish\u2019d\r\nTo see thee, promising himself from thee\r\nThe benefit of some kind word or deed.\r\nFor, destitute of other aid, he much\r\nHis father\u2019s tedious absence mourns at home.\r\nSo fares Telemachus; his father strays\r\nRemote, and, in his stead, no friend hath he\r\nWho might avert the mischiefs that he feels.\r\nTo whom the Hero amber-hair\u2019d replied.\r\nYe Gods! the offspring of indeed a friend\r\nHath reach\u2019d my house, of one who hath endured\r\nArduous conflicts num\u2019rous for my sake;\r\nAnd much I purpos\u2019d, had Olympian Jove\r\nVouchsaf\u2019d us prosp\u2019rous passage o\u2019er the Deep,\r\nTo have receiv\u2019d him with such friendship here\r\nAs none beside. In Argos I had then\r\nFounded a city for him, and had rais\u2019d\r\nA palace for himself; I would have brought\r\nThe Hero hither, and his son, with all\r\nHis people, and with all his wealth, some town\r\nEvacuating for his sake, of those\r\nRuled by myself, and neighb\u2019ring close my own.\r\nThus situate, we had often interchanged\r\nSweet converse, nor had other cause at last\r\nOur friendship terminated or our joys,\r\nThan death\u2019s black cloud o\u2019ershadowing him or me.\r\nBut such delights could only envy move\r\nEv\u2019n in the Gods, who have, of all the Greeks,\r\nAmerc\u2019d him<\/i> only of his wish\u2019d return.\r\nSo saying, he kindled the desire to weep\r\nIn ev\u2019ry bosom. Argive Helen wept\r\nAbundant, Jove\u2019s own daughter; wept as fast\r\nTelemachus and Menelaus both;\r\nNor Nestor\u2019s son with tearless eyes remain\u2019d,\r\nCalling to mind Antilochus[footnote]Antilochus was his brother.[\/footnote] by the son[footnote]The son of Aurora, who slew Antilochus, was Memnon.[\/footnote]<\/sup>\r\nIllustrious of the bright Aurora slain,\r\nRememb\u2019ring whom, in accents wing\u2019d he said.\r\nAtrides! antient Nestor, when of late\r\nConversing with him, we remember\u2019d thee,\r\nPronounced thee wise beyond all human-kind.\r\nNow therefore, let not even my advice\r\nDisplease thee. It affords me no delight\r\nTo intermingle tears with my repast,\r\nAnd soon, Aurora, daughter of the dawn,\r\nWill tinge the orient. Not that I account\r\nDue lamentation of a friend deceased\r\nBlameworthy, since, to shear the locks and weep,\r\nIs all we can for the unhappy dead.\r\nI also have my grief, call\u2019d to lament\r\nOne, not the meanest of Achaia\u2019s sons,\r\nMy brother; him I cannot but suppose\r\nTo thee well-known, although unknown to me\r\nWho saw him never;[footnote]Because Pisistratus was born after Antilochus had sailed to Troy.[\/footnote] but report proclaims\r\nAntilochus superior to the most,\r\nIn speed superior, and in feats of arms.\r\nTo whom, the Hero of the yellow locks.\r\nO friend belov\u2019d! since nought which thou hast said\r\nOr recommended now, would have disgraced\r\nA man of years maturer far than thine,\r\n(For wise thy father is, and such art thou,\r\nAnd easy is it to discern the son\r\nOf such a father, whom Saturnian Jove\r\nIn marriage both and at his birth ordain\u2019d\r\nTo great felicity; for he hath giv\u2019n\r\nTo Nestor gradually to sink at home\r\nInto old age, and, while he lives, to see\r\nHis sons past others wise, and skill\u2019d in arms)\r\nThe sorrow into which we sudden fell\r\nShall pause. Come\u2014now remember we the feast;\r\nPour water on our hands, for we shall find,\r\n(Telemachus and I) no dearth of themes\r\nFor mutual converse when the day shall dawn.\r\nHe ended; then, Asphalion, at his word,\r\nServant of glorious Menelaus, poured\r\nPure water on their hands, and they the feast\r\nBefore them with keen appetite assail\u2019d.\r\nBut Jove-born Helen otherwise, meantime,\r\nEmploy\u2019d, into the wine of which they drank\r\nA drug infused, antidote to the pains\r\nOf grief and anger, a most potent charm\r\nFor ills of ev\u2019ry name. Whoe\u2019er his wine\r\nSo medicated drinks, he shall not pour\r\nAll day the tears down his wan cheek, although\r\nHis father and his mother both were dead,\r\nNor even though his brother or his son\r\nHad fall\u2019n in battle, and before his eyes.\r\nSuch drugs Jove\u2019s daughter own\u2019d, with skill prepar\u2019d,\r\nAnd of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone,\r\n\u00c6gyptian Polydamna, giv\u2019n her.\r\nFor \u00c6gypt teems with drugs, yielding no few\r\nWhich, mingled with the drink, are good, and many\r\nOf baneful juice, and enemies to life.\r\nThere ev\u2019ry man in skill medicinal\r\nExcels, for they are sons of P\u00e6on all.\r\nThat drug infused, she bade her servant pour\r\nThe bev\u2019rage forth, and thus her speech resumed.\r\nAtrides! Menelaus! dear to Jove!\r\nThese also are the sons of Chiefs renown\u2019d,\r\n(For Jove, as pleases him, to each assigns\r\nOr good or evil, whom all things obey)\r\nNow therefore, feasting at your ease reclin\u2019d,\r\nListen with pleasure, for myself, the while,\r\nWill matter seasonable interpose.\r\nI cannot all rehearse, nor even name,\r\n(Omitting none) the conflicts and exploits\r\nOf brave Ulysses; but with what address\r\nSuccessful, one atchievement he perform\u2019d\r\nAt Ilium, where Achaia\u2019s sons endured\r\nSuch hardship, will I speak. Inflicting wounds\r\nDishonourable on himself, he took\r\nA tatter\u2019d garb, and like a serving-man\r\nEnter\u2019d the spacious city of your foes.\r\nSo veil\u2019d, some mendicant he seem\u2019d, although\r\nNo Greecian less deserved that name than he.\r\nIn such disguise he enter\u2019d; all alike\r\nMisdeem\u2019d him; me alone he not deceived\r\nWho challeng\u2019d him, but, shrewd, he turn\u2019d away.\r\nAt length, however, when I had myself\r\nBathed him, anointed, cloath\u2019d him, and had sworn\r\nNot to declare him openly in Troy\r\nTill he should reach again the camp and fleet,\r\nHe told me the whole purpose of the Greeks.\r\nThen, (many a Trojan slaughter\u2019d,) he regain\u2019d\r\nThe camp, and much intelligence he bore\r\nTo the Achaians. Oh what wailing then\r\nWas heard of Trojan women! but my heart\r\nExulted, alter\u2019d now, and wishing home;\r\nFor now my crime committed under force\r\nOf Venus\u2019 influence I deplored, what time\r\nShe led me to a country far remote,\r\nA wand\u2019rer from the matrimonial bed,\r\nFrom my own child, and from my rightful Lord\r\nAlike unblemish\u2019d both in form and mind.\r\nHer answer\u2019d then the Hero golden-hair\u2019d.\r\nHelen! thou hast well spoken. All is true.\r\nI have the talents fathom\u2019d and the minds\r\nOf num\u2019rous Heroes, and have travell\u2019d far\r\nYet never saw I with these eyes in man\r\nSuch firmness as the calm Ulysses own\u2019d;\r\nNone such as in the wooden horse he proved,\r\nWhere all our bravest sat, designing woe\r\nAnd bloody havoc for the sons of Troy.\r\nThou thither cam\u2019st, impell\u2019d, as it should seem,\r\nBy some divinity inclin\u2019d to give\r\nVictory to our foes, and with thee came\r\nGodlike Deiphobus. Thrice round about\r\nThe hollow ambush, striking with thy hand\r\nIts sides thou went\u2019st, and by his name didst call\r\nEach prince of Greece feigning his consort\u2019s voice.\r\nMyself with Diomede, and with divine\r\nUlysses, seated in the midst, the call\r\nHeard plain and loud; we (Diomede and I)\r\nWith ardour burn\u2019d either to quit the horse\r\nSo summon\u2019d, or to answer from within.\r\nBut, all impatient as we were, Ulysses\r\nControul\u2019d the rash design; so there the sons\r\nOf the Achaians silent sat and mute,\r\nAnd of us all Anticlus would alone\r\nHave answer\u2019d; but Ulysses with both hands\r\nCompressing close his lips, saved us, nor ceased\r\nTill Pallas thence conducted thee again.\r\nThen thus, discrete, Telemachus replied.\r\nAtrides! Menelaus! prince renown\u2019d!\r\nHard was his lot whom these rare qualities\r\nPreserved not, neither had his dauntless heart\r\nBeen iron, had he scaped his cruel doom.\r\nBut haste, dismiss us hence, that on our beds\r\nReposed, we may enjoy sleep, needful now.\r\nHe ceas\u2019d; then Argive Helen gave command\r\nTo her attendant maidens to prepare\r\nBeds in the portico with purple rugs\r\nResplendent, and with arras, overspread,\r\nAnd cover\u2019d warm with cloaks of shaggy pile.\r\nForth went the maidens, bearing each a torch,\r\nAnd spread the couches; next, the herald them\r\nLed forth, and in the vestibule the son\r\nOf Nestor and the youthful Hero slept,\r\nTelemachus; but in the interior house\r\nAtrides, with the loveliest of her sex\r\nBeside him, Helen of the sweeping stole.\r\nBut when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,\r\nGlow\u2019d in the East, then from his couch arose\r\nThe warlike Menelaus, fresh attir\u2019d;\r\nHis faulchion o\u2019er his shoulders slung, he bound\r\nHis sandals fair to his unsullied feet,\r\nAnd like a God issuing, at the side\r\nSat of Telemachus, to whom he spake.\r\nHero! Telemachus! what urgent cause\r\nHath hither led thee, to the land far-famed\r\nOf Laced\u00e6mon o\u2019er the spacious Deep?\r\nPublic concern or private? Tell me true.\r\nTo whom Telemachus discrete replied.\r\nAtrides! Menelaus! prince renown\u2019d!\r\nNews seeking of my Sire, I have arrived.\r\nMy household is devour\u2019d, my fruitful fields\r\nAre desolated, and my palace fill\u2019d\r\nWith enemies, who while they mutual wage\r\nProud competition for my mother\u2019s love,\r\nMy flocks continual slaughter, and my beeves.\r\nFor this cause, at thy knees suppliant, I beg\r\nThat thou wouldst tell me his disastrous end,\r\nIf either thou beheld\u2019st with thine own eyes\r\nHis death, or from some wand\u2019rer of the Greeks\r\nHast heard it; for no common woes, alas!\r\nWas he ordain\u2019d to share ev\u2019n from the womb.\r\nNeither through pity or o\u2019erstrain\u2019d respect\r\nFlatter me, but explicit all relate\r\nWhich thou hast witness\u2019d. If my noble Sire\r\nE\u2019er gratified thee by performance just\r\nOf word or deed at Ilium, where ye fell\r\nSo num\u2019rous slain in fight, oh recollect\r\nNow his fidelity, and tell me true!\r\nThen Menelaus, sighing deep, replied.\r\nGods! their ambition is to reach the bed\r\nOf a brave man, however base themselves.\r\nBut as it chances, when the hart hath lay\u2019d\r\nHer fawns new-yean\u2019d and sucklings yet, to rest\r\nWithin some dreadful lion\u2019s gloomy den,\r\nShe roams the hills, and in the grassy vales\r\nFeeds heedless, till the lion, to his lair\r\nReturn\u2019d, destroys her and her little-ones,\r\nSo them thy Sire shall terribly destroy.\r\nJove, Pallas and Apollo! oh that such\r\nAs erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove\r\nWith Philomelides, and threw him flat,\r\nA sight at which Achaia\u2019s sons rejoic\u2019d,\r\nSuch, now, Ulysses might assail them all!\r\nShort life and bitter nuptials should be theirs.\r\nBut thy enquiries neither indirect\r\nWill I evade, nor give thee false reply,\r\nBut all that from the Antient of the Deep[footnote]Proteus[\/footnote]<\/sup>\r\nI have receiv\u2019d will utter, hiding nought.\r\nAs yet the Gods on \u00c6gypt\u2019s shore detained\r\nMe wishing home, angry at my neglect\r\nTo heap their altars with slain hecatombs.\r\nFor they exacted from us evermore\r\nStrict rev\u2019rence of their laws. There is an isle\r\nAmid the billowy flood, Pharos by name,\r\nIn front of \u00c6gypt, distant from her shore\r\nFar as a vessel by a sprightly gale\r\nImpell\u2019d, may push her voyage in a day.\r\nThe haven there is good, and many a ship\r\nFinds wat\u2019ring there from riv\u2019lets on the coast.\r\nThere me the Gods kept twenty days, no breeze\r\nPropitious granting, that might sweep the waves,\r\nAnd usher to her home the flying bark.\r\nAnd now had our provision, all consumed,\r\nLeft us exhausted, but a certain nymph\r\nPitying saved me. Daughter fair was she\r\nOf mighty Proteus, Antient of the Deep,\r\nIdothea named; her most my sorrows moved;\r\nShe found me from my followers all apart\r\nWand\u2019ring (for they around the isle, with hooks\r\nThe fishes snaring roamed, by famine urged)\r\nAnd standing at my side, me thus bespake.\r\nStranger! thou must be ideot born, or weak\r\nAt least in intellect, or thy delight\r\nIs in distress and mis\u2019ry, who delay\u2019st\r\nTo leave this island, and no egress hence\r\nCanst find, although thy famish\u2019d people faint.\r\nSo spake the Goddess, and I thus replied.\r\nI tell thee, whosoever of the Pow\u2019rs\r\nDivine thou art, that I am prison\u2019d here\r\nNot willingly, but must have, doubtless, sinn\u2019d\r\nAgainst the deathless tenants of the skies.\r\nYet say (for the Immortals all things know)\r\nWhat God detains me, and my course forbids\r\nHence to my country o\u2019er the fishy Deep?\r\nSo I; to whom the Goddess all-divine.\r\nStranger! I will inform thee true. A seer\r\nOracular, the Antient of the Deep,\r\nImmortal Proteus, the \u00c6gyptian, haunts\r\nThese shores, familiar with all Ocean\u2019s gulphs,\r\nAnd Neptune\u2019s subject. He is by report\r\nMy father; him if thou art able once\r\nTo seize and bind, he will prescribe the course\r\nWith all its measured distances, by which\r\nThou shalt regain secure thy native shores.\r\nHe will, moreover, at thy suit declare,\r\nThou favour\u2019d of the skies! what good, what ill\r\nHath in thine house befall\u2019n, while absent thou\r\nThy voyage difficult perform\u2019st and long.\r\nShe spake, and I replied\u2014Thyself reveal\r\nBy what effectual bands I may secure\r\nThe antient Deity marine, lest, warn\u2019d\r\nOf my approach, he shun me and escape.\r\nHard task for mortal hands to bind a God!\r\nThen thus Idothea answer\u2019d all-divine.\r\nI will inform thee true. Soon as the sun\r\nHath climb\u2019d the middle heav\u2019ns, the prophet old,\r\nEmerging while the breezy zephyr blows,\r\nAnd cover\u2019d with the scum of ocean, seeks\r\nHis spacious cove, in which outstretch\u2019d he lies.\r\nThe phoc\u00e6[footnote]Seals, or sea-calves.[\/footnote] <\/sup>also, rising from the waves,\r\nOffspring of beauteous Halosydna, sleep\r\nAround him, num\u2019rous, and the fishy scent\r\nExhaling rank of the unfathom\u2019d flood.\r\nThither conducting thee at peep of day\r\nI will dispose thee in some safe recess,\r\nBut from among thy followers thou shalt chuse\r\nThe bravest three in all thy gallant fleet.\r\nAnd now the artifices understand\r\nOf the old prophet of the sea. The sum\r\nOf all his phoc\u00e6 numb\u2019ring duly first,\r\nHe will pass through them, and when all by fives\r\nHe counted hath, will in the midst repose\r\nContent, as sleeps the shepherd with his flock.\r\nWhen ye shall see him stretch\u2019d, then call to mind\r\nThat moment all your prowess, and prevent,\r\nHowe\u2019er he strive impatient, his escape.\r\nAll changes trying, he will take the form\r\nOf ev\u2019ry reptile on the earth, will seem\r\nA river now, and now devouring fire;\r\nBut hold him ye, and grasp him still the more.\r\nAnd when himself shall question you, restored\r\nTo his own form in which ye found him first\r\nReposing, then from farther force abstain;\r\nThen, Hero! loose the Antient of the Deep,\r\nAnd ask him, of the Gods who checks thy course\r\nHence to thy country o\u2019er the fishy flood.\r\nSo saying, she plunged into the billowy waste.\r\nI then, in various musings lost, my ships\r\nAlong the sea-beach station\u2019d sought again,\r\nAnd when I reach\u2019d my galley on the shore\r\nWe supp\u2019d, and sacred night falling from heav\u2019n,\r\nSlept all extended on the ocean-side.\r\nBut when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,\r\nLook\u2019d rosy forth, pensive beside the shore\r\nI walk\u2019d of Ocean, frequent to the Gods\r\nPraying devout, then chose the fittest three\r\nFor bold assault, and worthiest of my trust.\r\nMeantime the Goddess from the bosom wide\r\nOf Ocean rising, brought us thence four skins\r\nOf phoc\u00e6, and all newly stript, a snare\r\nContriving subtle to deceive her Sire.\r\nFour cradles in the sand she scoop\u2019d, then sat\r\nExpecting us, who in due time approach\u2019d;\r\nShe lodg\u2019d us side by side, and over each\r\nA raw skin cast. Horrible to ourselves\r\nProved that disguise whom the pernicious scent\r\nOf the sea-nourish\u2019d phoc\u00e6 sore annoy\u2019d;\r\nFor who would lay him down at a whale\u2019s side?\r\nBut she a potent remedy devised\r\nHerself to save us, who the nostrils sooth\u2019d\r\nOf each with pure ambrosia thither brought\r\nOdorous, which the fishy scent subdued.\r\nAll morning, patient watchers, there we lay;\r\nAnd now the num\u2019rous phoc\u00e6 from the Deep\r\nEmerging, slept along the shore, and he\r\nAt noon came also, and perceiving there\r\nHis fatted monsters, through the flock his course\r\nTook regular, and summ\u2019d them; with the first\r\nHe number\u2019d us, suspicion none of fraud\r\nConceiving, then couch\u2019d also. We, at once,\r\nLoud-shouting flew on him, and in our arms\r\nConstrain\u2019d him fast; nor the sea-prophet old\r\nCall\u2019d not incontinent his shifts to mind.\r\nFirst he became a long-maned lion grim,\r\nThen dragon, panther then, a savage boar,\r\nA limpid stream, and an o\u2019ershadowing tree.\r\nWe persevering held him, till at length\r\nThe Antient of the Deep, skill\u2019d as he is\r\nIn wiles, yet weary, question\u2019d me, and said.\r\nOh Atreus\u2019 son, by what confed\u2019rate God\r\nInstructed liest thou in wait for me,\r\nTo seize and hold me? what is thy desire?\r\nSo He; to whom thus answer I return\u2019d.\r\nOld Seer! thou know\u2019st; why, fraudful, should\u2019st thou ask?\r\nIt is because I have been prison\u2019d long\r\nWithin this isle, whence I have sought in vain\r\nDeliv\u2019rance, till my wonted courage fails.\r\nYet say (for the Immortals all things know)\r\nWhat God detains me, and my course forbids\r\nHence to my country o\u2019er the fishy Deep?\r\nSo I; when thus the old one of the waves.\r\nBut thy plain duty[footnote]From the abruptness of this beginning, Virgil, probably, who has copied the story, took the hint of his admired exordium.\r\n
\r\n\r\nNam quis te, juvenum confidentissime, nostras.\r\nEgit adire domos.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n[\/footnote] was to have adored\r\nJove, first, in sacrifice, and all the Gods,\r\nThat then embarking, by propitious gales\r\nImpell\u2019d, thou might\u2019st have reach\u2019d thy country soon.\r\nFor thou art doom\u2019d ne\u2019er to behold again\r\nThy friends, thy palace, or thy native shores,\r\nTill thou have seen once more the hallow\u2019d flood\r\nOf \u00c6gypt, and with hecatombs adored\r\nDevout, the deathless tenants of the skies.\r\nThen will they speed thee whither thou desir\u2019st.\r\nHe ended, and my heart broke at his words,\r\nWhich bade me pass again the gloomy gulph\r\nTo \u00c6gypt; tedious course, and hard to atchieve!\r\nYet, though in sorrow whelm\u2019d, I thus replied.\r\nOld prophet! I will all thy will perform.\r\nBut tell me, and the truth simply reveal;\r\nHave the Achaians with their ships arrived\r\nAll safe, whom Nestor left and I, at Troy?\r\nOr of the Chiefs have any in their barks,\r\nOr in their followers\u2019 arms found a dire death\r\nUnlook\u2019d for, since that city\u2019s siege we closed?\r\nI spake, when answer thus the God return\u2019d.\r\nAtrides, why these questions? Need is none\r\nThat thou should\u2019st all my secrets learn, which once\r\nReveal\u2019d, thou would\u2019st not long dry-eyed remain.\r\nOf those no few have died, and many live;\r\nBut leaders, two alone, in their return\r\nHave died (thou also hast had war to wage)\r\nAnd one, still living, roams the boundless sea.\r\nAjax,[footnote]Son of O\u00efleus.[\/footnote] <\/sup>surrounded by his galleys, died.\r\nHim Neptune, first, against the bulky rocks\r\nThe Gyr\u00e6 drove, but saved him from the Deep;\r\nNor had he perish\u2019d, hated as he was\r\nBy Pallas, but for his own impious boast\r\nIn frenzy utter\u2019d that he would escape\r\nThe billows, even in the Gods\u2019 despight.\r\nNeptune that speech vain-glorious hearing, grasp\u2019d\r\nHis trident, and the huge Gyr\u00e6an rock\r\nSmiting indignant, dash\u2019d it half away;\r\nPart stood, and part, on which the boaster sat\r\nWhen, first, the brainsick fury seiz\u2019d him, fell,\r\nBearing him with it down into the gulphs\r\nOf Ocean, where he drank the brine, and died.\r\nBut thy own brother in his barks escaped\r\nThat fate, by Juno saved; yet when, at length,\r\nHe should have gain\u2019d Malea\u2019s craggy shore,\r\nThen, by a sudden tempest caught, he flew\r\nWith many a groan far o\u2019er the fishy Deep\r\nTo the land\u2019s utmost point, where once his home\r\nThyestes had, but where Thyestes\u2019 son\r\nDwelt then, \u00c6gisthus. Easy lay his course\r\nAnd open thence, and, as it pleased the Gods,\r\nThe shifted wind soon bore them to their home.\r\nHe, high in exultation, trod the shore\r\nThat gave him birth, kiss\u2019d it, and, at the sight,\r\nThe welcome sight of Greece, shed many a tear.\r\nYet not unseen he landed; for a spy,\r\nOne whom the shrewd \u00c6gisthus had seduced\r\nBy promise of two golden talents, mark\u2019d\r\nHis coming from a rock where he had watch\u2019d\r\nThe year complete, lest, passing unperceived,\r\nThe King should reassert his right in arms.\r\nSwift flew the spy with tidings to this Lord,\r\nAnd He, incontinent, this project framed\r\nInsidious. Twenty men, the boldest hearts\r\nOf all the people, from the rest he chose,\r\nWhom he in ambush placed, and others charged\r\nDiligent to prepare the festal board.\r\nWith horses, then, and chariots forth he drove\r\nFull-fraught with mischief, and conducting home\r\nThe unsuspicious King, amid the feast\r\nSlew him, as at his crib men slay an ox.\r\nNor of thy brother\u2019s train, nor of his train\r\nWho slew thy brother, one survived, but all,\r\nWelt\u2019ring in blood together, there expired.\r\nHe ended, and his words beat on my heart\r\nAs they would break it. On the sands I sat\r\nWeeping, nor life nor light desiring more.\r\nBut when I had in dust roll\u2019d me, and wept\r\nTo full satiety, mine ear again\r\nThe oracle of Ocean thus address\u2019d.\r\nSit not, O son of Atreus! weeping here\r\nLonger, for remedy can none be found;\r\nBut quick arising, trial make, how best\r\nThou shalt, and soonest, reach thy home again.\r\nFor either him still living thou shalt find,\r\nOr ere thou come, Orestes shall have slain\r\nThe traytor, and thine eyes shall see his tomb.\r\nHe ceas\u2019d, and I, afflicted as I was,\r\nYet felt my spirit at that word refresh\u2019d,\r\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents answer thus return\u2019d.\r\nOf these I am inform\u2019d; but name the third\r\nWho, dead or living, on the boundless Deep\r\nIs still detain\u2019d; I dread, yet wish to hear.\r\nSo I; to whom thus Proteus in return.\r\nLaertes\u2019 son, the Lord of Ithaca\u2014\r\nHim in an island weeping I beheld,\r\nGuest of the nymph Calypso, by constraint\r\nHer guest, and from his native land withheld\r\nBy sad necessity; for ships well-oar\u2019d,\r\nOr faithful followers hath he none, whose aid\r\nMight speed him safely o\u2019er the spacious flood.\r\nBut, Menelaus dear to Jove! thy fate\r\nOrdains not thee the stroke of death to meet\r\nIn steed-fam\u2019d Argos, but far hence the Gods\r\nWill send thee to Elysium, and the earth\u2019s\r\nExtremest bounds; (there Rhadamanthus dwells,\r\nThe golden-hair\u2019d, and there the human kind\r\nEnjoy the easiest life; no snow is there,\r\nNo biting winter, and no drenching show\u2019r,\r\nBut zephyr always gently from the sea\r\nBreathes on them to refresh the happy race)\r\nFor that fair Helen is by nuptial bands\r\nThy own, and thou art son-in-law of Jove.\r\nSo saying, he plunged into the billowy waste,\r\nI then, with my brave comrades to the fleet\r\nReturn\u2019d, deep-musing as I went, and sad.\r\nNo sooner had I reach\u2019d my ship beside\r\nThe ocean, and we all had supp\u2019d, than night\r\nFrom heav\u2019n fell on us, and, at ease reposed\r\nAlong the margin of the sea, we slept.\r\nBut when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,\r\nLook\u2019d rosy forth, drawing our galleys down\r\nInto the sacred Deep, we rear\u2019d again\r\nThe mast, unfurl\u2019d the sail, and to our seats\r\nOn board returning, thresh\u2019d the foamy flood.\r\nOnce more, at length, within the hallow\u2019d stream\r\nOf \u00c6gypt mooring, on the shore I slew\r\nWhole hecatombs, and (the displeasure thus\r\nOf the immortal Gods appeased) I reared\r\nTo Agamemnon\u2019s never-dying fame\r\nA tomb, and finishing it, sail\u2019d again\r\nWith such a gale from heaven vouchsafed, as sent\r\nMy ships swift-scudding to the shores of Greece.\r\nBut come\u2014eleven days wait here, or twelve\r\nA guest with me, when I will send thee hence\r\nNobly, and honour\u2019d with illustrious gifts,\r\nWith polish\u2019d chariot, with three princely steeds,\r\nAnd with a gorgeous cup, that to the Gods\r\nLibation pouring ever while thou liv\u2019st\r\nFrom that same cup, thou may\u2019st remember me.\r\nHim, prudent, then answer\u2019d Telemachus.\r\nAtrides, seek not to detain me here\r\nLong time; for though contented I could sit\r\nThe year beside thee, nor regret my home\r\nOr parents, (so delightful thy discourse\r\nSounds in my ear) yet, even now, I know,\r\nThat my attendants to the Pylian shore\r\nWish my return, whom thou thus long detain\u2019st.\r\nWhat boon soe\u2019er thou giv\u2019st me, be it such\r\nAs I may treasur\u2019d keep; but horses none\r\nTake I to Ithaca; them rather far\r\nKeep thou, for thy own glory. Thou art Lord\r\nOf an extended plain, where copious springs\r\nThe lotus, herbage of all savours, wheat,\r\nPulse, and white barley of luxuriant growth.\r\nBut Ithaca no level champaign owns,\r\nA nursery of goats, and yet a land\r\nFairer than even pastures to the eye.\r\nNo sea-encircled isle of ours affords\r\nSmooth course commodious and expanse of meads,\r\nBut my own Ithaca transcends them all!\r\nHe said; the Hero Menelaus smiled,\r\nAnd stroaking tenderly his cheek, replied.\r\nDear youth! thy speech proclaims thy noble blood.\r\nI can with ease supply thee from within\r\nWith what shall suit thee better, and the gift\r\nOf all that I possess which most excels\r\nIn beauty, and the noblest shall be thine.\r\nI give thee, wrought elaborate, a cup\r\nItself all silver, bound with lip of gold.\r\nIt is the work of Vulcan, which to me\r\nThe Hero Ph\u00e6dimus imparted, King\r\nOf the Sidonians, when on my return\r\nHis house received me. That shall be thy own.\r\nThus they conferr\u2019d; and now the busy train\r\nOf menials culinary,[footnote]\u0394\u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03c5\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd\u2014generally signifies the founder of a feast; but we are taught by Eustathius to understand by it, in this place, the persons employed in preparing it.[\/footnote] <\/sup>at the gate\r\nEnter\u2019d of Menelaus, Chief renown\u2019d;\r\nThey brought him sheep, with heart-ennobling wine,\r\nWhile all their wives, their brows with frontlets bound,\r\nCame charg\u2019d with bread. Thus busy they prepared\r\nA banquet in the mansion of the King.\r\nMeantime, before Ulysses\u2019 palace gate\r\nThe suitors sported with the quoit and spear\r\nOn the smooth area, customary scene\r\nOf all their strife and angry clamour loud.\r\nThere sat Antino\u00fcs, and the godlike youth\r\nEurymachus, superior to the rest\r\nAnd Chiefs among them, to whom Phronius\u2019 son\r\nNo\u00ebmon drawing nigh, with anxious mien\r\nQuestion\u2019d Antino\u00fcs, and thus began.\r\nKnow we, Antino\u00fcs! or know we not,\r\nWhen to expect Telemachus at home\r\nAgain from Pylus? in my ship he went,\r\nWhich now I need, that I may cross the sea\r\nTo Elis, on whose spacious plain I feed\r\nTwelve mares, each suckling a mule-colt as yet\r\nUnbroken, but of which I purpose one\r\nTo ferry thence, and break him into use.\r\nHe spake, whom they astonish\u2019d heard; for him\r\nThey deem\u2019d not to Nel\u00ebian Pylus gone,\r\nBut haply into his own fields, his flocks\r\nTo visit, or the steward of his swine.\r\nThen thus, Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, spake.\r\nSay true. When sail\u2019d he forth? of all our youth,\r\nWhom chose he for his followers? his own train\r\nOf slaves and hirelings? hath he pow\u2019r to effect\r\nThis also? Tell me too, for I would learn\u2014\r\nTook he perforce thy sable bark away,\r\nOr gav\u2019st it to him at his first demand?\r\nTo whom No\u00ebmon, Phronius\u2019 son, replied.\r\nI gave it voluntary; what could\u2019st thou,\r\nShould such a prince petition for thy bark\r\nIn such distress? Hard were it to refuse.\r\nBrave youths (our bravest youths except yourselves)\r\nAttend him forth; and with them I observed\r\nMentor embarking, ruler o\u2019er them all,\r\nOr, if not him, a God; for such he seem\u2019d.\r\nBut this much moves my wonder. Yester-morn\r\nI saw, at day-break, noble Mentor here,\r\nWhom shipp\u2019d for Pylus I had seen before.\r\nHe ceas\u2019d; and to his father\u2019s house return\u2019d;\r\nThey, hearing, sat aghast. Their games meantime\r\nFinish\u2019d, the suitors on their seats reposed,\r\nTo whom Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, next,\r\nMuch troubled spake; a black storm overcharged\r\nHis bosom, and his vivid eyes flash\u2019d fire.\r\nYe Gods, a proud exploit is here atchieved,\r\nThis voyage of Telemachus, by us\r\nPronounced impracticable; yet the boy\r\nIn downright opposition to us all,\r\nHath headlong launched a ship, and, with a band\r\nSelected from our bravest youth, is gone.\r\nHe soon will prove more mischievous, whose pow\u2019r\r\nJove wither, ere we suffer its effects!\r\nBut give me a swift bark with twenty rowers,\r\nThat, watching his return within the streights\r\nOf rocky Samos and of Ithaca,\r\nI may surprise him; so shall he have sail\u2019d\r\nTo seek his Sire, fatally for himself.\r\nHe ceased and loud applause heard in reply,\r\nWith warm encouragement. Then, rising all,\r\nInto Ulysses\u2019 house at once they throng\u2019d.\r\nNor was Penelope left uninformed\r\nLong time of their clandestine plottings deep,\r\nFor herald Medon told her all, whose ear\r\nTheir councils caught while in the outer-court\r\nHe stood, and they that project framed within.\r\nSwift to Penelope the tale he bore,\r\nWho as he pass\u2019d the gate, him thus address\u2019d.\r\nFor what cause, herald! have the suitors sent\r\nThee foremost? Wou\u2019d they that my maidens lay\r\nTheir tasks aside, and dress the board for them?\r\nHere end their wooing! may they hence depart\r\nNever, and may the banquet now prepared,\r\nThis banquet prove your last![footnote]This transition from the third to the second person belongs to the original, and is considered as a fine stroke of art in the poet, who represents Penelope in the warmth of her resentment, forgetting where she is, and addressing the suitors as if present.[\/footnote] <\/sup>who in such throngs\r\nHere meeting, waste the patrimony fair\r\nOf brave Telemachus; ye never, sure,\r\nWhen children, heard how gracious and how good\r\nUlysses dwelt among your parents, none\r\nOf all his people, or in word or deed\r\nInjuring, as great princes oft are wont,\r\nBy favour influenc\u2019d now, now by disgust.\r\nHe no man wrong\u2019d at any time; but plain\r\nYour wicked purpose in your deeds appears,\r\nWho sense have none of benefits conferr\u2019d.\r\nThen Medon answer\u2019d thus, prudent, return\u2019d.\r\nOh Queen! may the Gods grant this prove the worst.\r\nBut greater far and heavier ills than this\r\nThe suitors plan, whose counsels Jove confound!\r\nTheir base desire and purpose are to slay\r\nTelemachus on his return; for he,\r\nTo gather tidings of his Sire is gone\r\nTo Pylus, or to Sparta\u2019s land divine.\r\nHe said; and where she stood, her trembling knees\r\nFail\u2019d under her, and all her spirits went.\r\nSpeechless she long remain\u2019d, tears filled her eyes,\r\nAnd inarticulate in its passage died\r\nHer utt\u2019rance, till at last with pain she spake.\r\nHerald! why went my son? he hath no need\r\nOn board swift ships to ride, which are to man\r\nHis steeds that bear him over seas remote.\r\nWent he, that, with himself, his very name\r\nMight perish from among mankind for ever?\r\nThen answer, thus, Medon the wise return\u2019d.\r\nI know not whether him some God impell\u2019d\r\nOr his own heart to Pylus, there to hear\r\nNews of his Sire\u2019s return, or by what fate\r\nAt least he died, if he return no more.\r\nHe said, and traversing Ulysses\u2019 courts,\r\nDeparted; she with heart consuming woe\r\nO\u2019erwhelm\u2019d, no longer could endure to take\r\nRepose on any of her num\u2019rous seats,\r\nBut on the threshold of her chamber-door\r\nLamenting sat, while all her female train\r\nAround her moan\u2019d, the antient and the young,\r\nWhom, sobbing, thus Penelope bespake.\r\nHear me, ye maidens! for of women born\r\nCoeval with me, none hath e\u2019er received\r\nSuch plenteous sorrow from the Gods as I,\r\nWho first my noble husband lost, endued\r\nWith courage lion-like, of all the Greeks\r\nThe Chief with ev\u2019ry virtue most adorn\u2019d,\r\nA prince all-excellent, whose glorious praise\r\nThrough Hellas and all Argos flew diffused.\r\nAnd now, my darling son,\u2014him storms have snatch\u2019d\r\nFar hence inglorious, and I knew it not.\r\nAh treach\u2019rous servants! conscious as ye were\r\nOf his design, not one of you the thought\r\nConceived to wake me when he went on board.\r\nFor had but the report once reach\u2019d my ear,\r\nHe either had not gone (how much soe\u2019er\r\nHe wish\u2019d to leave me) or had left me dead.\r\nBut haste ye,\u2014bid my antient servant come,\r\nDolion, whom (when I left my father\u2019s house\r\nHe gave me, and whose office is to attend\r\nMy num\u2019rous garden-plants) that he may seek\r\nAt once Laertes, and may tell him all,\r\nWho may contrive some remedy, perchance,\r\nOr fit expedient, and shall come abroad\r\nTo weep before the men who wish to slay\r\nEven the prince, godlike Ulysses\u2019 son.\r\nThen thus the gentle Euryclea spake,\r\nNurse of Telemachus. Alas! my Queen!\r\nSlay me, or spare, deal with me as thou wilt,\r\nI will confess the truth. I knew it all.\r\nI gave him all that he required from me.\r\nBoth wine and bread, and, at his bidding, swore\r\nTo tell thee nought in twelve whole days to come,\r\nOr till, enquiry made, thou should\u2019st thyself\r\nLearn his departure, lest thou should\u2019st impair\r\nThy lovely features with excess of grief.\r\nBut lave thyself, and, fresh attired, ascend\r\nTo thy own chamber, there, with all thy train,\r\nTo worship Pallas, who shall save, thenceforth,\r\nThy son from death, what ills soe\u2019er he meet.\r\nAdd not fresh sorrows to the present woes\r\nOf the old King, for I believe not yet\r\nArcesias\u2019 race entirely by the Gods\r\nRenounced, but trust that there shall still be found\r\nAmong them, who shall dwell in royal state,\r\nAnd reap the fruits of fertile fields remote.\r\nSo saying, she hush\u2019d her sorrow, and her eyes\r\nNo longer stream\u2019d. Then, bathed and fresh attired,\r\nPenelope ascended with her train\r\nThe upper palace, and a basket stored\r\nWith hallow\u2019d cakes off\u2019ring, to Pallas pray\u2019d.\r\nHear matchless daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d!\r\nIf ever wise Ulysses offer\u2019d here\r\nThe thighs of fatted kine or sheep to thee,\r\nNow mindful of his piety, preserve\r\nHis darling son, and frustrate with a frown\r\nThe cruelty of these imperious guests!\r\nShe said, and wept aloud, whose earnest suit\r\nPallas received. And now the spacious hall\r\nAnd gloomy passages with tumult rang\r\nAnd clamour of that throng, when thus, a youth,\r\nInsolent as his fellows, dared to speak.\r\nMuch woo\u2019d and long, the Queen at length prepares\r\nTo chuse another mate,[footnote]Mistaking, perhaps, the sound of her voice, and imagining that she sang.\u2014Vide Barnes in loco.[\/footnote] <\/sup>and nought suspects\r\nThe bloody death to which her son is doom\u2019d.\r\nSo he; but they, meantime, themselves remain\u2019d\r\nUntaught, what course the dread concern elsewhere\r\nHad taken, whom Antino\u00fcs thus address\u2019d.\r\nSirs! one and all, I counsel you, beware\r\nOf such bold boasting unadvised; lest one\r\nO\u2019erhearing you, report your words within.\r\nNo\u2014rather thus, in silence, let us move\r\nTo an exploit so pleasant to us all.\r\nHe said, and twenty chose, the bravest there,\r\nWith whom he sought the galley on the shore,\r\nWhich drawing down into the deep, they placed\r\nThe mast and sails on board, and, sitting, next,\r\nEach oar in order to its proper groove,\r\nUnfurl\u2019d and spread their canvas to the gale.\r\nTheir bold attendants, then, brought them their arms,\r\nAnd soon as in deep water they had moor\u2019d\r\nThe ship, themselves embarking, supp\u2019d on board,\r\nAnd watch\u2019d impatient for the dusk of eve.\r\nBut when Penelope, the palace stairs\r\nRemounting, had her upper chamber reach\u2019d,\r\nThere, unrefresh\u2019d with either food or wine,\r\nShe lay\u2019d her down, her noble son the theme\r\nOf all her thoughts, whether he should escape\r\nHis haughty foes, or perish by their hands.\r\nNum\u2019rous as are the lion\u2019s thoughts, who sees,\r\nNot without fear, a multitude with toils\r\nEncircling him around, such num\u2019rous thoughts\r\nHer bosom occupied, till sleep at length\r\nInvading her, she sank in soft repose.\r\nThen Pallas, teeming with a new design,\r\nSet forth an airy phantom in the form\r\nOf fair Iphthima, daughter of the brave\r\nIcarius, and Eumelus\u2019 wedded wife\r\nIn Pher\u00e6. Shaped like her the dream she sent\r\nInto the mansion of the godlike Chief\r\nUlysses, with kind purpose to abate\r\nThe sighs and tears of sad Penelope.\r\nEnt\u2019ring the chamber-portal, where the bolt\r\nSecured it, at her head the image stood,\r\nAnd thus, in terms compassionate, began.\r\nSleep\u2019st thou, distress\u2019d Penelope? The Gods,\r\nHappy in everlasting rest themselves,\r\nForbid thy sorrows. Thou shalt yet behold\r\nThy son again, who hath by no offence\r\nIncurr\u2019d at any time the wrath of heav\u2019n.\r\nTo whom, sweet-slumb\u2019ring in the shadowy gate\r\nBy which dreams pass, Penelope replied.\r\nWhat cause, my sister, brings thee, who art seen\r\nUnfrequent here, for that thou dwell\u2019st remote?\r\nAnd thou enjoin\u2019st me a cessation too\r\nFrom sorrows num\u2019rous, and which, fretting, wear\r\nMy heart continual; first, my spouse I lost\r\nWith courage lion-like endow\u2019d, a prince\r\nAll-excellent, whose never-dying praise\r\nThrough Hellas and all Argos flew diffused;\r\nAnd now my only son, new to the toils\r\nAnd hazards of the sea, nor less untaught\r\nThe arts of traffic, in a ship is gone\r\nFar hence, for whose dear cause I sorrow more\r\nThan for his Sire himself, and even shake\r\nWith terror, lest he perish by their hands\r\nTo whom he goes, or in the stormy Deep;\r\nFor num\u2019rous are his foes, and all intent\r\nTo slay him, ere he reach his home again.\r\nThen answer thus the shadowy form return\u2019d.\r\nTake courage; suffer not excessive dread\r\nTo overwhelm thee, such a guide he hath\r\nAnd guardian, one whom many wish their friend,\r\nAnd ever at their side, knowing her pow\u2019r,\r\nMinerva; she compassionates thy griefs,\r\nAnd I am here her harbinger, who speak\r\nAs thou hast heard by her own kind command.\r\nThen thus Penelope the wise replied.\r\nOh! if thou art a goddess, and hast heard\r\nA Goddess\u2019 voice, rehearse to me the lot\r\nOf that unhappy one, if yet he live\r\nSpectator of the cheerful beams of day,\r\nOr if, already dead, he dwell below.\r\nWhom answer\u2019d thus the fleeting shadow vain.\r\nI will not now inform thee if thy Lord\r\nLive, or live not. Vain words are best unspoken.\r\nSo saying, her egress swift beside the bolt\r\nShe made, and melted into air. Upsprang\r\nFrom sleep Icarius\u2019 daughter, and her heart\r\nFelt heal\u2019d within her, by that dream distinct\r\nVisited in the noiseless night serene.\r\nMeantime the suitors urged their wat\u2019ry way,\r\nTo instant death devoting in their hearts\r\nTelemachus. There is a rocky isle\r\nIn the mid sea, Samos the rude between\r\nAnd Ithaca, not large, named Asteris.\r\nIt hath commodious havens, into which\r\nA passage clear opens on either side,\r\nAnd there the ambush\u2019d Greeks his coming watch\u2019d.","rendered":"

Argument<\/b><\/h2>\n

Telemachus, with Pisistratus, arrives at the palace of Menelaus, from whom he receives some fresh information concerning the return of the Greecians, and is in particular told on the authority of Proteus, that his father is detained by Calypso. The suitors, plotting against the life of Telemachus, lie in wait to intercept him in his return to Ithaca. Penelope being informed of his departure, and of their designs to slay him, becomes inconsolable, but is relieved by a dream sent to her from Minerva.<\/p>\n

In hollow Laced\u00e6mon\u2019s spacious vale
\nArriving, to the house they drove direct
\nOf royal Menelaus; him they found
\nIn his own palace, all his num\u2019rous friends
\nRegaling at a nuptial banquet giv\u2019n
\nBoth for his daughter and the prince his son.
\nHis daughter to renown\u2019d Achilles\u2019 heir
\nHe sent, to whom he had at Troy engaged
\nTo give her, and the Gods now made her his.
\nWith chariots and with steeds he sent her forth
\nTo the illustrious city where the prince,
\nAchilles\u2019 offspring, ruled the Myrmidons.
\nBut to his son he gave a Spartan fair,
\nAlector\u2019s daughter; from an handmaid sprang
\nThat son to Menelaus in his age,
\nBrave Megapenthes; for the Gods no child
\nTo Helen gave, made mother, once, of her
\nWho vied in perfect loveliness of form
\nWith golden Venus\u2019 self, Hermione.
\nThus all the neighbour princes and the friends
\nOf noble Menelaus, feasting sat
\nWithin his spacious palace, among whom
\nA sacred bard sang sweetly to his harp,
\nWhile, in the midst, two dancers smote the ground
\nWith measur\u2019d steps responsive to his song.
\nAnd now the Heroes, Nestor\u2019s noble son
\nAnd young Telemachus arrived within
\nThe vestibule, whom, issuing from the hall,
\nThe noble Eteoneus of the train
\nOf Menelaus, saw; at once he ran
\nAcross the palace to report the news
\nTo his Lord\u2019s ear, and, standing at his side,
\nIn accents wing\u2019d with haste thus greeted him.
\nOh Menelaus! Heav\u2019n descended Chief!
\nTwo guests arrive, both strangers, but the race
\nOf Jove supreme resembling each in form.
\nSay, shall we loose, ourselves, their rapid steeds,
\nOr hence dismiss them to some other host?
\nBut Menelaus, Hero golden-hair\u2019d,
\nIndignant answer\u2019d him. Boethe\u2019s son!
\nThou wast not, Eteoneus, heretofore,
\nA babbler, who now pratest as a child.
\nWe have ourselves arrived indebted much
\nTo hospitality of other men,
\nIf Jove shall, even here, some pause at last
\nOf woe afford us. Therefore loose, at once,
\nTheir steeds, and introduce them to the feast.
\nHe said, and, issuing, Eteoneus call\u2019d
\nThe brisk attendants to his aid, with whom
\nHe loos\u2019d their foaming coursers from the yoke.
\nThem first they bound to mangers, which with oats
\nAnd mingled barley they supplied, then thrust
\nThe chariot sidelong to the splendid wall.[1]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThemselves he, next, into the royal house
\nConducted, who survey\u2019d, wond\u2019ring, the abode
\nOf the heav\u2019n-favour\u2019d King; for on all sides
\nAs with the splendour of the sun or moon
\nThe lofty dome of Menelaus blazed.
\nSatiate, at length, with wonder at that sight,
\nThey enter\u2019d each a bath, and by the hands
\nOf maidens laved, and oil\u2019d, and cloath\u2019d again
\nWith shaggy mantles and resplendent vests,
\nSat both enthroned at Menelaus\u2019 side.
\nAnd now a maiden charged with golden ew\u2019r,
\nAnd with an argent laver, pouring first
\nPure water on their hands, supplied them next
\nWith a bright table, which the maiden, chief
\nIn office, furnish\u2019d plenteously with bread
\nAnd dainties, remnants of the last regale.
\nThen came the sew\u2019r, who with delicious meats
\nDish after dish, served them, and placed beside
\nThe chargers cups magnificent of gold,
\nWhen Menelaus grasp\u2019d their hands, and said.
\nEat and rejoice, and when ye shall have shared
\nOur nuptial banquet, we will then inquire
\nWho are ye both, for, certain, not from those
\nWhose generation perishes are ye,
\nBut rather of some race of sceptred Chiefs
\nHeav\u2019n-born; the base have never sons like you.
\nSo saying, he from the board lifted his own
\nDistinguish\u2019d portion, and the fatted chine
\nGave to his guests; the sav\u2019ry viands they
\nWith outstretch\u2019d hands assail\u2019d, and when the force
\nNo longer now of appetite they felt,
\nTelemachus, inclining close his head
\nTo Nestor\u2019s son, lest others should his speech
\nWitness, in whisper\u2019d words him thus address\u2019d.
\nDearest Pisistratus, observe, my friend!
\nHow all the echoing palace with the light
\nOf beaming brass, of gold and amber shines
\nSilver and ivory! for radiance such
\nTh\u2019 interior mansion of Olympian Jove
\nI deem. What wealth, how various, how immense
\nIs here! astonish\u2019d I survey the sight!
\nBut Menelaus, golden-hair\u2019d, his speech
\nO\u2019erhearing, thus in accents wing\u2019d replied
\nMy children! let no mortal man pretend
\nComparison with Jove; for Jove\u2019s abode
\nAnd all his stores are incorruptible.
\nBut whether mortal man with me may vie
\nIn the display of wealth, or whether not,
\nThis know, that after many toils endured,
\nAnd perilous wand\u2019rings wide, in the eighth year
\nI brought my treasures home. Remote I roved
\nTo Cyprus, to Ph\u0153nice, to the shores
\nOf \u00c6gypt; \u00c6thiopia\u2019s land I reach\u2019d,
\nTh\u2019 Erembi, the Sidonians, and the coasts
\nOf Lybia, where the lambs their foreheads shew
\nAt once with horns defended, soon as yean\u2019d.
\nThere, thrice within the year the flocks produce,
\nNor master, there, nor shepherd ever feels
\nA dearth of cheese, of flesh, or of sweet milk
\nDelicious, drawn from udders never dry.
\nWhile, thus, commodities on various coasts
\nGath\u2019ring I roam\u2019d, another, by the arts
\nOf his pernicious spouse aided, of life
\nBereav\u2019d my brother privily, and when least
\nHe fear\u2019d to lose it. Therefore little joy
\nTo me results from all that I possess.
\nYour fathers (be those fathers who they may)
\nThese things have doubtless told you; for immense
\nHave been my suff\u2019rings, and I have destroy\u2019d
\nA palace well inhabited and stored
\nWith precious furniture in ev\u2019ry kind;
\nSuch, that I would to heav\u2019n! I own\u2019d at home
\nThough but the third of it, and that the Greeks
\nWho perish\u2019d then, beneath the walls of Troy
\nFar from steed-pastured Argos, still survived.
\nYet while, sequester\u2019d here, I frequent mourn
\nMy slaughter\u2019d friends, by turns I sooth my soul
\nWith tears shed for them, and by turns again
\nI cease; for grief soon satiates free indulged.
\nBut of them all, although I all bewail,
\nNone mourn I so as one, whom calling back
\nTo memory, I both sleep and food abhor.
\nFor, of Achaia\u2019s sons none ever toiled
\nStrenuous as Ulysses; but his lot
\nWas woe, and unremitting sorrow mine
\nFor his long absence, who, if still he live,
\nWe know not aught, or be already dead.
\nHim doubtless, old Laertes mourns, and him
\nDiscrete Penelope, nor less his son
\nTelemachus, born newly when he sail\u2019d.
\nSo saying, he kindled in him strong desire
\nTo mourn his father; at his father\u2019s name
\nFast fell his tears to ground, and with both hands
\nHe spread his purple cloak before his eyes;
\nWhich Menelaus marking, doubtful sat
\nIf he should leave him leisure for his tears,
\nOr question him, and tell him all at large.
\nWhile thus he doubted, Helen (as it chanced)
\nLeaving her fragrant chamber, came, august
\nAs Dian, goddess of the golden bow.
\nAdrasta, for her use, set forth a throne,
\nAlcippe with soft arras cover\u2019d it,
\nAnd Philo brought her silver basket, gift
\nOf fair Alcandra, wife of Polybus,
\nWhose mansion in \u00c6gyptian Thebes is rich
\nIn untold treasure, and who gave, himself,
\nTen golden talents, and two silver baths
\nTo Menelaus, with two splendid tripods
\nBeside the noble gifts which, at the hand
\nOf his illustrious spouse, Helen receiv\u2019d;
\nA golden spindle, and a basket wheel\u2019d,
\nItself of silver, and its lip of gold.
\nThat basket Philo, her own handmaid, placed
\nAt beauteous Helen\u2019s side, charged to the brim
\nWith slender threads, on which the spindle lay
\nWith wool of purple lustre wrapp\u2019d around.
\nApproaching, on her foot-stool\u2019d throne she sat,
\nAnd, instant, of her royal spouse enquired.
\nKnow we, my Menelaus, dear to Jove!
\nThese guests of ours, and whence they have arrived?
\nErroneous I may speak, yet speak I must;
\nIn man or woman never have I seen
\nSuch likeness to another (wonder-fixt
\nI gaze) as in this stranger to the son
\nOf brave Ulysses, whom that Hero left
\nNew-born at home, when (shameless as I was)
\nFor my unworthy sake the Greecians sailed
\nTo Ilium, with fierce rage of battle fir\u2019d.
\nThen Menelaus, thus, the golden-hair\u2019d.
\nI also such resemblance find in him
\nAs thou; such feet, such hands, the cast of eye[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\nSimilar, and the head and flowing locks.
\nAnd even now, when I Ulysses named,
\nAnd his great sufferings mention\u2019d, in my cause,
\nThe bitter tear dropp\u2019d from his lids, while broad
\nBefore his eyes his purple cloak he spread.
\nTo whom the son of Nestor thus replied.
\nAtrides! Menelaus! Chief renown\u2019d!
\nHe is in truth his son, as thou hast said,
\nBut he is modest, and would much himself
\nCondemn, if, at his first arrival here,
\nHe should loquacious seem and bold to thee,
\nTo whom we listen, captived by thy voice,
\nAs if some God had spoken. As for me,
\nNestor, my father, the Gerenian Chief
\nBade me conduct him hither, for he wish\u2019d
\nTo see thee, promising himself from thee
\nThe benefit of some kind word or deed.
\nFor, destitute of other aid, he much
\nHis father\u2019s tedious absence mourns at home.
\nSo fares Telemachus; his father strays
\nRemote, and, in his stead, no friend hath he
\nWho might avert the mischiefs that he feels.
\nTo whom the Hero amber-hair\u2019d replied.
\nYe Gods! the offspring of indeed a friend
\nHath reach\u2019d my house, of one who hath endured
\nArduous conflicts num\u2019rous for my sake;
\nAnd much I purpos\u2019d, had Olympian Jove
\nVouchsaf\u2019d us prosp\u2019rous passage o\u2019er the Deep,
\nTo have receiv\u2019d him with such friendship here
\nAs none beside. In Argos I had then
\nFounded a city for him, and had rais\u2019d
\nA palace for himself; I would have brought
\nThe Hero hither, and his son, with all
\nHis people, and with all his wealth, some town
\nEvacuating for his sake, of those
\nRuled by myself, and neighb\u2019ring close my own.
\nThus situate, we had often interchanged
\nSweet converse, nor had other cause at last
\nOur friendship terminated or our joys,
\nThan death\u2019s black cloud o\u2019ershadowing him or me.
\nBut such delights could only envy move
\nEv\u2019n in the Gods, who have, of all the Greeks,
\nAmerc\u2019d him<\/i> only of his wish\u2019d return.
\nSo saying, he kindled the desire to weep
\nIn ev\u2019ry bosom. Argive Helen wept
\nAbundant, Jove\u2019s own daughter; wept as fast
\nTelemachus and Menelaus both;
\nNor Nestor\u2019s son with tearless eyes remain\u2019d,
\nCalling to mind Antilochus[3]<\/sup><\/a> by the son[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\nIllustrious of the bright Aurora slain,
\nRememb\u2019ring whom, in accents wing\u2019d he said.
\nAtrides! antient Nestor, when of late
\nConversing with him, we remember\u2019d thee,
\nPronounced thee wise beyond all human-kind.
\nNow therefore, let not even my advice
\nDisplease thee. It affords me no delight
\nTo intermingle tears with my repast,
\nAnd soon, Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
\nWill tinge the orient. Not that I account
\nDue lamentation of a friend deceased
\nBlameworthy, since, to shear the locks and weep,
\nIs all we can for the unhappy dead.
\nI also have my grief, call\u2019d to lament
\nOne, not the meanest of Achaia\u2019s sons,
\nMy brother; him I cannot but suppose
\nTo thee well-known, although unknown to me
\nWho saw him never;[5]<\/sup><\/a> but report proclaims
\nAntilochus superior to the most,
\nIn speed superior, and in feats of arms.
\nTo whom, the Hero of the yellow locks.
\nO friend belov\u2019d! since nought which thou hast said
\nOr recommended now, would have disgraced
\nA man of years maturer far than thine,
\n(For wise thy father is, and such art thou,
\nAnd easy is it to discern the son
\nOf such a father, whom Saturnian Jove
\nIn marriage both and at his birth ordain\u2019d
\nTo great felicity; for he hath giv\u2019n
\nTo Nestor gradually to sink at home
\nInto old age, and, while he lives, to see
\nHis sons past others wise, and skill\u2019d in arms)
\nThe sorrow into which we sudden fell
\nShall pause. Come\u2014now remember we the feast;
\nPour water on our hands, for we shall find,
\n(Telemachus and I) no dearth of themes
\nFor mutual converse when the day shall dawn.
\nHe ended; then, Asphalion, at his word,
\nServant of glorious Menelaus, poured
\nPure water on their hands, and they the feast
\nBefore them with keen appetite assail\u2019d.
\nBut Jove-born Helen otherwise, meantime,
\nEmploy\u2019d, into the wine of which they drank
\nA drug infused, antidote to the pains
\nOf grief and anger, a most potent charm
\nFor ills of ev\u2019ry name. Whoe\u2019er his wine
\nSo medicated drinks, he shall not pour
\nAll day the tears down his wan cheek, although
\nHis father and his mother both were dead,
\nNor even though his brother or his son
\nHad fall\u2019n in battle, and before his eyes.
\nSuch drugs Jove\u2019s daughter own\u2019d, with skill prepar\u2019d,
\nAnd of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone,
\n\u00c6gyptian Polydamna, giv\u2019n her.
\nFor \u00c6gypt teems with drugs, yielding no few
\nWhich, mingled with the drink, are good, and many
\nOf baneful juice, and enemies to life.
\nThere ev\u2019ry man in skill medicinal
\nExcels, for they are sons of P\u00e6on all.
\nThat drug infused, she bade her servant pour
\nThe bev\u2019rage forth, and thus her speech resumed.
\nAtrides! Menelaus! dear to Jove!
\nThese also are the sons of Chiefs renown\u2019d,
\n(For Jove, as pleases him, to each assigns
\nOr good or evil, whom all things obey)
\nNow therefore, feasting at your ease reclin\u2019d,
\nListen with pleasure, for myself, the while,
\nWill matter seasonable interpose.
\nI cannot all rehearse, nor even name,
\n(Omitting none) the conflicts and exploits
\nOf brave Ulysses; but with what address
\nSuccessful, one atchievement he perform\u2019d
\nAt Ilium, where Achaia\u2019s sons endured
\nSuch hardship, will I speak. Inflicting wounds
\nDishonourable on himself, he took
\nA tatter\u2019d garb, and like a serving-man
\nEnter\u2019d the spacious city of your foes.
\nSo veil\u2019d, some mendicant he seem\u2019d, although
\nNo Greecian less deserved that name than he.
\nIn such disguise he enter\u2019d; all alike
\nMisdeem\u2019d him; me alone he not deceived
\nWho challeng\u2019d him, but, shrewd, he turn\u2019d away.
\nAt length, however, when I had myself
\nBathed him, anointed, cloath\u2019d him, and had sworn
\nNot to declare him openly in Troy
\nTill he should reach again the camp and fleet,
\nHe told me the whole purpose of the Greeks.
\nThen, (many a Trojan slaughter\u2019d,) he regain\u2019d
\nThe camp, and much intelligence he bore
\nTo the Achaians. Oh what wailing then
\nWas heard of Trojan women! but my heart
\nExulted, alter\u2019d now, and wishing home;
\nFor now my crime committed under force
\nOf Venus\u2019 influence I deplored, what time
\nShe led me to a country far remote,
\nA wand\u2019rer from the matrimonial bed,
\nFrom my own child, and from my rightful Lord
\nAlike unblemish\u2019d both in form and mind.
\nHer answer\u2019d then the Hero golden-hair\u2019d.
\nHelen! thou hast well spoken. All is true.
\nI have the talents fathom\u2019d and the minds
\nOf num\u2019rous Heroes, and have travell\u2019d far
\nYet never saw I with these eyes in man
\nSuch firmness as the calm Ulysses own\u2019d;
\nNone such as in the wooden horse he proved,
\nWhere all our bravest sat, designing woe
\nAnd bloody havoc for the sons of Troy.
\nThou thither cam\u2019st, impell\u2019d, as it should seem,
\nBy some divinity inclin\u2019d to give
\nVictory to our foes, and with thee came
\nGodlike Deiphobus. Thrice round about
\nThe hollow ambush, striking with thy hand
\nIts sides thou went\u2019st, and by his name didst call
\nEach prince of Greece feigning his consort\u2019s voice.
\nMyself with Diomede, and with divine
\nUlysses, seated in the midst, the call
\nHeard plain and loud; we (Diomede and I)
\nWith ardour burn\u2019d either to quit the horse
\nSo summon\u2019d, or to answer from within.
\nBut, all impatient as we were, Ulysses
\nControul\u2019d the rash design; so there the sons
\nOf the Achaians silent sat and mute,
\nAnd of us all Anticlus would alone
\nHave answer\u2019d; but Ulysses with both hands
\nCompressing close his lips, saved us, nor ceased
\nTill Pallas thence conducted thee again.
\nThen thus, discrete, Telemachus replied.
\nAtrides! Menelaus! prince renown\u2019d!
\nHard was his lot whom these rare qualities
\nPreserved not, neither had his dauntless heart
\nBeen iron, had he scaped his cruel doom.
\nBut haste, dismiss us hence, that on our beds
\nReposed, we may enjoy sleep, needful now.
\nHe ceas\u2019d; then Argive Helen gave command
\nTo her attendant maidens to prepare
\nBeds in the portico with purple rugs
\nResplendent, and with arras, overspread,
\nAnd cover\u2019d warm with cloaks of shaggy pile.
\nForth went the maidens, bearing each a torch,
\nAnd spread the couches; next, the herald them
\nLed forth, and in the vestibule the son
\nOf Nestor and the youthful Hero slept,
\nTelemachus; but in the interior house
\nAtrides, with the loveliest of her sex
\nBeside him, Helen of the sweeping stole.
\nBut when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
\nGlow\u2019d in the East, then from his couch arose
\nThe warlike Menelaus, fresh attir\u2019d;
\nHis faulchion o\u2019er his shoulders slung, he bound
\nHis sandals fair to his unsullied feet,
\nAnd like a God issuing, at the side
\nSat of Telemachus, to whom he spake.
\nHero! Telemachus! what urgent cause
\nHath hither led thee, to the land far-famed
\nOf Laced\u00e6mon o\u2019er the spacious Deep?
\nPublic concern or private? Tell me true.
\nTo whom Telemachus discrete replied.
\nAtrides! Menelaus! prince renown\u2019d!
\nNews seeking of my Sire, I have arrived.
\nMy household is devour\u2019d, my fruitful fields
\nAre desolated, and my palace fill\u2019d
\nWith enemies, who while they mutual wage
\nProud competition for my mother\u2019s love,
\nMy flocks continual slaughter, and my beeves.
\nFor this cause, at thy knees suppliant, I beg
\nThat thou wouldst tell me his disastrous end,
\nIf either thou beheld\u2019st with thine own eyes
\nHis death, or from some wand\u2019rer of the Greeks
\nHast heard it; for no common woes, alas!
\nWas he ordain\u2019d to share ev\u2019n from the womb.
\nNeither through pity or o\u2019erstrain\u2019d respect
\nFlatter me, but explicit all relate
\nWhich thou hast witness\u2019d. If my noble Sire
\nE\u2019er gratified thee by performance just
\nOf word or deed at Ilium, where ye fell
\nSo num\u2019rous slain in fight, oh recollect
\nNow his fidelity, and tell me true!
\nThen Menelaus, sighing deep, replied.
\nGods! their ambition is to reach the bed
\nOf a brave man, however base themselves.
\nBut as it chances, when the hart hath lay\u2019d
\nHer fawns new-yean\u2019d and sucklings yet, to rest
\nWithin some dreadful lion\u2019s gloomy den,
\nShe roams the hills, and in the grassy vales
\nFeeds heedless, till the lion, to his lair
\nReturn\u2019d, destroys her and her little-ones,
\nSo them thy Sire shall terribly destroy.
\nJove, Pallas and Apollo! oh that such
\nAs erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove
\nWith Philomelides, and threw him flat,
\nA sight at which Achaia\u2019s sons rejoic\u2019d,
\nSuch, now, Ulysses might assail them all!
\nShort life and bitter nuptials should be theirs.
\nBut thy enquiries neither indirect
\nWill I evade, nor give thee false reply,
\nBut all that from the Antient of the Deep[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\nI have receiv\u2019d will utter, hiding nought.
\nAs yet the Gods on \u00c6gypt\u2019s shore detained
\nMe wishing home, angry at my neglect
\nTo heap their altars with slain hecatombs.
\nFor they exacted from us evermore
\nStrict rev\u2019rence of their laws. There is an isle
\nAmid the billowy flood, Pharos by name,
\nIn front of \u00c6gypt, distant from her shore
\nFar as a vessel by a sprightly gale
\nImpell\u2019d, may push her voyage in a day.
\nThe haven there is good, and many a ship
\nFinds wat\u2019ring there from riv\u2019lets on the coast.
\nThere me the Gods kept twenty days, no breeze
\nPropitious granting, that might sweep the waves,
\nAnd usher to her home the flying bark.
\nAnd now had our provision, all consumed,
\nLeft us exhausted, but a certain nymph
\nPitying saved me. Daughter fair was she
\nOf mighty Proteus, Antient of the Deep,
\nIdothea named; her most my sorrows moved;
\nShe found me from my followers all apart
\nWand\u2019ring (for they around the isle, with hooks
\nThe fishes snaring roamed, by famine urged)
\nAnd standing at my side, me thus bespake.
\nStranger! thou must be ideot born, or weak
\nAt least in intellect, or thy delight
\nIs in distress and mis\u2019ry, who delay\u2019st
\nTo leave this island, and no egress hence
\nCanst find, although thy famish\u2019d people faint.
\nSo spake the Goddess, and I thus replied.
\nI tell thee, whosoever of the Pow\u2019rs
\nDivine thou art, that I am prison\u2019d here
\nNot willingly, but must have, doubtless, sinn\u2019d
\nAgainst the deathless tenants of the skies.
\nYet say (for the Immortals all things know)
\nWhat God detains me, and my course forbids
\nHence to my country o\u2019er the fishy Deep?
\nSo I; to whom the Goddess all-divine.
\nStranger! I will inform thee true. A seer
\nOracular, the Antient of the Deep,
\nImmortal Proteus, the \u00c6gyptian, haunts
\nThese shores, familiar with all Ocean\u2019s gulphs,
\nAnd Neptune\u2019s subject. He is by report
\nMy father; him if thou art able once
\nTo seize and bind, he will prescribe the course
\nWith all its measured distances, by which
\nThou shalt regain secure thy native shores.
\nHe will, moreover, at thy suit declare,
\nThou favour\u2019d of the skies! what good, what ill
\nHath in thine house befall\u2019n, while absent thou
\nThy voyage difficult perform\u2019st and long.
\nShe spake, and I replied\u2014Thyself reveal
\nBy what effectual bands I may secure
\nThe antient Deity marine, lest, warn\u2019d
\nOf my approach, he shun me and escape.
\nHard task for mortal hands to bind a God!
\nThen thus Idothea answer\u2019d all-divine.
\nI will inform thee true. Soon as the sun
\nHath climb\u2019d the middle heav\u2019ns, the prophet old,
\nEmerging while the breezy zephyr blows,
\nAnd cover\u2019d with the scum of ocean, seeks
\nHis spacious cove, in which outstretch\u2019d he lies.
\nThe phoc\u00e6[7]<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>also, rising from the waves,
\nOffspring of beauteous Halosydna, sleep
\nAround him, num\u2019rous, and the fishy scent
\nExhaling rank of the unfathom\u2019d flood.
\nThither conducting thee at peep of day
\nI will dispose thee in some safe recess,
\nBut from among thy followers thou shalt chuse
\nThe bravest three in all thy gallant fleet.
\nAnd now the artifices understand
\nOf the old prophet of the sea. The sum
\nOf all his phoc\u00e6 numb\u2019ring duly first,
\nHe will pass through them, and when all by fives
\nHe counted hath, will in the midst repose
\nContent, as sleeps the shepherd with his flock.
\nWhen ye shall see him stretch\u2019d, then call to mind
\nThat moment all your prowess, and prevent,
\nHowe\u2019er he strive impatient, his escape.
\nAll changes trying, he will take the form
\nOf ev\u2019ry reptile on the earth, will seem
\nA river now, and now devouring fire;
\nBut hold him ye, and grasp him still the more.
\nAnd when himself shall question you, restored
\nTo his own form in which ye found him first
\nReposing, then from farther force abstain;
\nThen, Hero! loose the Antient of the Deep,
\nAnd ask him, of the Gods who checks thy course
\nHence to thy country o\u2019er the fishy flood.
\nSo saying, she plunged into the billowy waste.
\nI then, in various musings lost, my ships
\nAlong the sea-beach station\u2019d sought again,
\nAnd when I reach\u2019d my galley on the shore
\nWe supp\u2019d, and sacred night falling from heav\u2019n,
\nSlept all extended on the ocean-side.
\nBut when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
\nLook\u2019d rosy forth, pensive beside the shore
\nI walk\u2019d of Ocean, frequent to the Gods
\nPraying devout, then chose the fittest three
\nFor bold assault, and worthiest of my trust.
\nMeantime the Goddess from the bosom wide
\nOf Ocean rising, brought us thence four skins
\nOf phoc\u00e6, and all newly stript, a snare
\nContriving subtle to deceive her Sire.
\nFour cradles in the sand she scoop\u2019d, then sat
\nExpecting us, who in due time approach\u2019d;
\nShe lodg\u2019d us side by side, and over each
\nA raw skin cast. Horrible to ourselves
\nProved that disguise whom the pernicious scent
\nOf the sea-nourish\u2019d phoc\u00e6 sore annoy\u2019d;
\nFor who would lay him down at a whale\u2019s side?
\nBut she a potent remedy devised
\nHerself to save us, who the nostrils sooth\u2019d
\nOf each with pure ambrosia thither brought
\nOdorous, which the fishy scent subdued.
\nAll morning, patient watchers, there we lay;
\nAnd now the num\u2019rous phoc\u00e6 from the Deep
\nEmerging, slept along the shore, and he
\nAt noon came also, and perceiving there
\nHis fatted monsters, through the flock his course
\nTook regular, and summ\u2019d them; with the first
\nHe number\u2019d us, suspicion none of fraud
\nConceiving, then couch\u2019d also. We, at once,
\nLoud-shouting flew on him, and in our arms
\nConstrain\u2019d him fast; nor the sea-prophet old
\nCall\u2019d not incontinent his shifts to mind.
\nFirst he became a long-maned lion grim,
\nThen dragon, panther then, a savage boar,
\nA limpid stream, and an o\u2019ershadowing tree.
\nWe persevering held him, till at length
\nThe Antient of the Deep, skill\u2019d as he is
\nIn wiles, yet weary, question\u2019d me, and said.
\nOh Atreus\u2019 son, by what confed\u2019rate God
\nInstructed liest thou in wait for me,
\nTo seize and hold me? what is thy desire?
\nSo He; to whom thus answer I return\u2019d.
\nOld Seer! thou know\u2019st; why, fraudful, should\u2019st thou ask?
\nIt is because I have been prison\u2019d long
\nWithin this isle, whence I have sought in vain
\nDeliv\u2019rance, till my wonted courage fails.
\nYet say (for the Immortals all things know)
\nWhat God detains me, and my course forbids
\nHence to my country o\u2019er the fishy Deep?
\nSo I; when thus the old one of the waves.
\nBut thy plain duty[8]<\/sup><\/a> was to have adored
\nJove, first, in sacrifice, and all the Gods,
\nThat then embarking, by propitious gales
\nImpell\u2019d, thou might\u2019st have reach\u2019d thy country soon.
\nFor thou art doom\u2019d ne\u2019er to behold again
\nThy friends, thy palace, or thy native shores,
\nTill thou have seen once more the hallow\u2019d flood
\nOf \u00c6gypt, and with hecatombs adored
\nDevout, the deathless tenants of the skies.
\nThen will they speed thee whither thou desir\u2019st.
\nHe ended, and my heart broke at his words,
\nWhich bade me pass again the gloomy gulph
\nTo \u00c6gypt; tedious course, and hard to atchieve!
\nYet, though in sorrow whelm\u2019d, I thus replied.
\nOld prophet! I will all thy will perform.
\nBut tell me, and the truth simply reveal;
\nHave the Achaians with their ships arrived
\nAll safe, whom Nestor left and I, at Troy?
\nOr of the Chiefs have any in their barks,
\nOr in their followers\u2019 arms found a dire death
\nUnlook\u2019d for, since that city\u2019s siege we closed?
\nI spake, when answer thus the God return\u2019d.
\nAtrides, why these questions? Need is none
\nThat thou should\u2019st all my secrets learn, which once
\nReveal\u2019d, thou would\u2019st not long dry-eyed remain.
\nOf those no few have died, and many live;
\nBut leaders, two alone, in their return
\nHave died (thou also hast had war to wage)
\nAnd one, still living, roams the boundless sea.
\nAjax,[9]<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>surrounded by his galleys, died.
\nHim Neptune, first, against the bulky rocks
\nThe Gyr\u00e6 drove, but saved him from the Deep;
\nNor had he perish\u2019d, hated as he was
\nBy Pallas, but for his own impious boast
\nIn frenzy utter\u2019d that he would escape
\nThe billows, even in the Gods\u2019 despight.
\nNeptune that speech vain-glorious hearing, grasp\u2019d
\nHis trident, and the huge Gyr\u00e6an rock
\nSmiting indignant, dash\u2019d it half away;
\nPart stood, and part, on which the boaster sat
\nWhen, first, the brainsick fury seiz\u2019d him, fell,
\nBearing him with it down into the gulphs
\nOf Ocean, where he drank the brine, and died.
\nBut thy own brother in his barks escaped
\nThat fate, by Juno saved; yet when, at length,
\nHe should have gain\u2019d Malea\u2019s craggy shore,
\nThen, by a sudden tempest caught, he flew
\nWith many a groan far o\u2019er the fishy Deep
\nTo the land\u2019s utmost point, where once his home
\nThyestes had, but where Thyestes\u2019 son
\nDwelt then, \u00c6gisthus. Easy lay his course
\nAnd open thence, and, as it pleased the Gods,
\nThe shifted wind soon bore them to their home.
\nHe, high in exultation, trod the shore
\nThat gave him birth, kiss\u2019d it, and, at the sight,
\nThe welcome sight of Greece, shed many a tear.
\nYet not unseen he landed; for a spy,
\nOne whom the shrewd \u00c6gisthus had seduced
\nBy promise of two golden talents, mark\u2019d
\nHis coming from a rock where he had watch\u2019d
\nThe year complete, lest, passing unperceived,
\nThe King should reassert his right in arms.
\nSwift flew the spy with tidings to this Lord,
\nAnd He, incontinent, this project framed
\nInsidious. Twenty men, the boldest hearts
\nOf all the people, from the rest he chose,
\nWhom he in ambush placed, and others charged
\nDiligent to prepare the festal board.
\nWith horses, then, and chariots forth he drove
\nFull-fraught with mischief, and conducting home
\nThe unsuspicious King, amid the feast
\nSlew him, as at his crib men slay an ox.
\nNor of thy brother\u2019s train, nor of his train
\nWho slew thy brother, one survived, but all,
\nWelt\u2019ring in blood together, there expired.
\nHe ended, and his words beat on my heart
\nAs they would break it. On the sands I sat
\nWeeping, nor life nor light desiring more.
\nBut when I had in dust roll\u2019d me, and wept
\nTo full satiety, mine ear again
\nThe oracle of Ocean thus address\u2019d.
\nSit not, O son of Atreus! weeping here
\nLonger, for remedy can none be found;
\nBut quick arising, trial make, how best
\nThou shalt, and soonest, reach thy home again.
\nFor either him still living thou shalt find,
\nOr ere thou come, Orestes shall have slain
\nThe traytor, and thine eyes shall see his tomb.
\nHe ceas\u2019d, and I, afflicted as I was,
\nYet felt my spirit at that word refresh\u2019d,
\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents answer thus return\u2019d.
\nOf these I am inform\u2019d; but name the third
\nWho, dead or living, on the boundless Deep
\nIs still detain\u2019d; I dread, yet wish to hear.
\nSo I; to whom thus Proteus in return.
\nLaertes\u2019 son, the Lord of Ithaca\u2014
\nHim in an island weeping I beheld,
\nGuest of the nymph Calypso, by constraint
\nHer guest, and from his native land withheld
\nBy sad necessity; for ships well-oar\u2019d,
\nOr faithful followers hath he none, whose aid
\nMight speed him safely o\u2019er the spacious flood.
\nBut, Menelaus dear to Jove! thy fate
\nOrdains not thee the stroke of death to meet
\nIn steed-fam\u2019d Argos, but far hence the Gods
\nWill send thee to Elysium, and the earth\u2019s
\nExtremest bounds; (there Rhadamanthus dwells,
\nThe golden-hair\u2019d, and there the human kind
\nEnjoy the easiest life; no snow is there,
\nNo biting winter, and no drenching show\u2019r,
\nBut zephyr always gently from the sea
\nBreathes on them to refresh the happy race)
\nFor that fair Helen is by nuptial bands
\nThy own, and thou art son-in-law of Jove.
\nSo saying, he plunged into the billowy waste,
\nI then, with my brave comrades to the fleet
\nReturn\u2019d, deep-musing as I went, and sad.
\nNo sooner had I reach\u2019d my ship beside
\nThe ocean, and we all had supp\u2019d, than night
\nFrom heav\u2019n fell on us, and, at ease reposed
\nAlong the margin of the sea, we slept.
\nBut when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
\nLook\u2019d rosy forth, drawing our galleys down
\nInto the sacred Deep, we rear\u2019d again
\nThe mast, unfurl\u2019d the sail, and to our seats
\nOn board returning, thresh\u2019d the foamy flood.
\nOnce more, at length, within the hallow\u2019d stream
\nOf \u00c6gypt mooring, on the shore I slew
\nWhole hecatombs, and (the displeasure thus
\nOf the immortal Gods appeased) I reared
\nTo Agamemnon\u2019s never-dying fame
\nA tomb, and finishing it, sail\u2019d again
\nWith such a gale from heaven vouchsafed, as sent
\nMy ships swift-scudding to the shores of Greece.
\nBut come\u2014eleven days wait here, or twelve
\nA guest with me, when I will send thee hence
\nNobly, and honour\u2019d with illustrious gifts,
\nWith polish\u2019d chariot, with three princely steeds,
\nAnd with a gorgeous cup, that to the Gods
\nLibation pouring ever while thou liv\u2019st
\nFrom that same cup, thou may\u2019st remember me.
\nHim, prudent, then answer\u2019d Telemachus.
\nAtrides, seek not to detain me here
\nLong time; for though contented I could sit
\nThe year beside thee, nor regret my home
\nOr parents, (so delightful thy discourse
\nSounds in my ear) yet, even now, I know,
\nThat my attendants to the Pylian shore
\nWish my return, whom thou thus long detain\u2019st.
\nWhat boon soe\u2019er thou giv\u2019st me, be it such
\nAs I may treasur\u2019d keep; but horses none
\nTake I to Ithaca; them rather far
\nKeep thou, for thy own glory. Thou art Lord
\nOf an extended plain, where copious springs
\nThe lotus, herbage of all savours, wheat,
\nPulse, and white barley of luxuriant growth.
\nBut Ithaca no level champaign owns,
\nA nursery of goats, and yet a land
\nFairer than even pastures to the eye.
\nNo sea-encircled isle of ours affords
\nSmooth course commodious and expanse of meads,
\nBut my own Ithaca transcends them all!
\nHe said; the Hero Menelaus smiled,
\nAnd stroaking tenderly his cheek, replied.
\nDear youth! thy speech proclaims thy noble blood.
\nI can with ease supply thee from within
\nWith what shall suit thee better, and the gift
\nOf all that I possess which most excels
\nIn beauty, and the noblest shall be thine.
\nI give thee, wrought elaborate, a cup
\nItself all silver, bound with lip of gold.
\nIt is the work of Vulcan, which to me
\nThe Hero Ph\u00e6dimus imparted, King
\nOf the Sidonians, when on my return
\nHis house received me. That shall be thy own.
\nThus they conferr\u2019d; and now the busy train
\nOf menials culinary,[10]<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>at the gate
\nEnter\u2019d of Menelaus, Chief renown\u2019d;
\nThey brought him sheep, with heart-ennobling wine,
\nWhile all their wives, their brows with frontlets bound,
\nCame charg\u2019d with bread. Thus busy they prepared
\nA banquet in the mansion of the King.
\nMeantime, before Ulysses\u2019 palace gate
\nThe suitors sported with the quoit and spear
\nOn the smooth area, customary scene
\nOf all their strife and angry clamour loud.
\nThere sat Antino\u00fcs, and the godlike youth
\nEurymachus, superior to the rest
\nAnd Chiefs among them, to whom Phronius\u2019 son
\nNo\u00ebmon drawing nigh, with anxious mien
\nQuestion\u2019d Antino\u00fcs, and thus began.
\nKnow we, Antino\u00fcs! or know we not,
\nWhen to expect Telemachus at home
\nAgain from Pylus? in my ship he went,
\nWhich now I need, that I may cross the sea
\nTo Elis, on whose spacious plain I feed
\nTwelve mares, each suckling a mule-colt as yet
\nUnbroken, but of which I purpose one
\nTo ferry thence, and break him into use.
\nHe spake, whom they astonish\u2019d heard; for him
\nThey deem\u2019d not to Nel\u00ebian Pylus gone,
\nBut haply into his own fields, his flocks
\nTo visit, or the steward of his swine.
\nThen thus, Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, spake.
\nSay true. When sail\u2019d he forth? of all our youth,
\nWhom chose he for his followers? his own train
\nOf slaves and hirelings? hath he pow\u2019r to effect
\nThis also? Tell me too, for I would learn\u2014
\nTook he perforce thy sable bark away,
\nOr gav\u2019st it to him at his first demand?
\nTo whom No\u00ebmon, Phronius\u2019 son, replied.
\nI gave it voluntary; what could\u2019st thou,
\nShould such a prince petition for thy bark
\nIn such distress? Hard were it to refuse.
\nBrave youths (our bravest youths except yourselves)
\nAttend him forth; and with them I observed
\nMentor embarking, ruler o\u2019er them all,
\nOr, if not him, a God; for such he seem\u2019d.
\nBut this much moves my wonder. Yester-morn
\nI saw, at day-break, noble Mentor here,
\nWhom shipp\u2019d for Pylus I had seen before.
\nHe ceas\u2019d; and to his father\u2019s house return\u2019d;
\nThey, hearing, sat aghast. Their games meantime
\nFinish\u2019d, the suitors on their seats reposed,
\nTo whom Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, next,
\nMuch troubled spake; a black storm overcharged
\nHis bosom, and his vivid eyes flash\u2019d fire.
\nYe Gods, a proud exploit is here atchieved,
\nThis voyage of Telemachus, by us
\nPronounced impracticable; yet the boy
\nIn downright opposition to us all,
\nHath headlong launched a ship, and, with a band
\nSelected from our bravest youth, is gone.
\nHe soon will prove more mischievous, whose pow\u2019r
\nJove wither, ere we suffer its effects!
\nBut give me a swift bark with twenty rowers,
\nThat, watching his return within the streights
\nOf rocky Samos and of Ithaca,
\nI may surprise him; so shall he have sail\u2019d
\nTo seek his Sire, fatally for himself.
\nHe ceased and loud applause heard in reply,
\nWith warm encouragement. Then, rising all,
\nInto Ulysses\u2019 house at once they throng\u2019d.
\nNor was Penelope left uninformed
\nLong time of their clandestine plottings deep,
\nFor herald Medon told her all, whose ear
\nTheir councils caught while in the outer-court
\nHe stood, and they that project framed within.
\nSwift to Penelope the tale he bore,
\nWho as he pass\u2019d the gate, him thus address\u2019d.
\nFor what cause, herald! have the suitors sent
\nThee foremost? Wou\u2019d they that my maidens lay
\nTheir tasks aside, and dress the board for them?
\nHere end their wooing! may they hence depart
\nNever, and may the banquet now prepared,
\nThis banquet prove your last![11]<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>who in such throngs
\nHere meeting, waste the patrimony fair
\nOf brave Telemachus; ye never, sure,
\nWhen children, heard how gracious and how good
\nUlysses dwelt among your parents, none
\nOf all his people, or in word or deed
\nInjuring, as great princes oft are wont,
\nBy favour influenc\u2019d now, now by disgust.
\nHe no man wrong\u2019d at any time; but plain
\nYour wicked purpose in your deeds appears,
\nWho sense have none of benefits conferr\u2019d.
\nThen Medon answer\u2019d thus, prudent, return\u2019d.
\nOh Queen! may the Gods grant this prove the worst.
\nBut greater far and heavier ills than this
\nThe suitors plan, whose counsels Jove confound!
\nTheir base desire and purpose are to slay
\nTelemachus on his return; for he,
\nTo gather tidings of his Sire is gone
\nTo Pylus, or to Sparta\u2019s land divine.
\nHe said; and where she stood, her trembling knees
\nFail\u2019d under her, and all her spirits went.
\nSpeechless she long remain\u2019d, tears filled her eyes,
\nAnd inarticulate in its passage died
\nHer utt\u2019rance, till at last with pain she spake.
\nHerald! why went my son? he hath no need
\nOn board swift ships to ride, which are to man
\nHis steeds that bear him over seas remote.
\nWent he, that, with himself, his very name
\nMight perish from among mankind for ever?
\nThen answer, thus, Medon the wise return\u2019d.
\nI know not whether him some God impell\u2019d
\nOr his own heart to Pylus, there to hear
\nNews of his Sire\u2019s return, or by what fate
\nAt least he died, if he return no more.
\nHe said, and traversing Ulysses\u2019 courts,
\nDeparted; she with heart consuming woe
\nO\u2019erwhelm\u2019d, no longer could endure to take
\nRepose on any of her num\u2019rous seats,
\nBut on the threshold of her chamber-door
\nLamenting sat, while all her female train
\nAround her moan\u2019d, the antient and the young,
\nWhom, sobbing, thus Penelope bespake.
\nHear me, ye maidens! for of women born
\nCoeval with me, none hath e\u2019er received
\nSuch plenteous sorrow from the Gods as I,
\nWho first my noble husband lost, endued
\nWith courage lion-like, of all the Greeks
\nThe Chief with ev\u2019ry virtue most adorn\u2019d,
\nA prince all-excellent, whose glorious praise
\nThrough Hellas and all Argos flew diffused.
\nAnd now, my darling son,\u2014him storms have snatch\u2019d
\nFar hence inglorious, and I knew it not.
\nAh treach\u2019rous servants! conscious as ye were
\nOf his design, not one of you the thought
\nConceived to wake me when he went on board.
\nFor had but the report once reach\u2019d my ear,
\nHe either had not gone (how much soe\u2019er
\nHe wish\u2019d to leave me) or had left me dead.
\nBut haste ye,\u2014bid my antient servant come,
\nDolion, whom (when I left my father\u2019s house
\nHe gave me, and whose office is to attend
\nMy num\u2019rous garden-plants) that he may seek
\nAt once Laertes, and may tell him all,
\nWho may contrive some remedy, perchance,
\nOr fit expedient, and shall come abroad
\nTo weep before the men who wish to slay
\nEven the prince, godlike Ulysses\u2019 son.
\nThen thus the gentle Euryclea spake,
\nNurse of Telemachus. Alas! my Queen!
\nSlay me, or spare, deal with me as thou wilt,
\nI will confess the truth. I knew it all.
\nI gave him all that he required from me.
\nBoth wine and bread, and, at his bidding, swore
\nTo tell thee nought in twelve whole days to come,
\nOr till, enquiry made, thou should\u2019st thyself
\nLearn his departure, lest thou should\u2019st impair
\nThy lovely features with excess of grief.
\nBut lave thyself, and, fresh attired, ascend
\nTo thy own chamber, there, with all thy train,
\nTo worship Pallas, who shall save, thenceforth,
\nThy son from death, what ills soe\u2019er he meet.
\nAdd not fresh sorrows to the present woes
\nOf the old King, for I believe not yet
\nArcesias\u2019 race entirely by the Gods
\nRenounced, but trust that there shall still be found
\nAmong them, who shall dwell in royal state,
\nAnd reap the fruits of fertile fields remote.
\nSo saying, she hush\u2019d her sorrow, and her eyes
\nNo longer stream\u2019d. Then, bathed and fresh attired,
\nPenelope ascended with her train
\nThe upper palace, and a basket stored
\nWith hallow\u2019d cakes off\u2019ring, to Pallas pray\u2019d.
\nHear matchless daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d!
\nIf ever wise Ulysses offer\u2019d here
\nThe thighs of fatted kine or sheep to thee,
\nNow mindful of his piety, preserve
\nHis darling son, and frustrate with a frown
\nThe cruelty of these imperious guests!
\nShe said, and wept aloud, whose earnest suit
\nPallas received. And now the spacious hall
\nAnd gloomy passages with tumult rang
\nAnd clamour of that throng, when thus, a youth,
\nInsolent as his fellows, dared to speak.
\nMuch woo\u2019d and long, the Queen at length prepares
\nTo chuse another mate,[12]<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>and nought suspects
\nThe bloody death to which her son is doom\u2019d.
\nSo he; but they, meantime, themselves remain\u2019d
\nUntaught, what course the dread concern elsewhere
\nHad taken, whom Antino\u00fcs thus address\u2019d.
\nSirs! one and all, I counsel you, beware
\nOf such bold boasting unadvised; lest one
\nO\u2019erhearing you, report your words within.
\nNo\u2014rather thus, in silence, let us move
\nTo an exploit so pleasant to us all.
\nHe said, and twenty chose, the bravest there,
\nWith whom he sought the galley on the shore,
\nWhich drawing down into the deep, they placed
\nThe mast and sails on board, and, sitting, next,
\nEach oar in order to its proper groove,
\nUnfurl\u2019d and spread their canvas to the gale.
\nTheir bold attendants, then, brought them their arms,
\nAnd soon as in deep water they had moor\u2019d
\nThe ship, themselves embarking, supp\u2019d on board,
\nAnd watch\u2019d impatient for the dusk of eve.
\nBut when Penelope, the palace stairs
\nRemounting, had her upper chamber reach\u2019d,
\nThere, unrefresh\u2019d with either food or wine,
\nShe lay\u2019d her down, her noble son the theme
\nOf all her thoughts, whether he should escape
\nHis haughty foes, or perish by their hands.
\nNum\u2019rous as are the lion\u2019s thoughts, who sees,
\nNot without fear, a multitude with toils
\nEncircling him around, such num\u2019rous thoughts
\nHer bosom occupied, till sleep at length
\nInvading her, she sank in soft repose.
\nThen Pallas, teeming with a new design,
\nSet forth an airy phantom in the form
\nOf fair Iphthima, daughter of the brave
\nIcarius, and Eumelus\u2019 wedded wife
\nIn Pher\u00e6. Shaped like her the dream she sent
\nInto the mansion of the godlike Chief
\nUlysses, with kind purpose to abate
\nThe sighs and tears of sad Penelope.
\nEnt\u2019ring the chamber-portal, where the bolt
\nSecured it, at her head the image stood,
\nAnd thus, in terms compassionate, began.
\nSleep\u2019st thou, distress\u2019d Penelope? The Gods,
\nHappy in everlasting rest themselves,
\nForbid thy sorrows. Thou shalt yet behold
\nThy son again, who hath by no offence
\nIncurr\u2019d at any time the wrath of heav\u2019n.
\nTo whom, sweet-slumb\u2019ring in the shadowy gate
\nBy which dreams pass, Penelope replied.
\nWhat cause, my sister, brings thee, who art seen
\nUnfrequent here, for that thou dwell\u2019st remote?
\nAnd thou enjoin\u2019st me a cessation too
\nFrom sorrows num\u2019rous, and which, fretting, wear
\nMy heart continual; first, my spouse I lost
\nWith courage lion-like endow\u2019d, a prince
\nAll-excellent, whose never-dying praise
\nThrough Hellas and all Argos flew diffused;
\nAnd now my only son, new to the toils
\nAnd hazards of the sea, nor less untaught
\nThe arts of traffic, in a ship is gone
\nFar hence, for whose dear cause I sorrow more
\nThan for his Sire himself, and even shake
\nWith terror, lest he perish by their hands
\nTo whom he goes, or in the stormy Deep;
\nFor num\u2019rous are his foes, and all intent
\nTo slay him, ere he reach his home again.
\nThen answer thus the shadowy form return\u2019d.
\nTake courage; suffer not excessive dread
\nTo overwhelm thee, such a guide he hath
\nAnd guardian, one whom many wish their friend,
\nAnd ever at their side, knowing her pow\u2019r,
\nMinerva; she compassionates thy griefs,
\nAnd I am here her harbinger, who speak
\nAs thou hast heard by her own kind command.
\nThen thus Penelope the wise replied.
\nOh! if thou art a goddess, and hast heard
\nA Goddess\u2019 voice, rehearse to me the lot
\nOf that unhappy one, if yet he live
\nSpectator of the cheerful beams of day,
\nOr if, already dead, he dwell below.
\nWhom answer\u2019d thus the fleeting shadow vain.
\nI will not now inform thee if thy Lord
\nLive, or live not. Vain words are best unspoken.
\nSo saying, her egress swift beside the bolt
\nShe made, and melted into air. Upsprang
\nFrom sleep Icarius\u2019 daughter, and her heart
\nFelt heal\u2019d within her, by that dream distinct
\nVisited in the noiseless night serene.
\nMeantime the suitors urged their wat\u2019ry way,
\nTo instant death devoting in their hearts
\nTelemachus. There is a rocky isle
\nIn the mid sea, Samos the rude between
\nAnd Ithaca, not large, named Asteris.
\nIt hath commodious havens, into which
\nA passage clear opens on either side,
\nAnd there the ambush\u2019d Greeks his coming watch\u2019d.<\/p>\n

  1. Hesychius tells us, that the Greecians ornamented with much attention the front wall of their courts for the admiration of passengers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  2. \u039f\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  3. Antilochus was his brother. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  4. The son of Aurora, who slew Antilochus, was Memnon. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  5. Because Pisistratus was born after Antilochus had sailed to Troy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  6. Proteus ↵<\/a><\/li>
  7. Seals, or sea-calves. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  8. From the abruptness of this beginning, Virgil, probably, who has copied the story, took the hint of his admired exordium.\r\n
    \r\n\r\nNam quis te, juvenum confidentissime, nostras.\r\nEgit adire domos.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n ↵<\/a><\/li>
  9. Son of O\u00efleus. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  10. \u0394\u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03c5\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd\u2014generally signifies the founder of a feast; but we are taught by Eustathius to understand by it, in this place, the persons employed in preparing it. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  11. This transition from the third to the second person belongs to the original, and is considered as a fine stroke of art in the poet, who represents Penelope in the warmth of her resentment, forgetting where she is, and addressing the suitors as if present. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  12. Mistaking, perhaps, the sound of her voice, and imagining that she sang.\u2014Vide Barnes in loco. ↵<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":299,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-110","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110\/revisions\/243"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/odyssey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}