The Odyssey. Homer

With song and dance the pompous revel end.

       Light is the dance, and doubly sweet the lays,

       When for the dear delight another pays.

       His treasured stores those cormarants consume,

       Whose bones, defrauded of a regal tomb

       And common turf, lie naked on the plain,

       Or doom'd to welter in the whelming main.

       Should he return, that troop so blithe and bold,

       With purple robes inwrought, and stiff with gold,

       Precipitant in fear would wing their flight,

       And curse their cumbrous pride's unwieldy weight.

       But ah, I dream!-the appointed hour is fled.

       And hope, too long with vain delusion fed,

       Deaf to the rumour of fallacious fame,

       Gives to the roll of death his glorious name!

       With venial freedom let me now demand

       Thy name, thy lineage, and paternal land;

       Sincere from whence began thy course, recite,

       And to what ship I owe the friendly freight?

       Now first to me this visit dost thou deign,

       Or number'd in my father's social train?

       All who deserved his choice he made his own,

       And, curious much to know, he far was known."

       "My birth I boast (the blue-eyed virgin cries)

       From great Anchialus, renown'd and wise;

       Mentes my name; I rule the Taphian race,

       Whose bounds the deep circumfluent waves embrace;

       A duteous people, and industrious isle,

       To naval arts inured, and stormy toil.

       Freighted with iron from my native land,

       I steer my voyage to the Brutian strand

       To gain by commerce, for the labour'd mass,

       A just proportion of refulgent brass.

       Far from your capital my ship resides

       At Reitorus, and secure at anchor rides;

       Where waving groves on airy Neign grow,

       Supremely tall and shade the deeps below.

       Thence to revisit your imperial dome,

       An old hereditary guest I come;

       Your father's friend. Laertes can relate

       Our faith unspotted, and its early date;

       Who, press'd with heart-corroding grief and years,

       To the gay court a rural shed pretors,

       Where, sole of all his train, a matron sage

       Supports with homely fond his drooping age,

       With feeble steps from marshalling his vines

       Returning sad, when toilsome day declines.

       "With friendly speed, induced by erring fame,

       To hail Ulysses' safe return I came;

       But still the frown of some celestial power

       With envious joy retards the blissful hour.

       Let not your soul be sunk in sad despair;

       He lives, he breathes this heavenly vital air,

       Among a savage race, whose shelfy bounds

       With ceaseless roar the foaming deep surrounds.

       The thoughts which roll within my ravish'd breast,

       To me, no seer, the inspiring gods suggest;

       Nor skill'd nor studious, with prophetic eye

       To judge the winged omens of the sky.

       Yet hear this certain speech, nor deem it vain;

       Though adamantine bonds the chief restrain,

       The dire restraint his wisdom will defeat,

       And soon restore him to his regal seat.

       But generous youth! sincere and free declare,

       Are you, of manly growth, his royal heir?

       For sure Ulysses in your look appears,

       The same his features, if the same his years.

       Such was that face, on which I dwelt with joy

       Ere Greece assembled stemm'd the tides to Troy;

       But, parting then for that detested shore,

       Our eyes, unhappy never greeted more."

       "To prove a genuine birth (the prince replies)

       On female truth assenting faith relies.

       Thus manifest of right, I build my claim

       Sure-founded on a fair maternal fame,

       Ulysses' son: but happier he, whom fate

       Hath placed beneath the storms which toss the great!

       Happier the son, whose hoary sire is bless'd

       With humble affluence, and domestic rest!

       Happier than I, to future empire born,

       But doom'd a father's wretch'd fate to mourn!"

       To whom, with aspect mild, the guest divine:

       "Oh true descendant of a sceptred line!

       The gods a glorious fate from anguish free

       To chaste Penelope's increase decree.

       But say, yon jovial troops so gaily dress'd,

       Is this a bridal or a friendly feast?

       Or from their deed I rightlier may divine,

       Unseemly flown with insolence and wine?

       Unwelcome revellers, whose lawless joy

       Pains the sage ear, and hurts the sober eye."

       "Magnificence of old (the prince replied)

       Beneath our roof with virtue could reside;

       Unblamed abundance crowned the royal board,

       What time this dome revered her prudent lord;

       Who now (so Heaven decrees) is doom'd to mourn,

       Bitter constraint, erroneous and forlorn.

       Better the chief, on Ilion's hostile plain,

       Had fall'n surrounded with his warlike train;

       Or safe return'd, the race of glory pass'd,

       New to his friends' embrace, and breathed his last!

       Then grateful Greece with streaming eyes would raise,

       Historic marbles to record his praise;

       His praise, eternal on the faithful stone,

       Had with transmissive honour graced his son.

       Now snatch'd by harpies to the dreary coast.

       Sunk is the hero, and his glory lost;

       Vanish'd at once! unheard of, and unknown!

       And I his heir in misery alone.

       Nor for a dear lost father only flow

       The filial tears, but woe succeeds to woe

       To tempt the spouseless queen with amorous wiles

       Resort the nobles from the neighbouring isles;

       From Samos, circled with the Ionian main,

       Dulichium, and Zacynthas' sylvan reign;

       Ev'n with presumptuous hope her bed to ascend,