Say, could one city yield a troop so fair?
Were all these partners of one native air?
Or did the rage of stormy Neptune sweep
Your lives at once, and whelm beneath the deep?
Did nightly thieves, or pirates' cruel bands,
Drench with your blood your pillaged country's sands?
Or well-defending some beleaguer'd wall,
Say, for the public did ye greatly fall?
Inform thy guest: for such I was of yore
When our triumphant navies touch'd your shore ;
Forced a long month the wintry seas to bear,
To move the great Ulysses to the war.”
"O king of men! I faithful shall relate (Replied Amphimedon) our hapless fate. Ulysses absent, our ambitious aim
With rival loves pursued his royal dame;
Her coy reserve, and prudence mix'd with pride,
Our common suit nor granted, nor denied;
But close with inward hate our deaths design'd;
Versed in all arts of wily womankind.
Her hand, laborious, in delusion spread
A spacious loom, and mix'd the various thread.
'Ye peers (she cried) who press to gain my heart,
Where dead Ulysses claims no more a part,
Yet a short space your rival suit suspend,
Till this funereal web my labours end:
Cease, till to good Laërtes I bequeath
A task of grief, his ornaments of death:
Lest, when the Fates his royal ashes claim,
The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame;
Should he, long honour'd with supreme command,
Want the last duties of a daughter's hand.'
"The fiction pleased, our generous train complies,
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise.
The work she plied, but studious of delay,
Each following night reversed the toils of day.
Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;
The fourth, her maid reveal'd th' amazing tale,
And show'd, as unperceived we took our stand,
The backward labours of her faithless hand.
Forced she completes it; and before us lay
The mingled web, whose gold and silver ray
Display'd the radiance of the night and day.
"Just as she finish'd her illustrious toil,
Ill fortune led Ulysses to our isle.
Far in a lonely nook, beside the sea,
At an old swineherd's rural lodge he lay:
Thither his son from sandy Pyle repairs,
And speedy lands, and secretly confers.
They plan our future ruin, and resort
Confederate to the city and the court.
First came the son; the father next succeeds,
Clad like a beggar, whom Eumæus leads ;
Propp'd on a staff, deform'd with age and care,
And hung with rags that flutter'd in the air.
Who could Ulysses in that form behold?
Scorn'd by the young, forgotten by the old,
Ill-used by all! to every wrong resign'd,
Patient he suffer'd with a constant mind.
But when, arising in his wrath ť obey
The will of Jove, he gave the vengeance way:
The scatter'd arms that hung around the dome
Careful he treasured in a private room;
Then to her suitors bade his queen propose
The archer's strife, the source of future woes,
And omen of our death! In vain we drew
The twanging string, and tried the stubborn yew:
To none it yields but great Ulysses' hands;
In vain we threat: Telemachus commands:
The bow he snatch'd, and in an instant bent;
Through every ring the victor arrow went.
Fierce on the threshold then in arms he stood;
Pour'd forth the darts that thirsted for our blood,
And frown'd before us, dreadful as a god!
First bleeds Antinoüs: thick the shafts resound;
And heaps on heaps the wretches strew the ground;
This way, and that, we turn, we fly, we fall;
Some god assisted, and unmann'd us all:
Ignoble cries precede the dying groans;
And batter'd brains and blood besmear the stones.
"Thus, great Atrides: thus Ulysses drove
The shades thou seest from yon fair realms above;
Our mangled bodies now deform'd with gore,
Cold and neglected, spread the marble floor.
No friend to bathe our wounds, or tears to shed
O'er the pale corse! the honours of the dead."
"Oh bless'd Ulysses! (thus the king express'd
His sudden rapture) in thy consort bless'd!
Not more thy wisdom than her virtue shined;
Not more thy patience than her constant mind.
Icarius' daughter, glory of the past,
And model to the future age, shall last:
The gods, to honour her fair fame, shall raise
(Their great reward) a poet in her praise.
Not such, O Tyndarus! thy daughter's deed,
By whose dire hand her king and husband bled;
Her shall the Muse to infamy prolong,
Example dread, and theme of tragic song!
The general sex shall suffer in her shame,
And even the best that bears a woman's name."
Thus in the regions of eternal shade
Conferr'd the mournful phantoms of the dead;
While from the town, Ulysses and his band
Pass'd to Laërtes' cultivated land.
The ground himself had purchased with his pain,
And labour made the rugged soil a plain.
There stood his mansion of the rural sort,
With useful buildings round the lowly court;
Where the few servants that divide his care,
Took their laborious rest, and homely fare;
And one Sicilian matron, old and sage,
With constant duty tends his drooping age.
Here now arriving, to his rustic band
And martial son, Ulysses gave command.
"Enter the house, and of the bristly swine
Select the largest to the powers divine.
Alone, and unattended, let me try
If yet I share the old man's memory:
If those dim eyes can yet Ulysses know
(Their light and dearest object long ago),
Now changed with time, with absence, and with woe."
Then to his train he gives his spear and shield;
The house they enter; and he seeks the field,
Through rows of shade, with various fruitage crown'd,
And labour'd scenes of richest verdure round.
Nor aged Dolius, nor his sons were there,
Nor servants, absent on another care;
To search the woods for sets of flowery thorn,
Their orchard bounds to strengthen and adorn.
But all alone the hoary king he found;
His habit coarse, but warmly wrapp'd around;
His head, that bow'd with many a pensive care,
Fenced with a double cap of goatskin hair:
His buskins old, in former service torn,
But well repair'd; and gloves against the thorn.
In this array the Kingly gardener stood,
And clear'd a plant, encumber'd with its wood.
Beneath a neighbouring tree, the chief divine
Gazed o'er his sire, retracing every line,
The ruins of himself! now worn away
With age, yet still majestic in decay!
Sudden his eyes released their watery store;
The much-enduring man could bear no more.
Doubtful he stood, if instant to embrace
His aged limbs, to kiss his reverend face,
With eager transport to disclose the whole,
And pour at once the torrent of his soul.-
Not so his judgment takes the winding way
Of question distant, and of soft essay;
More gentle methods on weak age employs:
And moves the sorrows, to enhance the joys.
Then, to his sire with beating heart he moves,
And with a tender pleasantry reproves;
Who digging round the plant still hangs his head,
Nor aught remits the work, while thus he said:
"Great is thy skill, O father! great thy toil,
Thy careful hand is stamped on all the soil,
Thy squadron'd vineyards well thy art declare,
The olive green, blue fig, and pendent pear;
And not one empty spot escapes thy care.
On every plant and tree thy cares are shown,
Nothing neglected, but thyself alone.
Forgive me, father, if this fault I blame;
Age so advanced may some indulgence claim.
Not for thy sloth, I deem thy lord unkind:
Nor speaks thy form a mean or servile mind;
I read a monarch in that princely air,
The same thy aspect, if the same thy care;
Soft sleep, fair garments, and the joys of wine,
These are the rights of age, and should be thine.
Who then thy master, say? and whose the land
So dress'd and managed by thy skilful hand?
But chief, oh tell me! (what I question most)
Is this the far-famed Ithacensian coast ?
For so reported the first man I view'd
(Some surly islander, of manners rude),
Nor farther conference vouchsafed to stay;
Heedless he whistled, and pursued his way.
But thou, whom years have taught to understand,
Humanely hear, and answer my demand:
A friend I seek, a wise one and a brave:
Say, lives he yet, or moulders in the grave?
Time was (my fortunes then were at the best)
When at my house I lodged this foreign guest;
He said, from Ithaca's fair isle he came,"
And old Laërtes was his father's name.
To him, whatever to a guest is owed
I paid, and hospitable gifts bestow'd:
To him seven talents of pure ore I told,
Twelve cloaks, twelve vests, twelve tunics stiff with gold; A bowl, that rich with polish'd silver flames,
And, skill'd in female works, four lovely dames."
At this the father, with a father's fears
(His venerable eyes bedimm'd with tears):
"This is the land; but ah! thy gifts are lost,
For godless men, and rude, possess the coast:
Sunk is the glory of this once-famed shore!
Thy ancient friend, O stranger, is no more!
Full recompense thy bounty else had borne;
For every good man yields a just return:
So civil rights demand; and who begins
The track of friendship, not pursuing, sins.
But tell me, stranger, be the truth confess'd,
What years have circled since thou saw'st that guest?
That hapless guest, alas! for ever gone!
Wretch that he was! and that I am! my son!
If ever man to misery was born,
'Twas his to suffer and 'tis mine to mourn!
Far from his friends, and from his native reign,
He lies a prey to monsters of the main;
Or savage beasts his mangled relics tear,
Or screaming vultures scatter through the air:
Nor could his mother funeral unguents shed;
Nor wail'd his father o'er th' untimely dead:
Nor his sad consort, on the mournful bier,
Seal'd his cold eyes, or dropp'd a tender tear!
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