Thy lay too deeply moves; then cease the lay,
And o'er the banquet every heart be gay:
This social right demands: for him the sails,
Floating in air, invite the impelling gales.
His are the gifts of love: the wise and good
Receive the stranger as a brother's blood.
"But, friend, discover faithful what I crave; Artful concealment ill becomes the brave; Say what thy birth, and what the name you bore, Imposed by parents in the natal hour? (For from the natal hour distinctive names, One common right, the great and lowly claims :) 600 Say from what city, from what regions toss'd, And what inhabitants those regions boast ? So shalt thou instant reach the realm assign'd, In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind; No helm secures their course, no pilot guides; 605 Like man intelligent, they plough the tides, Conscious of every coast, and every bay, That lies beneath the sun's all piercing ray; Though clouds and darkness veil the encumber'd sky, Fearless through darkness and through clouds they
Though tempests rage, though rolls the swelling
The seas may roll, the tempests rage in vain;
Ev'n the stern god that o'er the waves presides,
Safe as they pass, and safe repass the tides,
With fury burns; while careless they convey
Promiscuous every guest to every bay.
These ears have heard my royal sire disclose
A dreadful story, big with future woes,
How Neptune raged, and how, by his command,
Firm rooted in a surge, a ship should stand
A monument of wrath; how mound on mound
Should bury these proud towers beneath the ground.
But this the gods may frustrate or fulfil,
As suits the purpose of the eternal will.
But say through what waste regions hast thou
What customs noted, and what coasts survey'd;
Possess'd by wild barbarians fierce in arms,
Or men, whose bosoms tender pity warms?
Say why the fate of Troy awaked thy cares,
Why heaved thy bosom, and why flow'd thy
Just are the ways of Heaven; from Heaven proceed The woes of man; Heaven doom'd the Greeks to
A theme of future song! Say then, if slain
Some dear-loved brother press'd the Phrygian plain?
Or bled some friend, who bore a brother's part, 635
And claim'd by merit, not by blood, the heart?"
The Adventures of the Cicons, Lotophagi, and Cyclops.
ULYSSES begins the relation of his adventures; how, after the destruction of Troy, he, with his companions, made an incursion on the Cicons, by whom they were repulsed; and meeting with a storm, were driven to the coast of the Lotophagi -From thence they sailed to the land of the Cyclops, whose manners and situation are particularly characterized-The giant Polyphemus and his cave described; the usage Ulysses and his companions met with there; and lastly, the method and artifice by which he escaped.
THEN thus Ulysses: "Thou whom first in sway,
As first in virtue, these thy realms obey;
How sweet the products of a peaceful reign;
The heaven-taught poet and enchanting strain;
The well-fill'd palace, the perpetual feast,
A land rejoicing, and a people bless'd!
How goodly seems it ever to employ
Man's social days in union and in joy;
The plenteous board high-heap'd with cates divine,
And o'er the foaming bowl the laughing wine!
"Amid these joys, why seeks thy mind to know
The unhappy series of a wanderer's wo?
Remembrance sad, whose image to review,
Alas! must open all my wounds anew!
And oh, what first, what last shall I relate,
Of woes unnumber'd sent by Heaven and fate ?
"Know first the man (though now a wretch dis-
Who hopes thee, monarch, for his future guest.
Behold Ulysses! no ignoble name,
Earth sounds my wisdom, and high heaven my fame.
"My native soil is Ithaca the fair, Where high Neritus waves his woods in air; Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus crown'd With shady mountains, spread their isles around : (These to the north and night's dark regions run, 25 Those to Aurora and the ris
Low lies our isle, yet bless'd in fruitful stores;
Strong are her sons, though rocky are her shores:
And none, ah none so lovely to my sight,
Of all the lands that Heaven o'erspreads with light!
In vain Calypso long constrain'd my stay,
With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay;
With all her charms as vainly Circe strove,
And added magic to secure my love.
In pomps or joys, the palace or the grot,
My country's image never was forgot,
My absent parents rose before my sight,
And distant lay contentment and delight.
"Hear then the woes which mighty Jove ordain'd
To wait my passage from the Trojan land.
The winds from Ilion to the Cicons' shore,
Beneath cold Ismarus, our vessels bore.
We boldly landed on the hostile place,
And sack'd the city, and destroy'd the race;
Their wives made captive, their possessions shared,
And every soldier found a like reward.
I then advised to fly; not so the rest,
Who staid to revel, and prolong the feast :
The fatted sheep and sable bulls they slay,
And bowls flow round, and riot wastes the day. 50
Meantime the Cicons, to their holds retired,
Call on the Cicons, with new fury fired;
With early morn the gather'd country swarms,
And all the continent is bright with arms;
Thick as the budding leaves or rising flowers
O'erspread the land, when spring descends in show-
All expert soldiers, skill'd on foot to dare,
Or from the bounding courser urge the war.
Now fortune changes; (so the fates ordain ;)
Our hour was come to taste our share of pain.
Close at the ships the bloody fight began,
Wounded they wound, and man expires on man.
Long as the morning sun increasing bright
O'er heaven's pure azure spread the growing light,
Promiscuous death the form of war confounds,
Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds::
But when his evening wheels o'erhung the main,
Then conquest crown'd the fierce Ciconian train.
Six brave companions from each ship we lost,
The rest escape in haste, and quit the coast.
With sails outspread we fly the unequal strife,
Sad for their loss, but joyful of our life.
Yet as we fled, our fellows' rites we paid,
And thrice we call'd on each unhappy shade.
"Meanwhile the god whose hand the thunder forms Drives clouds on clouds, and blackens heaven with
Wide o'er the waste the rage of Boreas sweeps,
And night rush'd headlong on the shaded deeps.
Now here, now there the giddy ships are borne,
And all the rattling shrouds in fragments torn.
We furl'd the sail, we plied the labouring oar,
Took down our masts, and row'd our ships to shore.
Two tedious days and two long nights we lay,
O'erwatch'd and batter'd in the naked bay.
But the third morning when Aurora brings,
We rear the masts, we spread the canvass wings;
Refresh'd, and careless on the deck reclined,
We sit, and trust the pilot and the wind.
Then to my native country had I sail'd;
But the cape doubled, adverse winds prevail'd,
Strong was the tide, which, by the northern blast
Impell'd, our vessels on Cythera cast.
Nine days our fleet the uncertain tempest bore
Far in wide ocean, and from sight of shore:
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