To the base court the females take their way;
There compass'd close between the dome and wall
(Their life's last scene) they trembling wait their fall.
Then thus the prince: To these shall we afford
A fate so pure, as by the martial sword?
To these, the nightly prostitutes to shame,
And base revilers of our house and name?
Thus speaking, on the circling wall he strung
A ship's tough cable, from a column hung;
Near the high top he strain'd it strongly round,
Whence no contending foot could reach the ground.
Their heads above connected in a row,

440 They beat the air with quivering feet below;

460 But cast those mean dishonest rags away; '
Permit me first the royal robes to bring:
Ill suits this garb the shoulders of a king.
Bring sulphur straight and fire, (the monarch cries,)
She hears, and at the word obedient flies.
With fire and sulphur, cure of noxious fumes,
He purged the walls, and blood-polluted rooms. 530
Again the matron springs with eager pace,
And spreads her lord's return from place to place.
They hear, rush forth, and instant round him stand,
A gazing throng, a torch in every hand.
They saw, they knew him, and with fond embrace
471 Each humbly kiss'd his knee, or hand, or face;
He knows them all, in all such truth appears,
Even he indulges the sweet joy of tears.

BOOK XXIII.

ARGUMENT.

Euryclea awakens Penelope with the news of Ulysses's return and the death of the suitors. Penelope scarce credits her; but supposes some god has punished them,

and descends from her apartment in doubt. At the first interview of Ulysses and Penelope, she is quite

unsatisfied Minerva restores him to the beauty of his youth; but the queen continues incredulous, till by some circumstances she is convinced, and falls into all the transports of passion and tenderness. They recount to each other all that has passed during their long separation. The next morning Ulysses, arming himself and his friends, goes from the city to visit his father.

BOOK XXIII.

THEN to the queen, as in repose she lay,
The nurse with eager rapture speeds her way;
The transports of her faithful heart supply
A sudden youth, and give her wings to fly.

Glorious in gore!-now with sulphureous fires
The dome he purges, now the flame aspires;
Heap'd lie the dead without the palace walls-
Haste, daughter, haste, thy own Ulysses calls!
Thy every wish the bounteous gods bestow;
Enjoy the present good, and former woe.
Ulysses lives, his vanquish'd foes to see;
He lives to thy Telemachus and thee!

Ah, no! with sighs Penelope rejoin'd,
Excess of joy disturbs thy wandering mind:
How blest this happy hour, should he appear,
Dear to us all, to me supremely dear!
Ah, no! some god the suitors' deaths decreed,
Some god descends, and by his hand they bleed;
Blind! to contemn the stranger's righteous cause,
And violate all hospitable laws!

The good they hated, and the powers defied;
But Heaven is just, and by a god they died.
For never must Ulysses view this shore;
Never! the loved Ulysses is no more!
What words (the matron cries) have reach'd my
ears?

And sleeps my child? the reverend matron cries: Doubt we his presence, when he now appears?

Ulysses lives! arise, my child, arise!

10

At length appears the long-expected hour!
Ulysses comes! the suitors are no more!
No more they view the golden light of day!
Arise, and bless thee with the glad survey!
Touch'd at her words, the mournful queen rejoin'd,
Ah! whither wanders thy distemper'd mind?
The righteous powers, who tread the starry skies,
The weak enlighten, and confound the wise,
And human thought, with unresisted sway,
Depress or raise, enlarge or take away:
Truth, by their high decree, thy voice forsakes,
And folly with the tongue of wisdom speaks.
Unkind, the fond illusion to impose!
Was it to flatter or deride my woes?

Never did I a sleep so sweet enjoy,

20

Then hear conviction: Ere the fatal day
That forced Ulysses o'er the watery way,

60

70

A boar, fierce rushing in the sylvan war,
Plough'd half his thigh; I saw, I saw the scar,
And wild with transport had reveal'd the wound;
But ere I spoke, he rose, and check'd the sound.
Then, daughter, haste away! and if a lie
Flow from this tongue, then let thy servant die! 80
To whom with dubious joy the queen replies,
Wise is thy soul, but errors seize the wise;
The works of gods what mortal can survey?
Who knows their motives, who shall trace their way?
But learn we instant how the suitors trod
The paths of death, by man, or by a god.
Thus speaks the queen, and no reply attends,
But with alternate joy and fear descends;
At every step debates her lord to prove ;
Or, rushing to his arms, confess her love!
Then gliding through the marble valves, in state
Opposed, before the shining sire she sate.
The monarch by a column high enthroned
His eye withdrew, and fix'd it on the ground;
Curious to hear his queen the silence break:
Amazed she sate, and impotent to speak;
30 O'er all the man her eyes she rolls in vain,
Now hopes, now fears, now knows, then doubts
again,

Since my dear lord left Ithaca for Troy.
Why must I wake to grieve, and curse thy shore,
O Troy?-may never tongue pronounce thee more!
Begone! another might have felt our rage,
But age is sacred, and we spare thy age.

To whom with warmth: My soul a lie disdains:
Ulysses lives, thy own Ulysses reigns:
That stranger, patient of the suitors' wrongs,
And the rude licence of ungovern'd tongues,
He, he is thine. Thy son his latent guest
Long knew, but lock'd the secret in his breast;
With well concerted art to end his woes,
And burst at once in vengeance on the foes.
While yet she spoke, the queen in transport sprung
Swift from the couch, and round the matron hung:
Fast from her eye descends the rolling tear.
Say, once more say, is my Ulysses here?
How could that numerous and outrageous band
By one be slain, though by a hero's hand?
I saw it not, she cried, but heard alone,
When death was busy, a loud dying groan;
The damsel-train turn'd pale at every wound;
Immured we sate, and catch'd cach passing sound;
When death had seized her prey, thy son attends,
And at his nod the damsel-train descends:
There, terrible in arms, Ulysses stood,

And the dead suitors almost swam in blood:
Thy heart had leap'd the hero to survey,
Stern as the suriy lion o'er his prey,

At length Telemachus-Oh, who can find
A woman like Penelope unkind?
Why thus in silence? why with winning charms
Thus slow to fly with rapture to his arms?
Stubborn the breast that with no transport glows,
When twice ten years are pass'd of mighty woes;
To softness lost, to spousal love unknown,

90

100

110

40 The gods have form'd that rigid heart of stone.
O
my Telemachus! the queen rejoin'd,
Distracting fears confound my labouring mind;
Powerless to speak, I scarce uplift my eyes,
Nor dare to question; doubts on doubts arise.
Oh deign he, if Ulysses, to remove
These boding thoughts, and what he is, to prove!
Pleased with her virtuous fears, the king replies,
Indulge, my son, the cautions of the wise;
Time shall the truth to sure remembrance bring;
50 This garb of poverty belies the king.

Alas for this! what mortal strength can move The enormous burden; who but heaven above? It mocks the weak attempts of human hands; 120 But the whole earth must move, if heaven commands,

No more. This day our deepest care requires,
Cautious to act what thought mature inspires.
If one man's blood, though mean, distain our hands,
The homicide retreats to foreign lands;
By us, in heaps the illustrious peerage falls,
The important deed our whole attention calls.
Be that thy care, Telemachus replies;
The world conspires to speak Ulysses wise;
For wisdom all is thine! lo, I obey,
And dauntless follow where you lead the way;
Nor shalt thou in the day of danger find
Thy coward son degenerate lag behind

Then instant to the bath (the monarch cries)
Bid the gay youth and sprightly virgins rise,
Thence all descend in pomp and proud array,
And bid the dome resound the mirthful lay;
While the sweet lyrist airs of rapture sings,
And forms the dance responsive to the strings.
That hence the eluded passengers may say,
Lo! the queen weds! we hear the spousal lay!
The suitors' death, unknown, 'till we remove
Far from the court, and act inspired by Jove.

Thus spoke the king; the observant train obey,
At once they bathe, and dress in proud array:
The lyrist strikes the string; gay youths advance,
And fair zoned damsels form the sprightly dance.
The voice, attuned to instrumental sounds,
Ascends the roof, the vaulted roof rebounds:
Not unobserved: the Greeks eluded say,
Lo! the queen weds, we hear the spousal lay!
Inconstant to admit the bridal hour.

Thus they-but nobly chaste she weds no more.
Meanwhile the wearied king the bath ascends!
With faithful cares Eurynomè attends,
O'er every limb a shower of fragrance sheds;
Then, drest in pomp, magnificent he treads.
The warrior-goddess gives his frame to shine
With majesty enlarged, and grace divine.
Back from his brows in wavy ringlets fly
His thick large locks of hyacinthine dye.
As by some artist to whom Vulcan gives
His heavenly skill, a breathing image lives;
By Pallas taught, he frames the wonderous mould
And the pale silver glows with fusile gold:
So Pallas his heroic form improves

Then hear sure evidence, while we display
Words seal'd with sacred truth, and truth obey; 190
This hand the wonder framed; an olive spread
Full in the court it's ever-verdant head.
Vast as some mighty column's bulk, on high
The huge trunk rose, and heaved into the sky;
Around the tree I raised a nuptial bower,

And roof'd defensive of the storm and shower;
130 The spacious valve, with art inwrought, conjoins
And the fair dome with polish'd marble shines.
I lopp'd the branchy head; aloft in twain
Sever'd the bole, and smooth'd the shining grain;
Then posts, capacious of the frame, I raise,
And bore it, regular, from space to space :
Athwart the frame, at equal distance lie
Thongs of tough hides, that boast a purple dye;
Then polishing the whole, the finish'd mould
With silver shone, with elephant, and gold.
But if o'erturn'd by rude, ungovern'd hands,
Or still inviolate the olive stands,

140

'Tis thine, oh queen, to say; and now impart,
If fears remain, or doubts distract thy heart?
While yet he speaks, her powers of life decay,
She sickens, trembles, falls, and faints away.
At length, recovering, to his arms she flew,
And strain'd him close, as to his breast she grew :
The tears pour'd down amain; and, oh, she cries,
Let not against thy spouse thine anger rise!
150 O versed in every turn of human art,

201

210

Forgive the weakness of a woman's heart!
The righteous powers, that mortal lots dispose,
Decree us to sustain a length of woes,
And from the flower of life the bliss deny
To bloom together, fade away, and die.
O let me, let me not thine anger move,
That I forbore, thus, thus to speak my love:
Thus in fond kisses, while the transport warms,
Pour out my soul, and die within thy arms!
160 I dreaded fraud! Men, faithless men betray
Our easy faith, and make the sex their prey:
Against the fondness of my heart I strove;
'Twas caution, oh my lord! not want of love.
Like me had Helen fear'd, with wanton charms
Ere the fair mischief set two worlds in arms;
Ere Greece rose dreadful in the avenging day;
Thus had she fear'd, she had not gone astray.
But Heaven, averse to Greece, in wrath decreed
That she should wander, and that Greece should
bleed:

170

220

230

With bloom divine, and like a god he moves!
More high he treads, and issuing forth in state,
Radiant before his gazing consort sate.
And, oh my queen! he cries; what power above
Has steel'd that heart, averse to spousal love?
Canst thou, Penelope, when Heaven restores
Thy lost Ulysses to his native shores,
Canst thou, oh cruel! unconcern'd survey
Thy lost Ulysses, on this signal day?
Haste, Euryclea, and dispatchful spread
For me, and me alone, the imperial bed;
My weary nature craves the balm of rest;
But Heaven with adamant has arm'd her breast.
Ah no! she cries, a tender heart I bear,
A foe to pride, no adamant is there;
And now, even now it melts! for sure I see
Once more Ulysses my beloved in thee!
Fix'd in my soul, as when he sail'd to Troy,
His image dwells: then haste the bed of joy!
Haste, from the bridal bower the bed translate,
Framed by his hand, and be it drest in state!
Thus speaks the queen, still dubious, with disguise;
Touch'd at her words, the king with warmth replies: Delightful rise, when angry Neptune roars; 250

Blind to the ills that from injustice flow,
She colour'd all our wretched lives with woe.
But why these sorrows when my lord arrives?
I yield, I yield! my own Ulysses lives!
The secrets of the bridal bed are known
To thee, to me, to Actoris alone,

(My father's present in the spousal hour,
The sole attendant on our genial bower.)
Since what no eye hath seen thy tongue reveal'd,
180 Hard and distrustful as I am, I yield.

240

Touch'd to the soul, the king with rapture hears, Hangs round her neck, and speaks his joy in tears. As, to the shipwreck'd mariner, the shores

Then, when the surge in thunder mounts the sky,
And gulf'd in crowds at once the sailors die;
If one more happy, while the tempest raves,
Outlives the tumult of conflicting waves,
All pale, with ooze deform'd, he views the strand,
And plunging forth with transport grasps the land:
The ravish'd queen with equal rapture glows,
Clasps her loved lord, and to his bosom grows.
Nor had they ended till the morning ray,
But Pallas backward held the rising day,
The wheels of night retarding, to detain
The gay Aurora in the wavy main;

330

A mournful story of domestic woes,
His servants' insults, his invaded bed,
260 How his whole flocks and herds exhausted bled,
His generous wines dishonour'd shed in vain,
And the wild riots of the suitor-train.
The king alternate a dire tale relates,
Of wars, of triumphs, and disastrous fates;
All he unfolds: his listening spouse turns pale
With pleasing horror at the dreadful tale :
Sleepless devours each word; and hears how slain
Cicons on Cicons swell the ensanguined plain;
How to the land of Lote unblest he sails;
270 And images the rills and flowery vales:
How dash'd like dogs, his friends the Cyclops tore
(Not unrevenged,) and quaff'd the spouting gore;
How the loud storms in prison bound, he sails
From friendly Eolus with prosperous gales;
Yet fate withstands! a sudden tempest roars,
And whirls him groaning from his native shores:
How on the barbarous Læstrigonian coast,
By savage hands his fleet and friends he lost;
How scarce himself surviv'd: he paints the bower,
280 The spells of Circè, and her magic power;
His dreadful journey to the realms beneath,
To seek Tiresias in the vales of death;
How in the doleful mansions he survey'd
His royal mother, pale Anticlea's shade;
And friends in battle slain, heroic ghosts!
Then how, unharm'd, he past the Siren coasts,
The justling rocks where fierce Charybdis raves,
And howling Scylla whirls her thunderous waves,
The cave of death! How his companions slay
290 The oxen sacred to the god of day,

Whose flaming steeds, emerging through the night,
Beam o'er the eastern hills with streaming light.
At length Ulysses with a sigh replies :
Yet Fate, yet cruel Fate repose denies ;
A labour long, and hard, remains behind;
By heaven above, by hell beneath enjoin'd;
For, to Tiresias through the eternal gates
Of hell I trode, to learn my future fates.
But end we here-the night demands repose,
Bedeck'd the couch! and peace awhile, my woes.
To whom the queen. Thy word we shall obey,
And deck the couch; far hence be woes away;
Since the just gods, who tread the starry plains
Restore thee safe, since my Ulysses reigns.
But what those perils Heaven decrees, impart :
Knowledge may grieve, but fear distracts the heart.
To this the king. Ah, why must I disclose
A dreadful story of approaching woes?
Why in this hour of transport wound thy ears,
When thou must learn what I must speak with tears?
Heaven, by the Theban ghost, thy spouse decrees,
Torn from thy arms, to sail a length of seas;
From realm to realm, a nation to explore,
Who ne'er knew salt, or heard the billows roar,
Nor saw gay vessel stem the surgy plain,
A painted wonder, flying on the main:
An oar my hand must bear; a shepherd eyes
The unknown instrument with strange surprise,
And calls a corn-van: this upon the plain
I fix, and hail the monarch of the main;
Then bathe his altars with the mingled gore
Of victims vow'd, a ram, a bull, a boar;
Thence swift re-sailing to my native shores,
Due victims slay to all the ethereal powers.
Then Heaven decrees, in peace, to end my days,
And steal myself from life by slow decays;
Unknown to pain, in age resign my breath,
When late stern Neptune points the shaft of death;
To the dark grave retiring as to rest,
My people blessing, by my people blest.

301

Such future scenes the all-righteous powers display
By their dread seer,* and such my future day.

To whom thus firm of soul: If ripe for death,
And full of days, thou gently yield thy breath;
While Heaven a kind release from ills foreshows,
Triumph, thou happy victor of thy woes!
But Euryclea, with dispatchful care,
And
sage Eurynomè, the couch prepare:
Instant they bid the blazing torch display
Around the dome an artificial day:
Then to repose her steps the matron bends,
And to the queen Eurynomè descends!
A torch she bears, to light with guiding fires
The royal pair; she guides them, and retires;

*Tiresias.

340

Till Jove in wrath the rattling tempest guides,
And whelms the offenders in the roaring tides:
How struggling through the surge he reach'd the
shores

350

360

Of fair Ogygia, and Calypso's bowers;
Where the gay blooming nymph constrain'd his
stay,

With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay;
And promised, vainly promised, to bestow
Immortal life, exempt from age and woe;
How saved from storms Phæacia's coast he trod
By great Alcinous honour'd as a god,
Who gave him last his country to behold,
With change of raiment, brass and heaps of gold.
He ended, sinking into sleep, and shares
A sweet forgetfulness of all his cares.

Soon as soft slumber eased the toils of day,
Minerva rushes through the aërial way,
And bids Aurora with her golden wheels
310 Flame from the ocean o'er the eastern hills:
Up rose Ulysses from the genial bed,

370

And thus with thought mature the monarch said:
My queen, my consort! through a length of years
We drank the cup of sorrow mix'd with tears;
Thou, for thy lord: while me the immortal powers
Detain'd reluctant from my native shores.
380
Now, bless'd again by heaven, the queen display,
And rule our palace with an equal sway,

Be it my care, by loans, or martial toils,
To throng my empty folds with gifts or spoils.
But now I haste to bless Laërtes eyes
With sight of his Ulysses ere he dies;
The good old man, to wasting woes a prey,
Weeps a sad life in solitude away.

-But hear, though wise! This morning shall unfold
The deathful scene, on heroes heroes roll'd.
Thou with thy maids within the palace stay,
Erom all the scene of tumult far away!

He spoke, and sheath'd in arms incessant flies
To wake his son, and bid his friends arise.
Forms!,aloud he cries: his friends obey,
With glittering arms their manly limbs array,
And pass the city gate; Ulysses leads the way.
frames the rosy dawn, but Pallas shrouds
The latent warriors in a veil of clouds.

BOOK XXIV.

ARGUMENT.

390

40

O mighty chief! (Pelides thus began)
Honour'd by Jove above the lot of man!
King of a hundred kings! to whom resign'd
The strongest, bravest, greatest of mankind,
Comest thou the first, to view this dreary state?
And was the noblest, the first mark of Fate?
Condemn'd to pay the great arrear so soon,
The lot which all lament, and none can shun!
Oh! better hadst thou sunk in Trojan ground,
With all thy full-blown honours cover'd round!
Then grateful Greece with streaming eyes might raise
Historic marbles to record thy praise:

Thy praise eternal on the faithful stone,

Had with transmissive glories graced thy son.
But heavier fates were destined to attend :
What man is happy, till he knows his end?
O son of Peleus! greater than mankind!
(Thus Agamemnon's kingly shade rejoin'd)
Thrice happy thou, to press the martial plain
Midst heaps of heroes in thy quarrel slain :
In clouds of smoke raised by the noble fray,
Great and terrific even in death you lay,
And deluges of blood flow'd round you every way.
Nor ceased the strife till Jove himself opposed,
And all in tempests the dire evening closed.
Then to the fleet we bore thy honour'd load,

he souls of the suitors are conducted by Mercury to the inferhal shades. Ulysses in the country goes to the retirement of his father Laertes; he finds him busied in this garden all alone: the manner of his discovery to him is beautifully described. They return tother to his lodge, and the king is acknowledged by Dalius and the servants. The Ithacensians, led by And decent on the funeral bed bestow'd: upiths, the father of Antinous, rise against Ulysses, Then unguents sweet and tepid streams we shed; whe gives them battle, in which Eupithes is killed by Tears flow'd from every eye, and o'er the dead Lartes: and the goddess Pallas makes a lasting Each clipp'd the curling honours of his head. ce between Ulysses and his subjects, which con- Struck at the news, thy azure mother came; cludes the Odyssey. The sea-green sisters waited on the dame: A voice of loud lament through all the main Was heard; and terror seized the Grecian train: Back to their ships the frighted host had fled; But Nestor spoke, they listen'd and obey'd: (From old experience Nestor's counsel springs, And long vicissitudes of human things.) Forbear your flight: fair Thetis from the main To mourn Achilles leads her azure frain.' Around thee stands the daughters of the deep, Robe thee in heavenly vests, and round thee weep. Round thee, the Muses, with alternate strain, 10 In ever-consecrating verse, complain.

BOOK XXIV.

LLENIUS now to Pluto's dreary reign.
eys the dead, a lamentable train!
The golden wand, that causes sleep to fly,
in soft slumber seals the wakeful eye,
drives the ghosts, to realms of night or day,
orts out the long uncomfortable way.
Trembling the spectres guide; and plaintive vent.
hn, hollow screams, along the deep descent:
sinthe cavern of some rifted den,

Rere lock nocturnal bats, and birds obscene;
hter'd they hang, till at some sudden shock
They move, and murmurs run through all the rock:
Seqwering fled the sable heaps of ghosts,

such a scream fill'd all the dismal coasts.
And now they reach the earth's remotest ends,
And now the gates where evening Sol descends,
And Leucas' rock, and Ocean's utmost streams,
And now pervade the dusky fand of dreams,
And rest at last, where souls unbodied dwell
In ever-flowering meads of Asphodel.
The empty forms of men inhabit there,
Impassive semblance, images of air!
Nought else are all that shined on earth before;
Ajax and great Achilles are no more!
Yet still a master-ghost, the rest he awed,
The rest ador'd him, towering as he trod;
Still at his side is Nestor's son survey'd,
And loved Patroclus still attends his shade.
New as they were to that infernal shore,
The suitors stopp'd, and gazed the hero o'er.
When, moving slow, the regal form they view'd
Of great Atrides; him in pomp pursued
And solemn sadness through the gloom of hell,
The train of those who by Egysthus fell.

Each warlike Greek the moving music hears,
And iron-hearted heroes melt in tears.
Till seventeen nights and seventeen days return'd,
All that was mortal or immortal mourn'd.
To flames we gave thee, the succeeding day,
And fatted sheep, and sable oxen slay;
With oil and honey blaze the augmented fires,
And, like a god adorn'd, thy earthly part expires.
Unnumber'd warriors round the burning pile
20 Urge the fleet courser's or the racer's toil;

Thick clouds of dust o'er all the circle rise,
And the mix'd clamour thunders in the skies.
Soon as absorpt in all embracing flame
Sunk what was mortal of thy mighty name,
We then collect thy snowy bones, and place
With wines and unguents in a golden vase;
(The vase to Thetis Bacchus gave of old,
And Vulcan's art enrich'd the sculptured gold :)
There we thy relics, great Achilles! blend
30 With dear Patroclus, thy departed friend:
In the same urn a separate space contains
Thy next beloved, Antilochus' remains.
Now all the sons of warlike Greece surround
Thy destined tomb, and cast a mighty mound:

50

60

70

80

90

100