A life of wanderings is the greatest woe;

On all their weary ways wait care and pain,

And pine and penury, a meagre train.

To such a man since harbour you afford,

Relate the farther fortunes of your lord;

What cares his mother’s tender breast engage,

And sire forsaken on the verge of age;

Beneath the sun prolong they yet their breath,

Or range the house of darkness and of death?”


To whom the swain: “Attend what you enquire;

Laertes lives, the miserable sire,

Lives, but implores of every power to lay

The burden down, and wishes for the day.

Torn from his offspring in the eve of life,

Torn from the embraces of his tender wife,

Sole, and all comfortless, he wastes away

Old age, untimely posting ere his day.

She too, sad mother! for Ulysses lost

Pined out her bloom, and vanish’d to a ghost;

(So dire a fate, ye righteous gods! avert

From every friendly, every feeling heart!)

While yet she was, though clouded o’er with grief.

Her pleasing converse minister’d relief:

With Climene, her youngest daughter, bred,

One roof contain’d us, and one table fed.

But when the softly-stealing pace of time

Crept on from childhood into youthful prime,

To Samos’ isle she sent the wedded fair;

Me to the fields; to tend the rural care;

Array’d in garments her own hands had wove,

Nor less the darling object of her love.

Her hapless death my brighter days o’ercast,

Yet Providence deserts me not at last;

My present labours food and drink procure,

And more, the pleasure to relieve the poor.

Small is the comfort from the queen to hear

Unwelcome news, or vex the royal ear;

Blank and discountenanced the servants stand,

Nor dare to question where the proud command;

No profit springs beneath usurping powers;

Want feeds not there where luxury devours,

Nor harbours charity where riot reigns:

Proud are the lords, and wretched are the swains.”


The suffering chief at this began to melt;