And in thy eyes extinguish all the fire;

Add all the wants and the decays of life;

Estrange thee from thy own; thy son, thy wife;

From the loathed object every sight shall turn,

And the blind suitors their destruction scorn.


“Go first the master of thy herds to find,

True to his charge, a loyal swain and kind;

For thee he sighs; and to the loyal heir

And chaste Penelope extends his care.

At the Coracian rock he now resides,

Where Arethusa’s sable water glides;

The sable water and the copious mast

Swell the fat herd; luxuriant, large repast!

With him rest peaceful in the rural cell,

And all you ask his faithful tongue shall tell.

Me into other realms my cares convey,

To Sparta, still with female beauty gay;

For know, to Sparta thy loved offspring came,

To learn thy fortunes from the voice of Fame.”


At this the father, with a father’s care:

“Must he too suffer? he, O goddess! bear

Of wanderings and of woes a wretched share?

Through the wild ocean plough the dangerous way,

And leave his fortunes and his house a prey?

Why would’st not thou, O all-enlighten’d mind!

Inform him certain, and protect him, kind?”


To whom Minerva: “Be thy soul at rest;

And know, whatever heaven ordains is best.

To fame I sent him, to acquire renown;

To other regions is his virtue known;

Secure he sits, near great Atrides placed;

With friendships strengthen’d, and with honours graced,

But lo! an ambush waits his passage o’er;

Fierce foes insidious intercept the shore;

In vain; far sooner all the murderous brood

This injured land shall fatten with their blood.”


She spake, then touch’d him with her powerful wand:

The skin shrunk up, and wither’d at her hand;

A swift old age o’er all his members spread;

A sudden frost was sprinkled on his head;

Nor longer in the heavy eye-ball shined

The glance divine, forth-beaming from the mind.

His robe, which spots indelible besmear,