Should he return, that troop so blithe and bold,

With purple robes inwrought, and stiff with gold,

Precipitant in fear would wing their flight,

And curse their cumbrous pride’s unwieldy weight.

But ah, I dream!-the appointed hour is fled.

And hope, too long with vain delusion fed,

Deaf to the rumour of fallacious fame,

Gives to the roll of death his glorious name!

With venial freedom let me now demand

Thy name, thy lineage, and paternal land;

Sincere from whence began thy course, recite,

And to what ship I owe the friendly freight?

Now first to me this visit dost thou deign,

Or number’d in my father’s social train?

All who deserved his choice he made his own,

And, curious much to know, he far was known.”


“My birth I boast (the blue-eyed virgin cries)

From great Anchialus, renown’d and wise;

Mentes my name; I rule the Taphian race,

Whose bounds the deep circumfluent waves embrace;

A duteous people, and industrious isle,

To naval arts inured, and stormy toil.

Freighted with iron from my native land,

I steer my voyage to the Brutian strand

To gain by commerce, for the labour’d mass,

A just proportion of refulgent brass.

Far from your capital my ship resides

At Reitorus, and secure at anchor rides;

Where waving groves on airy Neign grow,

Supremely tall and shade the deeps below.

Thence to revisit your imperial dome,

An old hereditary guest I come;

Your father’s friend. Laertes can relate

Our faith unspotted, and its early date;

Who, press’d with heart-corroding grief and years,

To the gay court a rural shed prefers,

Where, sole of all his train, a matron sage

Supports with homely fond his drooping age,

With feeble steps from marshalling his vines

Returning sad, when toilsome day declines.


“With friendly speed, induced by erring fame,

To hail Ulysses’ safe return I came;

But still the frown of some celestial power

With envious joy retards the blissful hour.