This dome a refuge to thy wrongs shall be,

From my great sire too soon devolved to me!

Your violence and scorn, ye suitors, cease,

Lest arms avenge the violated peace.”


Awed by the prince, so haughty, brave, and young,

Rage gnaw’d the lip, amazement chain’d the tongue.

“Be patient, peers! (at length Antinous cries,)

The threats of vain imperious youth despise:

Would Jove permit the meditated blow,

That stream of eloquence should cease to flow.”


Without reply vouchsafed, Antinous ceased:

Meanwhile the pomp of festival increased:

By heralds rank’d; in marshall’d order move

The city tribes, to pleased Apollo’s grove:

Beneath the verdure of which awful shade,

The lunar hecatomb they grateful laid;

Partook the sacred feast, and ritual honours paid.

But the rich banquet, in the dome prepared

(An humble sideboard set) Ulysses shared.

Observant of the prince’s high behest,

His menial train attend the stranger-guest;

Whom Pallas with unpardoning fury fired,

By lordly pride and keen reproach inspired.

A Samian peer, more studious than the rest

Of vice, who teem’d with many a dead-born jest;

And urged, for title to a consort queen,

Unnumber’d acres arable and green

(Ctesippus named); this lord Ulysses eyed,

And thus burst out the imposthumate with pride:


“The sentence I propose, ye peers, attend:

Since due regard must wait the prince’s friend,

Let each a token of esteem bestow:

This gift acquits the dear respect I owe;

With which he nobly may discharge his seat,

And pay the menials for a master’s treat.”


He said: and of the steer before him placed,

That sinewy fragment at Ulysses cast,

Where to the pastern-bone, by nerves combined,

The well-horn’d foot indissolubly join’d;

Which whizzing high, the wall unseemly sign’d.

The chief indignant grins a ghastly smile;

Revenge and scorn within his bosom boil:

When thus the prince with pious rage inflamed: