Her freight a shining band: with martial air

Each poised his shield, and each advanced his spear;

And, if aright these searching eyes survey,

The eluded suitors stem the watery way.”


The prince, well pleased to disappoint their wiles,

Steals on his sire a glance, and secret smiles.

And now, a short repast prepared, they fed

Till the keen rage of craving hunger fled:

Then to repose withdrawn, apart they lay,

And in soft sleep forgot the cares of day.


BOOK XVII.


ARGUMENT.


Telemachus returning to the city, relates to Penelope the sum of his travels.

Ulysses is conducted by Eumaeus to the palace, where his old dog Argus

acknowledges his master, after an absence of twenty years, and dies with joy.

Eumaeus returns into the country, and Ulysses remains among the suitors, whose

behaviour is described.


Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,

Sprinkled with roseate light the dewy lawn,

In haste the prince arose, prepared to part;

His hand impatient grasps the pointed dart;

Fair on his feet the polish’d sandals shine,

And thus he greets the master of the swine:


“My friend, adieu! let this short stay suffice;

I haste to meet my mother’s longing eyes,

And end her tears, her sorrows and her sighs.

But thou, attentive, what we order heed:

This hapless stranger to the city lead:

By public bounty let him there be fed,

And bless the hand that stretches forth the bread.

To wipe the tears from all afflicted eyes,

My will may covet, but my power denies.

If this raise anger in the stranger’s thought,

The pain of anger punishes the fault:

The very truth I undisguised declare;

For what so easy as to be sincere?”


To this Ulysses: “What the prince requires

Of swift removal, seconds my desires.

To want like mine the peopled town can yield

More hopes of comfort than the lonely field:

Nor fits my age to till the labour’d lands,

Or stoop to tasks a rural lord demands.