Lest when the Fates his royal ashes claim,

The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame;

When he, whom living mighty realms obey’d,

Shall want in death a shroud to grace his shade.’


“Thus she: at once the generous train complies,

Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue’s fair disguise.

The work she plied; but, studious of delay,

By night reversed the labours of the day.

While thrice the sun his annual journey made,

The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey’d;

Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;

The fourth her maid unfolds the amazing tale.

We saw, as unperceived we took our stand,

The backward labours of her faithless hand.

Then urged, she perfects her illustrious toils;

A wondrous monument of female wiles!


“But you, O peers! and thou, O prince! give ear

(I speak aloud, that every Greek may hear):

Dismiss the queen; and if her sire approves

Let him espouse her to the peer she loves:

Bid instant to prepare the bridal train,

Nor let a race of princes wait in vain.

Though with a grace divine her soul is blest,

And all Minerva breathes within her breast,

In wondrous arts than woman more renown’d,

And more than woman with deep wisdom crown’d;

Though Tyro nor Mycene match her name,

Not great Alcmena (the proud boasts of fame);

Yet thus by heaven adorn’d, by heaven’s decree

She shines with fatal excellence, to thee:

With thee, the bowl we drain, indulge the feast,

Till righteous heaven reclaim her stubborn breast.

What though from pole to pole resounds her name!

The son’s destruction waits the mother’s fame:

For, till she leaves thy court, it is decreed,

Thy bowl to empty and thy flock to bleed.”


While yet he speaks, Telemachus replies:

“Ev’n nature starts, and what ye ask denies.

Thus, shall I thus repay a mother’s cares,

Who gave me life, and nursed my infant years!

While sad on foreign shores Ulysses treads.

Or glides a ghost with unapparent shades;

How to Icarius in the bridal hour