Then on the breezy shore, descending, join

In grateful banquet o’er the rosy wine.

When thus the prince: “Now each his course pursue;

I to the fields, and to the city you.

Long absent hence, I dedicate this day

My swains to visit, and the works survey.

Expect me with the morn, to pay the skies

Our debt of safe return in feast and sacrifice.”


Then Theoclymenus: “But who shall lend,

Meantime, protection to thy stranger friend?

Straight to the queen and palace shall I fly,

Or yet more distant, to some lord apply?”


The prince return’d: “Renown’d in days of yore

Has stood our father’s hospitable door;

No other roof a stranger should receive,

No other hands than ours the welcome give.

But in my absence riot fills the place,

Nor bears the modest queen a stranger’s face;

From noiseful revel far remote she flies,

But rarely seen, or seen with weeping eyes.

No—let Eurymachus receive my guest,

Of nature courteous, and by far the best;

He woos the queen with more respectful flame,

And emulates her former husband’s fame,

With what success, ’tis Jove’s alone to know,

And the hoped nuptials turn to joy or woe.”


Thus speaking, on the right up-soar’d in air

The hawk, Apollo’s swift-wing’d messenger:

His dreadful pounces tore a trembling dove;

The clotted feathers, scatter’d from above,

Between the hero and the vessel pour

Thick plumage mingled with a sanguine shower.


The observing augur took the prince aside,

Seized by the hand, and thus prophetic cried:

“Yon bird, that dexter cuts the aërial road,

Rose ominous, nor flies without a god:

No race but thine shall Ithaca obey,

To thine, for ages, Heaven decrees the sway.”


“Succeed the omens, gods! (the youth rejoin’d:)

Soon shall my bounties speak a grateful mind,

And soon each envied happiness attend

The man who calls Telemachus his friend.”

Then to Peiraeus: “Thou whom time has proved

A faithful servant, by thy prince beloved!