Or some celestial in his reverend form,

Safe from the secret rock and adverse storm,

Pilots the course; for when the glimmering ray

Of yester dawn disclosed the tender day,

Mentor himself I saw, and much admired,”

Then ceased the youth, and from the court retired.


Confounded and appall’d, the unfinish’d game

The suitors quit, and all to council came.

Antinous first the assembled peers address’d.

Rage sparkling in his eyes, and burning in his breast


“O shame to manhood! shall one daring boy

The scheme of all our happiness destroy?

Fly unperceived, seducing half the flower

Of nobles, and invite a foreign power?

The ponderous engine raised to crush us all,

Recoiling, on his head is sure to fall.

Instant prepare me, on the neighbouring strand,

With twenty chosen mates a vessel mann’d;

For ambush’d close beneath the Samian shore

His ship returning shall my spies explore;

He soon his rashness shall with life atone,

Seek for his father’s fate, but find his own.”


With vast applause the sentence all approve;

Then rise, and to the feastful hall remove;

Swift to the queen the herald Medon ran,

Who heard the consult of the dire divan:

Before her dome the royal matron stands,

And thus the message of his haste demands;


“What will the suitors? must my servant-train

The allotted labours of the day refrain,

For them to form some exquisite repast?

Heaven grant this festival may prove their last!

Or, if they still must live, from me remove

The double plague of luxury and love!

Forbear, ye sons of insolence! forbear,

In riot to consume a wretched heir.

In the young soul illustrious thought to raise,

Were ye not tutor’d with Ulysses’ praise?

Have not your fathers oft my lord defined,

Gentle of speech, beneficent of mind?

Some kings with arbitrary rage devour,

Or in their tyrant-minions vest the power;

Ulysses let no partial favours fall,

The people’s parent, he protected all;