While thus his mother to her virgins spoke:


“On him and his may the bright god of day

That base, inhospitable blow repay!”

The nurse replies: “If Jove receives my prayer,

Not one survives to breathe to-morrow’s air.”


“All, all are foes, and mischief is their end;

Antinous most to gloomy death a friend

(Replies the queen): the stranger begg’d their grace,

And melting pity soften’d every face;

From every other hand redress he found,

But fell Antinous answer’d with a wound.”

Amidst her maids thus spoke the prudent queen,

Then bade Eumaeus call the pilgrim in.

“Much of the experienced man I long to hear,

If or his certain eye, or listening ear,

Have learn’d the fortunes of my wandering lord?”

Thus she, and good Eumaeus took the word:


“A private audience if thy grace impart,

The stranger’s words may ease the royal heart.

His sacred eloquence in balm distils,

And the soothed heart with secret pleasure fills.

Three days have spent their beams, three nights have run

Their silent journey, since his tale begun,

Unfinish’d yet; and yet I thirst to hear!

As when some heaven-taught poet charms the ear

(Suspending sorrow with celestial strain

Breathed from the gods to soften human pain)

Time steals away with unregarded wing,

And the soul hears him, though he cease to sing


“Ulysses late he saw, on Cretan ground

(His fathers guest), for Minos’ birth renown’d.

He now but waits the wind to waft him o’er,

With boundless treasure, from Thesprotia’s shore.”


To this the queen: “The wanderer let me hear,

While yon luxurious race indulge their cheer,

Devour the grazing ox, and browsing goat,

And turn my generous vintage down their throat.

For where’s an arm, like thine, Ulysses! strong,

To curb wild riot, and to punish wrong?”


She spoke. Telemachus then sneezed aloud;

Constrain’d, his nostril echoed through the crowd.

The smiling queen the happy omen bless’d: