AEgysthus’ fate revolving in his breast,

Whom young Orestes to the dreary coast

Of Pluto sent, a blood-polluted ghost.


“Perverse mankind! whose wills, created free,

Charge all their woes on absolute degree;

All to the dooming gods their guilt translate,

And follies are miscall’d the crimes of fate.

When to his lust AEgysthus gave the rein,

Did fate, or we, the adulterous act constrain?

Did fate, or we, when great Atrides died,

Urge the bold traitor to the regicide?

Hermes I sent, while yet his soul remain’d

Sincere from royal blood, and faith profaned;

To warn the wretch, that young Orestes, grown

To manly years, should re-assert the throne.

Yet, impotent of mind, and uncontroll’d,

He plunged into the gulf which Heaven foretold.”


Here paused the god; and pensive thus replies

Minerva, graceful with her azure eyes:


“O thou! from whom the whole creation springs,

The source of power on earth derived to kings!

His death was equal to the direful deed;

So may the man of blood be doomed to bleed!

But grief and rage alternate wound my breast

For brave Ulysses, still by fate oppress’d.

Amidst an isle, around whose rocky shore

The forests murmur, and the surges roar,

The blameless hero from his wish’d-for home

A goddess guards in her enchanted dome;

(Atlas her sire, to whose far-piercing eye

The wonders of the deep expanded lie;

The eternal columns which on earth he rears

End in the starry vault, and prop the spheres).

By his fair daughter is the chief confined,

Who soothes to dear delight his anxious mind;

Successless all her soft caresses prove,

To banish from his breast his country’s love;

To see the smoke from his loved palace rise,

While the dear isle in distant prospect lies,

With what contentment could he close his eyes!

And will Omnipotence neglect to save

The suffering virtue of the wise and brave?

Must he, whose altars on the Phrygian shore