Swift to the hall they haste; aside they lay

Their garments, and succinct the victims slay.

Then sheep, and goats, and bristly porkers bled,

And the proud steer was o’er the marble spread.

While thus the copious banquet they provide,

Along the road, conversing side by side,

Proceed Ulysses and the faithful swain;

When thus Eumaeus, generous and humane:

“To town, observant of our lord’s behest,

Now let us speed; my friend no more my guest!

Yet like myself I wish thee here preferr’d,

Guard of the flock, or keeper of the herd,

But much to raise my master’s wrath I fear;

The wrath of princes ever is severe.

Then heed his will, and be our journey made

While the broad beams of Phœbus are display’d,

Or ere brown evening spreads her chilly shade.”

“Just thy advice (the prudent chief rejoin’d),

And such as suits the dictate of my mind.

Lead on: but help me to some staff to stay

My feeble step, since rugged is the way.”

Across his shoulders then the scrip he flung,

Wide-patch’d, and fasten’d by a twisted thong.

A staff Eumaeus gave. Along the way

Cheerly they fare: behind, the keepers stay:

These with their watchful dogs (a constant guard)

Supply his absence, and attend the herd.

And now his city strikes the monarch’s eyes,

Alas! how changed! a man of miseries;

Propp’d on a staff, a beggar old and bare

In rags dishonest fluttering with the air!

Now pass’d the rugged road, they journey down

The cavern’d way descending to the town,

Where, from the rock, with liquid drops distils

A limpid fount; that spread in parting rills

Its current thence to serve the city brings;

An useful work, adorn’d by ancient kings.

Neritus, Ithacus, Polyctor, there,

In sculptured stone immortalized their care,

In marble urns received it from above,

And shaded with a green surrounding grove;

Where silver alders, in high arches twined,

Drink the cool stream, and tremble to the wind.