This heaven-discover’d truth to thee consign’d,

Reserve the treasure of thy inmost mind:

Else, if the gods my vengeful arm sustain,

And prostrate to my sword the suitor-train;

With their lewd mates, thy undistinguish’d age

Shall bleed a victim to vindictive rage.”


Then thus rejoin’d the dame, devoid of fear:

“What words, my son, have passed thy lips severe?

Deep in my soul the trust shall lodge secured;

With ribs of steel, and marble heart, immured.

When Heaven, auspicious to thy right avow’d,

Shall prostrate to thy sword the suitor-crowd,

The deeds I’ll blazon of the menial fair;

The lewd to death devote, the virtuous spare.”


“Thy aid avails me not (the chief replied);

My own experience shall their doom decide:

A witness-judge precludes a long appeal:

Suffice it then thy monarch to conceal.”


He said: obsequious, with redoubled pace,

She to the fount conveys the exhausted vase:

The bath renew’d, she ends the pleasing toil

With plenteous unction of ambrosial oil.

Adjusting to his limbs the tatter’d vest,

His former seat received the stranger guest;

Whom thus with pensive air the queen addressed:


“Though night, dissolving grief in grateful ease,

Your drooping eyes with soft impression seize;

Awhile, reluctant to her pleasing force,

Suspend the restful hour with sweet discourse.

The day (ne’er brighten’d with a beam of joy!)

My menials, and domestic cares employ;

And, unattended by sincere repose,

The night assists my ever-wakeful woes;

When nature’s hush’d beneath her brooding shade,

My echoing griefs the starry vault invade.

As when the months are clad in flowery green,

Sad Philomel, in bowery shades unseen,

To vernal airs attunes her varied strains;

And Itylus sounds warbling o’er the plains;

Young Itylus, his parents’ darling joy!

Whom chance misled the mother to destroy;

Now doom’d a wakeful bird to wail the beauteous boy.

So in nocturnal solitude forlorn,