Where shall this treasure now in safely lie?

And whither, whither its sad owner fly?

Ah, why did I Alcinous’ grace implore?

Ah, why forsake Phæacia’s happy shore?

Some juster prince perhaps had entertain’d,

And safe restored me to my native land.

Is this the promised, long-expected coast,

And this the faith Phæacia’s rulers boast?

O righteous gods! of all the great, how few

Are just to Heaven, and to their promise true!

But he, the power to whose all-seeing eyes

The deeds of men appear without disguise,

’Tis his alone to avenge the wrongs I bear;

For still the oppress’d are his peculiar care.

To count these presents, and from thence to prove,

Their faith is mine; the rest belongs to Jove.”


Then on the sands he ranged his wealthy store,

The gold, the vests, the tripods number’d o’er:

All these he found, but still in error lost,

Disconsolate he wanders on the coast,

Sighs for his country, and laments again

To the deaf rocks, and hoarse-resounding main.

When lo! the guardian goddess of the wise,

Celestial Pallas, stood before his eyes;

In show a youthful swain, of form divine,

Who seem’d descended from some princely line.

A graceful robe her slender body dress’d;

Around her shoulders flew the waving vest;

Her decent hand a shining javelin bore,

And painted sandals on her feet she wore.

To whom the king: “Whoe’er of human race

Thou art, that wanderest in this desert place,

With joy to thee, as to some god I bend,

To thee my treasures and myself commend.

O tell a wretch in exile doom’d to stray,

What air I breathe, what country I survey?

The fruitful continent’s extremest bound,

Or some fair isle which Neptune’s arms surround?


“From what far clime (said she) remote from fame

Arrivest thou here, a stranger to our name?

Thou seest an island, not to those unknown

Whose hills are brighten’d by the rising sun,

Nor those that placed beneath his utmost reign