And steals with modest violence our souls;

He speaks reservedly, but he speaks with force,

Nor can one word be changed but for a worse;

In public more than mortal he appears,

And as he moves, the praising crowd reveres;

While others, beauteous as the etherial kind,

The nobler portion went, a knowing mind,

In outward show Heaven gives thee to excel.

But Heaven denies the praise of thinking well

I’ll bear the brave a rude ungovern’d tongue,

And, youth, my generous soul resents the wrong.

Skill’d in heroic exercise, I claim

A post of honour with the sons of Fame.

Such was my boast while vigour crown’d my days,

Now care surrounds me, and my force decays;

Inured a melancholy part to bear

In scenes of death, by tempest and by war

Yet thus by woes impair’d, no more I waive

To prove the hero—slander stings the brave.”


Then gliding forward with a furious bound

He wrench’d a rocky fragment from the ground

By far more ponderous, and more huge by far

Than what Phæacia’s sons discharged in air.

Fierce from his arm the enormous load he flings;

Sonorous through the shaded air it sings;

Couch’d to the earth, tempestuous as it flies,

The crowd gaze upward while it cleaves the skies.

Beyond all marks, with many a giddy round

Down-rushing, it up-turns a hill of ground.


That Instant Pallas, bursting from a cloud,

Fix’d a distinguish’d mark, and cried aloud:


“E’en he who, sightless, wants his visual ray

May by his touch alone award the day:

Thy signal throw transcends the utmost bound

Of every champion by a length of ground:

Securely bid the strongest of the train

Arise to throw; the strongest throws in vain.”


She spoke: and momentary mounts the sky:

The friendly voice Ulysses hears with joy.

Then thus aloud (elate with decent pride)

“Rise, ye Phæacians, try your force (he cried):

If with this throw the strongest caster vie,

Still, further still, I bid the discus fly.