Truth forms my tale; to pleasing truth attend.

The royal object of your dearest care

Breathes in no distant clime the vital air:

In rich Thesprotia, and the nearer bound

Of Thessaly, his name I heard renown’d:

Without retinue, to that friendly shore

Welcomed with gifts of price, a sumless store!

His sacrilegious train, who dared to prey

On herds devoted to the god of day,

Were doom’d by Jove, and Phœbus’ just decree,

To perish in the rough Trinacrian sea.

To better fate the blameless chief ordain’d,

A floating fragment of the wreck regain’d,

And rode the storm; till, by the billows toss’d,

He landed on the fair Phæacian coast.

That race who emulate the life of gods,

Receive him joyous to their bless’d abodes;

Large gifts confer, a ready sail command,

To speed his voyage to the Grecian strand.

But your wise lord (in whose capacious soul

High schemes of power in just succession roll)

His Ithaca refused from favouring Fate,

Till copious wealth might guard his regal state.

Phedon the fact affirm’d, whose sovereign sway

Thesprotian tribes, a duteous race, obey;

And bade the gods this added truth attest

(While pure libations crown’d the genial feast),

That anchor’d in his port the vessels stand,

To waft the hero to his natal land.

I for Dulichium urge the watery way,

But first the Ulyssean wealth survey:

So rich the value of a store so vast

Demands the pomp of centuries to waste!

The darling object of your royal love

Was journey’d thence to Dodonean Jove;

By the sure precept of the sylvan shrine,

To form the conduct of his great design;

Irresolute of soul, his state to shroud

In dark disguise, or come, a king avow’d!

Thus lives your lord; nor longer doom’d to roam;

Soon will he grace this dear paternal dome.

By Jove, the source of good, supreme in power!

By the bless’d genius of this friendly bower!

I ratify my speech, before the sun

His annual longitude of heaven shall run;