Oh would to Jove! or her whose arms display

The shield of Jove, or him who rules the day!

That yon proud suitors, who licentious tread

These courts, within these courts like Irus bled:

Whose loose head tottering, as with wine oppress’d,

Obliquely drops, and nodding knocks his breast;

Powerless to move, his staggering feet deny

The coward wretch the privilege to fly.”


Then to the queen Eurymachus replies:

“O justly loved, and not more fair than wise!

Should Greece through all her hundred states survey

Thy finish’d charms, all Greece would own thy sway

In rival crowds contest the glorious prize.

Dispeopling realms to gaze upon thy eyes:

O woman! loveliest of the lovely kind,

In body perfect, and complete in mind.”


“Ah me! (returns the queen) when from this shore

Ulysses sail’d, then beauty was no more!

The gods decreed these eyes no more should keep

Their wonted grace, but only serve to weep.

Should he return, whate’er my beauties prove,

My virtues last; my brightest charm is love.

Now, grief, thou all art mine! the gods o’ercast

My soul with woes, that long, ah long must last!

Too faithfully my heart retains the day

That sadly tore my royal lord away:

He grasp’d my hand, and, ‘O, my spouse! I leave

Thy arms (he cried), perhaps to find a grave:

Fame speaks the Trojans bold; they boast the skill

To give the feather’d arrow wings to kill,

To dart the spear, and guide the rushing car

With dreadful inroad through the walks of war.

My sentence is gone forth, and ’tis decreed

Perhaps by righteous Heaven that I must bleed!

My father, mother, all I trust to three;

To them, to them, transfer the love of me:

But, when my son grows man, the royal sway

Resign, and happy be thy bridal day!’

Such were his words; and Hymen now prepares

To light his torch, and give me up to cares;

The afflictive hand of wrathful Jove to bear:

A wretch the most complete that breathes the air!