In whispers breathes the fondness of his heart:


“The time, my lord, invites me to repair

Hence to the lodge; my charge demands my care.

These sons of murder thirst thy life to take;

O guard it, guard it, for thy servant’s sake!”


“Thanks to my friend (he cries): but now the hour

Of night draws on, go seek the rural bower:

But first refresh: and at the dawn of day

Hither a victim to the gods convey.

Our life to Heaven’s immortal powers we trust,

Safe in their care, for Heaven protects the just.”


Observant of his voice, Eumaeus sate

And fed recumbent on a chair of state.

Then instant rose, and as he moved along,

’Twas riot all amid the suitor throng,

They feast, they dance, and raise the mirthful song

Till now, declining towards the close of day,

The sun obliquely shot his dewy ray.


BOOK XVIII.


ARGUMENT.

THE FIGHT OF ULYSSES AND IRUS.


The beggar Irus insults Ulysses; the suitors promote the quarrel, in which Irus

is worsted, and miserably handled. Penelope descends, and receives the presents

of the suitors. The dialogue of Ulysses with Eurymachus.


While fix’d in thought the pensive hero sate,

A mendicant approach’d the royal gate;

A surly vagrant of the giant kind,

The stain of manhood, of a coward mind:

From feast to feast, insatiate to devour,

He flew, attendant on the genial hour.

Him on his mother’s knees, when babe he lay,

She named Arnaeus on his natal day:

But Irus his associates call’d the boy,

Practised the common messenger to fly;

Irus, a name expressive of the employ.


From his own roof, with meditated blows,

He strove to drive the man of mighty woes:


“Hence, dotard! hence, and timely speed thy way,

Lest dragg’d in vengeance thou repent thy stay;

See how with nods assent yon princely train!

But honouring age, in mercy I refrain:

In peace away! lest, if persuasions fail,

This arm with blows more eloquent prevail.”

To whom, with stern regard: “O insolence,