And to the queen the damsel train descends;

Waked at their steps, her flowing eyes unclose;

The tears she wipes, and thus renews her woes:

“Howe’er ’tis well that sleep awhile can free,

With soft forgetfulness a wretch like me;

Oh! were it given to yield this transient breath,

Send, O Diana! send the sleep of death!

Why must I waste a tedious life in tears,

Nor bury in the silent grave my cares?

O my Ulysses! ever honour’d name!

For thee I mourn till death dissolves my frame.”


Thus wailing, slow and sadly she descends,

On either band a damsel train attends:

Full where the dome its shining valves expands,

Radiant before the gazing peers she stands;

A veil translucent o’er her brow display’d,

Her beauty seems, and only seems, to shade:

Sudden she lightens in their dazzled eyes,

And sudden flames in every bosom rise;

They send their eager souls with every look.

Till silence thus the imperial matron broke:


“O why! my son, why now no more appears

That warmth of soul that urged thy younger years?

Thy riper days no growing worth impart,

A man in stature, still a boy in heart!

Thy well-knit frame unprofitably strong,

Speaks thee a hero, from a hero sprung:

But the just gods in vain those gifts bestow,

O wise alone in form, and grave in show!

Heavens! could a stranger feel oppression’s hand

Beneath thy roof, and couldst thou tamely stand!

If thou the stranger’s righteous cause decline

His is the sufferance, but the shame is thine.”


To whom, with filial awe, the prince returns:

“That generous soul with just resentment burns;

Yet, taught by time, my heart has learn’d to glow

For others’ good, and melt at others’ woe;

But, impotent those riots to repel,

I bear their outrage, though my soul rebel;

Helpless amid the snares of death I tread,

And numbers leagued in impious union dread;

But now no crime is theirs: this wrong proceeds

From Irus, and the guilty Irus bleeds.