Then what assistant powers you boast relate,

Ere yet we mingle in the stern debate.”


“Mark well my voice, (Ulysses straight replies:)

What need of aids, if favour’d by the skies?

If shielded to the dreadful fight we move,

By mighty Pallas, and by thundering Jove?”


“Sufficient they (Telemachus rejoin’d)

Against the banded powers of all mankind:

They, high enthroned above the rolling clouds,

Wither the strength of man, and awe the gods.”


“Such aids expect (he cries,) when strong in might

We rise terrific to the task of fight.

But thou, when morn salutes the aërial plain,

The court revisit and the lawless train:

Me thither in disguise Eumaeus leads,

An aged mendicant in tatter’d weeds.

There, if base scorn insult my reverend age,

Bear it, my son! repress thy rising rage.

If outraged, cease that outrage to repel;

Bear it, my son! howe’er thy heart rebel.

Yet strive by prayer and counsel to restrain

Their lawless insults, though thou strive in vain:

For wicked ears are deaf to wisdom’s call,

And vengeance strikes whom Heaven has doom’d to fall.

Once more attend: when she whose power inspires

The thinking mind, my soul to vengeance fires,

I give the sign: that instant, from beneath,

Aloft convey the instruments of death,

Armour and arms; and, if mistrust arise,

Thus veil the truth in plausible disguise:


“‘These glittering weapons, ere he sail’d to Troy,

Ulysses view’d with stern heroic joy:

Then, beaming o’er the illumined wall they shone;

Now dust dishonours, all their lustre gone.

I bear them hence (so Jove my soul inspires),

From the pollution of the fuming fires;

Lest when the bowl inflames, in vengeful mood

Ye rush to arms, and stain the feast with blood:

Oft ready swords in luckless hour incite

The hand of wrath, and arm it for the fight.’


“Such be the plea, and by the plea deceive:

For Jove infatuates all, and all believe.

Yet leave for each of us a sword to wield,