But strength of youth, or valour of the brave,

With nobler contest ne’er renown’d a grave.

Such were the games by azure Thetis given,

And such thy honours, O beloved of Heaven!

Dear to mankind thy fame survives, nor fades

Its bloom eternal in the Stygian shades.

But what to me avail my honours gone,

Successful toils, and battles bravely won?

Doom’d by stern Jove at home to end my life,

By cursed Ægysthus, and a faithless wife!”

Thus they: while Hermes o’er the dreary plain

Led the sad numbers by Ulysses slain.

On each majestic form they cast a view,

And timorous pass’d, and awfully withdrew.

But Agamemnon, through the gloomy shade,

His ancient host Amphimedon survey’d:

“Son of Melanthius! (he began) O say!

What cause compell’d so many, and so gay,

To tread the downward, melancholy way?

Say, could one city yield a troop so fair?

Were all these partners of one native air?

Or did the rage of stormy Neptune sweep

Your lives at once, and whelm beneath the deep?

Did nightly thieves, or pirates’ cruel bands,

Drench with your blood your pillaged country’s sands?

Or well-defending some beleaguer’d wall,

Say,—for the public did ye greatly fall?

Inform thy guest: for such I was of yore

When our triumphant navies touch’d your shore;

Forced a long month the wintry seas to bear,

To move the great Ulysses to the war.”


“O king of men! I faithful shall relate

(Replied Amphimedon) our hapless fate.

Ulysses absent, our ambitious aim

With rival loves pursued his royal dame;

Her coy reserve, and prudence mix’d with pride,

Our common suit nor granted, nor denied;

But close with inward hate our deaths design’d;

Versed in all arts of wily womankind.

Her hand, laborious, in delusion spread

A spacious loom, and mix’d the various thread.

‘Ye peers (she cried) who press to gain my heart,

Where dead Ulysses claims no more a part,

Yet a short space your rival suit suspend,