Glorious in gore, now with sulphereous fire

The dome he purges, now the flame aspires;

Heap’d lie the dead without the palace walls—

Haste, daughter, haste, thy own Ulysses calls!

Thy every wish the bounteous gods bestow;

Enjoy the present good, and former woe.

Ulysses lives, his vanquish’d foes to see;

He lives to thy Telemachus and thee!”


“Ah, no! (with sighs Penelope rejoin’d,)

Excess of joy disturbs thy wandering mind;

How blest this happy hour, should he appear,

Dear to us all, to me supremely dear;

Ah, no! some god the suitors death decreed,

Some god descends, and by his hand they bleed;

Blind! to contemn the stranger’s righteous cause,

And violate all hospitable laws!

The good they hated, and the powers defied!

But heaven is just, and by a god they died.

For never must Ulysses view this shore;

Never! the loved Ulysses is no more!”


“What words (the matron cries) have reach’d my ears?

Doubt we his presence, when he now appears!

Then hear conviction: Ere the fatal day

That forced Ulysses o’er the watery way,

A boar, fierce rushing in the sylvan war,

Plough’d half his thigh; I saw, I saw the scar,

And wild with transport had reveal’d the wound;

But ere I spoke, he rose, and check’d the sound.

Then, daughter, haste away! and if a lie

Flow from this tongue, then let thy servant die!”

To whom with dubious joy the queen replies:

“Wise is thy soul, but errors seize the wise;

The works of gods what mortal can survey?

Who knows their motives, who shall trace their way?

But learn we instant how the suitors trod

The paths of death, by man, or by a god.”

Thus speaks the queen, and no reply attends,

But with alternate joy and fear descends;

At every step debates her lord to prove;

Or, rushing to his arms, confess her love!

Then gliding through the marble valves, in state

Opposed, before the shining sire she sate.

The monarch, by a column high enthroned,