His wish’d return with happy power befriend,

And on the suitors let thy wrath descend.”


She ceased; shrill ecstasies of joy declare

The favouring goddess present to the prayer;

The suitors heard, and deem’d the mirthful voice

A signal of her hymeneal choice;

Whilst one most jovial thus accosts the board:


“Too late the queen selects a second lord;

In evil hour the nuptial rite intends,

When o’er her son disastrous death impends.”

Thus he, unskill’d of what the fates provide!

But with severe rebuke Antinous cried:


“These empty vaunts will make the voyage vain:

Alarm not with discourse the menial train:

The great event with silent hope attend,

Our deeds alone our counsel must commend.”

His speech thus ended short, he frowning rose,

And twenty chiefs renowned for valour chose;

Down to the strand he speeds with haughty strides,

Where anchor’d in the bay the vessel rides,

Replete with mail and military store,

In all her tackle trim to quit the shore.

The desperate crew ascend, unfurl the sails

(The seaward prow invites the tardy gales);

Then take repast till Hesperus display’d

His golden circlet, in the western shade.


Meantime the queen, without reflection due,

Heart-wounded, to the bed of state withdrew:

In her sad breast the prince’s fortunes roll,

And hope and doubt alternate seize her soul.

So when the woodman’s toil her cave surrounds,

And with the hunter’s cry the grove resounds,

With grief and rage the mother-lion stung,

Fearless herself, yet trembles for her young,

While pensive in the silent slumberous shade,

Sleep’s gentle powers her drooping eyes invade;

Minerva, life-like, on embodied air

Impress’d the form of Iphthima the fair;

(Icarius’ daughter she, whose blooming charms

Allured Eumelus to her virgin arms;

A sceptred lord, who o’er the fruitful plain

Of Thessaly wide stretched his ample reign:)

As Pallas will’d, along the sable skies,