Part led the coursers, from the car enlarged,

Each to a crib with choicest grain surcharged;

Part in a portico, profusely graced

With rich magnificence, the chariot placed;

Then to the dome the friendly pair invite,

Who eye the dazzling roofs with vast delight;

Resplendent as the blaze of summer noon,

Or the pale radiance of the midnight moon.

From room to room their eager view they bend

Thence to the bath, a beauteous pile, descend;

Where a bright damsel train attends the guests

With liquid odours, and embroider’d vests.

Refresh’d, they wait them to the bower of state,

Where, circled with his peers, Atrides sate;

Throned next the king, a fair attendant brings

The purest product of the crystal springs;

High on a massy vase of silver mould,

The burnish’d laver flames with solid gold,

In solid gold the purple vintage flows,

And on the board a second banquet rose.

When thus the king, with hospitable port;

“Accept this welcome to the Spartan court:

The waste of nature let the feast repair,

Then your high lineage and your names declare;

Say from what sceptred ancestry ye claim,

Recorded eminent in deathless fame,

For vulgar parents cannot stamp their race

With signatures of such majestic grace.”


Ceasing, benevolent he straight assigns

The royal portion of the choicest chines

To each accepted friend; with grateful haste

They share the honours of the rich repast.

Sufficed, soft whispering thus to Nestor’s son,

His head reclined, young Ithacus begun:


“View’st thou unmoved, O ever-honour’d most!

These prodigies of art, and wondrous cost!

Above, beneath, around the palace shines

The sunless treasure of exhausted mines;

The spoils of elephants the roofs inlay,

And studded amber darts the golden ray;

Such, and not nobler, in the realms above

My wonder dictates is the dome of Jove.”


The monarch took the word, and grave replied:

“Presumptuous are the vaunts, and vain the pride