Ere yet to Nestor I the tale relate:

’Tis true, the fervour of his generous heart

Brooks no repulse, nor couldst thou soon depart:

Himself will seek thee here, nor wilt thou find,

In words alone, the Pylian monarch kind.

But when, arrived, he thy return shall know

How will his breast with honest fury glow!”

This said, the sounding strokes his horses fire,

And soon he reached the palace of his sire.


“Now (cried Telemachus) with speedy care

Hoist every sail, and every oar prepare.”

Swift as the word his willing mates obey,

And seize their seats, impatient for the sea.


Meantime the prince with sacrifice adores

Minerva, and her guardian aid implores;

When lo! a wretch ran breathless to the shore,

New from his crime; and reeking yet with gore.

A seer he was, from great Melampus sprung,

Melampus, who in Pylos flourish’d long,

Till, urged by wrongs, a foreign realm he chose,

Far from the hateful cause of all his woes.

Neleus his treasures one long year detains,

As long he groan’d in Philacus’s chains:

Meantime, what anguish and what rage combined

For lovely Pero rack’d his labouring mind!

Yet ’scaped he death; and vengeful of his wrong

To Pylos drove the lowing herds along:

Then (Neleus vanquish’d, and consign’d the fair

To Bias’ arms) he so sought a foreign air;

Argos the rich for his retreat he chose,

There form’d his empire; there his palace rose.

From him Antiphates and Mantius came:

The first begot Oicleus great in fame,

And he Amphiaraus, immortal name!

The people’s saviour, and divinely wise,

Beloved by Jove, and him who gilds the skies;

Yet short his date of life! by female pride he dies.

From Mantius Clitus, whom Aurora’s love

Snatch’d for his beauty to the thrones above;

And Polyphides, on whom Phœbus shone

With fullest rays, Amphiaraus now gone;

In Hyperesia’s groves he made abode,

And taught mankind the counsels of the god.

From him sprung Theoclymenus, who found