“Yet Fate, yet cruel Fate repose denies;

A labour long, and hard, remains behind;

By heaven above, by hell beneath enjoin’d:

For to Tiresias through the eternal gates

Of hell I trode, to learn my future fates.

But end we here—the night demands repose,

Be deck’d the couch! and peace awhile, my woes!”


To whom the queen: “Thy word we shall obey,

And deck the couch; far hence be woes away:

Since the just gods, who tread the starry plains,

Restore thee safe, since my Ulysses reigns.

But what those perils heaven decrees, impart;

Knowledge may grieve, but fear distracts the heart.”


To this the king: “Ah, why must I disclose

A dreadful story of approaching woes?

Why in this hour of transport wound thy ears,

When thou must learn what I must speak with tears?

Heaven, by the Theban ghost, thy spouse decrees,

Torn from thy arms, to sail a length of seas;

From realm to realm, a nation to explore

Who ne’er knew salt, or heard the billows roar,

Nor saw gay vessel storm the surgy plain,

A painted wonder, flying on the main:

An oar my hand must bear; a shepherd eyes

The unknown instrument with strange surprise,

And calls a corn-van; this upon the plain

I fix, and hail the monarch of the main;

Then bathe his altars with the mingled gore

Of victims vow’d, a ram, a bull, a boar;

Thence swift re-sailing to my native shores,

Due victims slay to all the ethereal powers.

Then Heaven decrees, in peace to end my days

And steal myself from life by slow decays!

Unknown to pain, in age resign my breath,

When late stern Neptune points the shaft of death;

To the dark grave retiring as to rest;

My people blessing, by my people bless’d.

Such future scenes the all-righteous powers display

By their dread seer, and such my future day.”


To whom thus firm of soul: “If ripe for death,

And full of days, thou gently yield thy breath;

While Heaven a kind release from ills foreshows,

Triumph, thou happy victor of thy woes?”