Speak him descended of no vulgar race:

Did he some loan of ancient right require,

Or came forerunner of your sceptr’d sire?”


“Oh son of Polybus!” the prince replies,

“No more my sire will glad these longing eyes;

The queen’s fond hope inventive rumour cheers,

Or vain diviners’ dreams divert her fears.

That stranger-guest the Taphian realm obeys,

A realm defended with encircling seas.

Mentes, an ever-honour’d name, of old

High in Ulysses’ social list enroll’d.”


Thus he, though conscious of the ethereal guest,

Answer’d evasive of the sly request.

Meantime the lyre rejoins the sprightly lay;

Love-dittied airs, and dance, conclude the day

But when the star of eve with golden light

Adorn’d the matron brow of sable night,

The mirthful train dispersing quit the court,

And to their several domes to rest resort.

A towering structure to the palace join’d;

To this his steps the thoughtful prince inclined:

In his pavilion there, to sleep repairs;

The lighted torch, the sage Euryclea bears

(Daughter of Ops, the just Pisenor’s son,

For twenty beeves by great Laertes won;

In rosy prime with charms attractive graced,

Honour’d by him, a gentle lord and chaste,

With dear esteem: too wise, with jealous strife

To taint the joys of sweet connubial life.

Sole with Telemachus her service ends,

A child she nursed him, and a man attends).

Whilst to his couch himself the prince address’d,

The duteous dame received the purple vest;

The purple vest with decent care disposed,

The silver ring she pull’d, the door reclosed,

The bolt, obedient to the silken cord,

To the strong staple’s inmost depth restored,

Secured the valves. There, wrapped in silent shade,

Pensive, the rules the goddess gave he weigh’d;

Stretch’d on the downy fleece, no rest he knows,

And in his raptured soul the vision glows.


BOOK II.


ARGUMENT.

THE COUNCIL OF ITHACA.