Adieu! but since this ragged garb can bear

So ill the inclemencies of morning air,

A few hours’ space permit me here to stay:

My steps Eumaeus shall to town convey,

With riper beams when Phœbus warms the day.”


Thus he: nor aught Telemachus replied,

But left the mansion with a lofty stride:

Schemes of revenge his pondering breast elate,

Revolving deep the suitors’ sudden fate,

Arriving now before the imperial hall,

He props his spear against the pillar’d wall;

Then like a lion o’er the threshold bounds;

The marble pavement with his steps resounds:

His eye first glanced where Euryclea spreads

With furry spoils of beasts the splendid beds:

She saw, she wept, she ran with eager pace,

And reach’d her master with a long embrace.

All crowded round, the family appears

With wild entrancement, and ecstatic tears.

Swift from above descends the royal fair

(Her beauteous cheeks the blush of Venus wear,

Chasten’d with coy Diana’s pensive air);

Hangs o’er her son, in his embraces dies;

Rains kisses on his neck, his face, his eyes:

Few words she spoke, though much she had to say;

And scarce those few, for tears, could force their way.


“Light of my eyes: he comes! unhoped-for joy!

Has Heaven from Pylos brought my lovely boy?

So snatch’d from all our cares!—Tell, hast thou known

Thy father’s fate, and tell me all thy own.”


“Oh dearest! most revered of womankind!

Cease with those tears to melt a manly mind

(Replied the prince); nor be our fates deplored,

From death and treason to thy arms restored.

Go bathe, and robed in white ascend the towers;

With all thy handmaids thank the immortal powers;

To every god vow hecatombs to bleed.

And call Jove’s vengeance on their guilty deed.

While to the assembled council I repair:

A stranger sent by Heaven attends me there;

My new accepted guest I haste to find,

Now to Peiraeus’ honour’d charge consign’d.”


The matron heard, nor was his word in vain.