There quit the ships, and on the destined shore

With ritual hecatombs the gods adore;

Their wrath atoned, to Agamemnon’s name

A cenotaph I raise of deathless fame.

These rites to piety and grief discharged,

The friendly gods a springing gale enlarged;

The fleet swift tilting o’er the surges flew,

Till Grecian cliffs appear’d a blissful view!


“Thy patient ear hath heard me long relate

A story, fruitful of disastrous fate.

And now, young prince, indulge my fond request;

Be Sparta honoured with his royal guest,

Till, from his eastern goal, the joyous sun

His twelfth diurnal race begins to run.

Meantime my train the friendly gifts prepare,

The sprightly coursers and a polish’d car;

With these a goblet of capacious mould,

Figured with art to dignify the gold

(Form’d for libation to the gods), shall prove

A pledge and monument of sacred love.”


“My quick return (young Ithacus rejoin’d),

Damps the warm wishes of my raptured mind;

Did not my fate my needful haste constrain,

Charm’d by your speech so graceful and humane,

Lost in delight the circling year would roll,

While deep attention fix’d my listening soul.

But now to Pyle permit my destined way,

My loved associates chide my long delay:

In dear remembrance of your royal grace,

I take the present of the promised vase;

The coursers, for the champaign sports retain;

That gift our barren rocks will render vain:

Horrid with cliffs, our meagre land allows

Thin herbage for the mountain goat to browse,

But neither mead nor plain supplies, to feed

The sprightly courser, or indulge his speed:

To sea-surrounded realms the gods assign

Small tract of fertile lawn, the least to mine.”


His hand the king with tender passion press’d,

And, smiling, thus the royal youth address’d:

“O early worth! a soul so wise, and young,

Proclaims you from the sage Ulysses sprung.

Selected from my stores, of matchless price,