Already snatch’d by fate, and the black doom of death!

Pass we to other subjects; and engage

On themes remote the venerable sage

(Who thrice has seen the perishable kind

Of men decay, and through three ages shined

Like gods majestic, and like gods in mind);

For much he knows, and just conclusions draws,

From various precedents, and various laws.

O son of Neleus! awful Nestor, tell

How he, the mighty Agamemnon, fell;

By what strange fraud Ægysthus wrought, relate

(By force he could not) such a hero’s fate?

Live Menelaus not in Greece? or where

Was then the martial brother’s pious care?

Condemn’d perhaps some foreign shore to tread;

Or sure Ægysthus had not dared the deed.”


To whom the full of days: Illustrious youth,

Attend (though partly thou hast guess’d) the truth.

For had the martial Menelaus found

The ruffian breathing yet on Argive ground;

Nor earth had bid his carcase from the skies,

Nor Grecian virgins shriek’d his obsequies,

But fowls obscene dismember’d his remains,

And dogs had torn him on the naked plains.

While us the works of bloody Mars employ’d,

The wanton youth inglorious peace enjoy’d:

He stretch’d at ease in Argos’ calm recess

(Whose stately steeds luxuriant pastures bless),

With flattery’s insinuating art

Soothed the frail queen, and poison’d all her heart.

At first, with worthy shame and decent pride,

The royal dame his lawless suit denied.

For virtue’s image yet possess’d her mind.

Taught by a master of the tuneful kind;

Atrides, parting for the Trojan war,

Consign’d the youthful consort to his care.

True to his charge, the bard preserved her long

In honour’s limits; such the power of song.

But when the gods these objects of their hate

Dragg’d to destruction by the links of fate;

The bard they banish’d from his native soil,

And left all helpless in a desert isle;

There he, the sweetest of the sacred train,

Sung dying to the rocks, but sung in vain.