Alas, the brave too oft is doom’d to bear

The gripes of poverty and stings of care.”


To whom with thought mature the king replies:

“The tongue speaks wisely, when the soul is wise:

Such was thy father! in imperial state,

Great without vice, that oft attends the great;

Nor from the sire art thou, the son, declin’d;

Then hear my words, and grace them in thy mind!

Of all that breathes, or grovelling creeps on earth,

Most vain is man! calamitous by birth:

To-day, with power elate, in strength he blooms;

The haughty creature on that power presumes:

Anon from Heaven a sad reverse he feels:

Untaught to bear, ’gainst Heaven the wretch rebels.

For man is changeful, as his bliss or woe!

Too high when prosperous, when distress’d too low.

There was a day, when with the scornful great

I swell’d in pomp and arrogance of state;

Proud of the power that to high birth belongs;

And used that power to justify my wrongs.

Then let not man be proud; but firm of mind,

Bear the best humbly; and the worst resign’d;

Be dumb when Heaven afflicts! unlike yon train

Of haughty spoilers, insolently vain;

Who make their queen and all her wealth a prey:

But vengeance and Ulysses wing their way.

O may’st thou, favour’d by some guardian power,

Far, far be distant in that deathful hour!

For sure I am, if stern Ulysses breathe,

These lawless riots end in blood and death.”


Then to the gods the rosy juice he pours,

And the drain’d goblet to the chief restores.

Stung to the soul, o’ercast with holy dread,

He shook the graceful honours of his head;

His boding mind the future woe forestalls,

In vain! by great Telemachus he falls,

For Pallas seals his doom: all sad he turns

To join the peers; resumes his throne, and mourns.


Meanwhile Minerva with instinctive fires

Thy soul, Penelope, from Heaven inspires;

With flattering hopes the suitors to betray,

And seem to meet, yet fly, the bridal day: