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like a serving-man Enter’d the spacious city of your foes. 310 So veil’d, some mendicant he seem’d, although No Greecian less deserved that name than he. In such disguise he enter’d; all alike Misdeem’d him; me alone he not deceived Who challeng’d him, but, shrewd, he turn’d away. At length, however, when I had myself Bathed him, anointed, cloath’d him, and had sworn Not to declare him openly in Troy Till he should reach again the camp and fleet, He told me the whole purpose of the Greeks. 320 Then, (many a Trojan slaughter’d,) he regain’d The camp, and much intelligence he bore To the Achaians. Oh what wailing then Was heard of Trojan women! but my heart Exulted, alter’d now, and wishing home; For now my crime committed under force Of Venus’ influence I deplored, what time She led me to a country far remote, A wand’rer from the matrimonial bed, From my own child, and from my rightful Lord 330 Alike unblemish’d both in form and mind. Her answer’d then the Hero golden-hair’d. Helen! thou hast well spoken. All is true. I have the talents fathom’d and the minds Of num’rous Heroes, and have travell’d far Yet never saw I with these eyes in man Such firmness as the calm Ulysses own’d; None such as in the wooden horse he proved, Where all our bravest sat, designing woe And bloody havoc for the sons of Troy. 340 Thou thither cam’st, impell’d, as it should seem, By some divinity inclin’d to give Victory to our foes, and with thee came Godlike Deiphobus. Thrice round about The hollow ambush, striking with thy hand Its sides thou went’st, and by his name didst call Each prince of Greece feigning his consort’s voice. Myself with Diomede, and with divine Ulysses, seated in the midst, the call Heard plain and loud; we (Diomede and I) 350 With ardour burn’d either to quit the horse So summon’d, or to answer from within. But, all impatient as we were, Ulysses Controul’d the rash design; so there the sons Of the Achaians silent sat and mute, And of us all Anticlus would alone Have answer’d; but Ulysses with both hands Compressing close his lips, saved us, nor ceased Till Pallas thence conducted thee again. Then thus, discrete, Telemachus replied. 360 Atrides! Menelaus! prince renown’d! Hard was his lot whom these rare qualities Preserved not, neither had his dauntless heart Been iron, had he scaped his cruel doom. But haste, dismiss us hence, that on our beds Reposed, we may enjoy sleep, needful now. He ceas’d; then Argive Helen gave command To her attendant maidens to prepare Beds in the portico with purple rugs Resplendent, and with arras, overspread, 370 And cover’d warm with cloaks of shaggy pile. Forth went the maidens, bearing each a torch, And spread the couches; next, the herald them Led forth, and in the vestibule the son Of Nestor and the youthful Hero slept, Telemachus; but in the interior house Atrides, with the loveliest of her sex Beside him, Helen of the sweeping stole. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Glow’d in the East, then from his couch arose 380 The warlike Menelaus, fresh attir’d; His faulchion o’er his shoulders slung, he bound His sandals fair to his unsullied feet, And like a God issuing, at the side Sat of Telemachus, to whom he spake. Hero! Telemachus! what urgent cause Hath hither led thee, to the land far-famed Of Lacedæmon o’er the spacious Deep? Public concern or private? Tell me true. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. 390 Atrides! Menelaus! prince renown’d! News seeking of my Sire, I have arrived. My household is devour’d, my fruitful fields Are desolated, and my palace fill’d With enemies, who while they mutual wage Proud competition for my mother’s love, My flocks continual slaughter, and my beeves. For this cause, at thy knees suppliant, I beg That thou wouldst tell me his disastrous end, If either thou beheld’st with thine own eyes 400 His death, or from some wand’rer of the Greeks Hast heard it; for no common woes, alas! Was he ordain’d to share ev’n from the womb. Neither through pity or o’erstrain’d respect Flatter me, but explicit all relate Which thou hast witness’d. If my noble Sire E’er gratified thee by performance just Of word or deed at Ilium, where ye fell So num’rous slain in fight, oh recollect Now his fidelity, and tell me true! 410 Then Menelaus, sighing deep, replied. Gods! their ambition is to reach the bed Of a brave man, however base themselves. But as it chances, when the hart hath lay’d Her fawns new-yean’d and sucklings yet, to rest Within some dreadful lion’s gloomy den, She roams the hills, and in the grassy vales Feeds heedless, till the lion, to his lair Return’d, destroys her and her little-ones, So them thy Sire shall terribly destroy. 420 Jove, Pallas and Apollo! oh that such As erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove With Philomelides, and threw him flat, A sight at which Achaia’s sons rejoic’d, Such, now, Ulysses might assail them all! Short life and bitter nuptials should be theirs. But thy enquiries neither indirect Will I evade, nor give thee false reply, But all that from the Antient of the Deep
14 I have receiv’d will utter, hiding nought. 430 As yet the Gods on Ægypt’s shore detained Me wishing home, angry at my neglect To heap their altars with slain hecatombs. For they exacted from us evermore Strict rev’rence of their laws. There is an isle Amid the billowy flood, Pharos by name, In front of Ægypt, distant from her shore Far as a vessel by a sprightly gale Impell’d, may push her voyage in a day. The haven there is good, and many a ship 440 Finds wat’ring there from riv’lets on the coast. There me the Gods kept twenty days, no breeze Propitious granting, that might sweep the waves, And usher to her home the flying bark. And now had our provision, all consumed, Left us exhausted, but a certain nymph Pitying saved me. Daughter fair was she Of mighty Proteus, Antient of the Deep, Idothea named; her most my sorrows moved; She found me from my followers all apart 450 Wand’ring (for they around the isle, with hooks The fishes snaring roamed, by famine urged) And standing at my side, me thus bespake. Stranger! thou must be ideot born, or weak At least in intellect, or thy delight Is in distress and mis’ry, who delay’st To leave this island, and no egress hence Canst find, although thy famish’d people faint. So spake the Goddess, and I thus replied. I tell thee, whosoever of the Pow’rs 460 Divine thou art, that I am prison’d here Not willingly, but must have, doubtless, sinn’d Against the deathless tenants of the skies. Yet say (for the Immortals all things know) What God detains me, and my course forbids Hence to my country o’er the fishy Deep? So I; to whom the Goddess all-divine. Stranger! I will inform thee true. A seer Oracular, the Antient of the Deep, Immortal Proteus, the Ægyptian, haunts 470 These shores, familiar with all Ocean’s gulphs, And Neptune’s subject. He is by report My father; him if thou art able once To seize and bind, he will prescribe the course With all its measured distances, by which Thou shalt regain secure thy native shores. He will, moreover, at thy suit declare, Thou favour’d of the skies! what good, what ill Hath in thine house befall’n, while absent thou Thy voyage difficult perform’st and long. 480 She spake, and I replied—Thyself reveal By what effectual bands I may secure The antient Deity marine, lest, warn’d Of my approach, he shun me and escape. Hard task for mortal hands to bind a God! Then thus Idothea answer’d all-divine. I will inform thee true. Soon as the sun Hath climb’d the middle heav’ns, the prophet old, Emerging while the breezy zephyr blows, And cover’d with the scum of ocean, seeks 490 His spacious cove, in which outstretch’d he lies. The phocæ
15 also, rising from the waves, Offspring of beauteous Halosydna, sleep Around him, num’rous, and the fishy scent Exhaling rank of the unfathom’d flood. Thither conducting thee at peep of day I will dispose thee in some safe recess, But from among thy followers thou shalt chuse The bravest three in all thy gallant fleet. And now the artifices understand 500 Of the old prophet of the sea. The sum Of all his phocæ numb’ring duly first, He will pass through them, and when all by fives He counted hath, will in the midst repose Content, as sleeps the shepherd with his flock. When ye shall see him stretch’d, then call to mind That moment all your prowess, and prevent, Howe’er he strive impatient, his escape. All changes trying, he will take the form Of ev’ry reptile on the earth, will seem 510 A river now, and now devouring fire; But hold him ye, and grasp him still the more. And when himself shall question you, restored To his own form in which ye found him first Reposing, then from farther force abstain; Then, Hero! loose the Antient of the Deep, And ask him, of the Gods who checks thy course Hence to thy country o’er the fishy flood. So saying, she plunged into the billowy waste. I then, in various musings lost, my ships 520 Along the sea-beach station’d sought again, And when I reach’d my galley on the shore We supp’d, and sacred night falling from heav’n, Slept all extended on the ocean-side. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Look’d rosy forth, pensive beside the shore I
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