out He were as then, and with the Wooers coped,
Short-liv’d they all were, and their nuptials hoped
Would prove as desp’rate. But, for thy demand
Enforc’d with pray’rs, I’ll let thee understand
The truth directly, nor decline a thought,
Much less deceive, or sooth thy search in ought;
But what the old and still-true-spoken God,
That from the sea breathes oracles abroad,
Disclos’d to me, to thee I’ll all impart,
Nor hide one word from thy sollicitous heart.
I was in Ægypt, where a mighty time
The Gods detain’d me, though my natural clime
I never so desir’d, because their homes
I did not greet with perfect hecatombs.
For they will put men evermore in mind,
How much their masterly commandments bind.
There is, besides, a certain island, call’d
Pharos, that with the high-wav’d sea is wall’d,
Just against Ægypt, and so much remote,
As in a whole day, with a fore-gale smote,
A hollow ship can sail. And this isle bears
A port most portly, where sea-passengers
Put in still for fresh water, and away
To sea again. Yet here the Gods did stay
My fleet full twenty days; the winds, that are
Masters at sea, no prosp’rous puff would spare
To put us off; and all my victuals here
Had quite corrupted, as my men’s minds were,
Had not a certain Goddess giv’n regard,
And pitied me in an estate so hard;
And ’twas Idothea, honour’d Proteus’ seed,
That old sea-farer. Her mind I make bleed
With my compassion, when (walk’d all alone,
From all my soldiers, that were ever gone
About the isle on fishing with hooks bent;
Hunger their bellies on her errand sent)
She came close to me, spake, and thus began:
‘Of all men thou art the most foolish man!
Or slack in business, or stay’st here of choice,
And dost in all thy suff’rances rejoice,
That thus long liv’st detain’d here, and no end
Canst give thy tarriance? Thou dost much offend
The minds of all thy fellows.’ I replied:
‘Whoever thou art of the Deified,
I must affirm, that no way with my will
I make abode here; but, it seems, some ill
The Gods, inhabiting broad heav’n, sustain
Against my getting off. Inform me then,
For Godheads all things know, what God is he
That stays my passage from the fishy sea?’
‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘I’ll tell thee true: There lives
An old sea-farer in these seas, that gives
A true solution of all secrets here,
Who deathless Proteus is, th’ Ægyptian peer,
Who can the deeps of all the seas exquire,
Who Neptune’s priest is, and, they say, the sire
That did beget me. Him, if any way
Thou couldst inveigle, he would clear display
Thy course from hence, and how far off doth lie
Thy voyage’s whole scope through Neptune’s sky.
Informing thee, O God-preserv’d, beside,
If thy desires would so be satisfied,
Whatever good or ill hath got event,
In all the time thy long and hard course spent,
Since thy departure from thy house.’ This said;
Again I answer’d: ‘Make the sleights display’d
Thy father useth, lest his foresight see,
Or his foreknowledge taking note of me,
He flies the fixt place of his us’d abode.
’Tis hard for man to countermine with God.’
She straight replied: ‘I’ll utter truth in all:
When heav’n’s supremest height the sun doth skall,
The old Sea-tell-truth leaves the deeps, and hides
Amidst a black storm, when the West Wind chides,
In caves still sleeping. Round about him sleep
(With short feet swimming forth the foamy deep)
The sea-calves, lovely Halosydnes call’d,
From whom a noisome odour is exhal’d,
Got from the whirl-pools, on whose earth they lie.
Here, when the morn illustrates all the sky,
I’ll guide, and seat thee in the fittest place
For the performance thou hast now in chace.
In mean time, reach thy fleet, and choose out three
