But Jove’s will ever all law overcomes, No other God can cross or make it void;
And he affirms, that one the most annoy’d
With woes and toils of all those men that fought
For Priam’s city, and to end hath brought
Nine years in the contention, is with thee.
For in the tenth year, when roy victory
Was won to give the Greeks the spoil of Troy,
Return they did profess, but not enjoy,
Since Pallas they incens’d, and she the waves
By all the winds’ pow’r, that blew ope their graves.
And there they rested. Only this poor one
This coast both winds and waves have cast upon;
Whom now forthwith he wills thee to dismiss,
Affirming that th’ unalter’d Destinies
Not only have decreed he shall not die
Apart his friends, but of necessity
Enjoy their sights before those fatal hours,
His country earth reach, and erected tow’rs.”
This struck a love-check’d horror through her pow’rs,
When, naming him, she this reply did give:
“Insatiate are ye Gods, past all that live,
In all things you affect; which still converts
Your pow’rs to envies. It afflicts your hearts,
That any Goddess should, as you obtain
The use of earthly dames, enjoy the men,
And most in open marriage. So ye far’d,
When the delicious-finger’d Morning shar’d
Orion’s bed; you easy-living States
Could never satisfy your emulous hates,
Till in Ortygia the precise-liv’d Dame,
Gold-thron’d Diana, on him rudely came,
And with her swift shafts slew him. And such pains,
When rich-hair’d Ceres pleas’d to give the reins
To her affections, and the grace did yield
Of love and bed, amidst a three-cropp’d field,
To her Iasion, he paid angry Jove,
Who lost no long time notice of their love,
But with a glowing lightning was his death.
And now your envies labour underneath
A mortal’s choice of mine; whose life I took
To lib’ral safety, when his ship Jove strook,
With red-hot flashes, piece-meal in the seas,
And all his friends and soldiers succourless
Perish’d but he. Him, cast upon this coast
With blasts and billows, I, in life giv’n lost,
Preserv’d alone, lov’d, nourish’d, and did vow
To make him deathless, and yet never grow
Crooked, or worn with age, his whole life long.
But since no reason may be made so strong
To strive with Jove’s will, or to make it vain,
No not if all the other Gods should strain
Their pow’rs against it, let his will be law,
So he afford him fit means to withdraw,
As he commands him, to the raging main.
But means from me he never shall obtain,
For my means yield nor men, nor ship, nor oars,
To set him off from my so envied shores.
But if my counsel and good will can aid
His safe pass home, my best shall be assay’d.”
“Vouchsafe it so,” said heav’n’s ambassador,
“And deign it quickly. By all means abhor
T’ incense Jove’s wrath against thee, that with grace
He may hereafter all thy wish embrace.”
Thus took the Argus-killing God his wings.
And since the rev’rend Nymph these awful things
Receiv’d from Jove, she to Ulysses went;
Whom she ashore found, drown’d in discontent,
His eyes kept never dry he did so mourn,
And waste his dear age for his wish’d return;
Which still without the cave he us’d to do,
Because he could not please the Goddess so,
At night yet, forc’d, together took their rest,
The willing Goddess and th’ unwilling Guest;
But he all day in rocks, and on the shore,
The vex’d sea view’d, and did his fate deplore.
Him, now, the Goddess coming near bespake:
“Unhappy man, no more discomfort take
For my constraint of thee, nor waste thine age,
I now will passing freely disengage
Thy irksome stay here. Come then, fell thee wood,
And build a ship, to save thee from the flood.
I’ll furnish thee with fresh wave, bread, and wine
Ruddy and sweet, that will the piner pine, [2]
