Atrides’-self renew’d, and but the prime Of youth’s spring put abroad, in thirst to climb
His haughty father’s throne by his high acts.’
These words of Hermes wrought not into facts
Ægisthus’ powers; good counsel he despis’d,
And to that good his ill is sacrific’d.”
Pallas, whose eyes did sparkle like the skies,
Answer’d: “O Sire! Supreme of Deities,
Ægisthus pass’d his fate, and had desert
To warrant our infliction; and convert
May all the pains such impious men inflict
On innocent suff’rers to revenge as strict,
Their own hearts eating. But, that Ithacus,
Thus never meriting, should suffer thus,
I deeply suffer. His more pious mind
Divides him from these fortunes. Though unkind
Is piety to him, giving him a fate
More suff’ring than the most unfortunate,
So long kept friendless in a sea-girt soil,
Where the sea’s navel is a sylvan isle,
In which the Goddess dwells that doth derive
Her birth from Atlas, who of all alive
The motion and the fashion doth command
With his wise mind, whose forces understand [4]
The inmost deeps and gulfs of all the seas,
Who (for his skill of things superior) stays
The two steep columns that prop earth and heav’n.
His daughter ‘tis, who holds this homeless-driv’n [5]
Still mourning with her; evermore profuse
Of soft and winning speeches, that abuse
And make so languishingly, and possest [6]
With so remiss a mind her loved guest,
Manage the action of his way for home.
Where he, though in affection overcome,
In judgment yet more longs to show his hopes
His country’s smoke leap from her chimney tops,
And death asks in her arms. Yet never shall
Thy lov’d heart be converted on his thrall,
Austere Olympius. Did not ever he,
In ample Troy, thy altars gratify,
And Grecians’ fleet make in thy off’rings swim?
Jove, why still then burns thy wrath to him?”
The Cloud-assembler answer’d: “What words fly,
Bold daughter, from thy pale of ivory? [7]
As if I ever could cast from my care
Divine Ulysses, who exceeds so far
All men in wisdom, and so oft hath giv’n
To all th’ Immortals thron’d in ample heav’n
So great and sacred gifts? But his decrees,
That holds the earth in with his nimble knees,
Stand to Ulysses’ longings so extreme,
For taking from the God-foe Polypheme
His only eye; a Cyclop, that excell’d
All other Cyclops, with whose burden swell’d
The nymph Thoosa, the divine increase
Of Phorcys’ seed, a great God of the seas.
She mix’d with Neptune in his hollow caves,
And bore this Cyclop to that God of waves.
For whose lost eye, th’ Earth-shaker did not kill
Erring Ulysses, but reserves him still
In life for more death. But use we our pow’rs,
And round about us cast these cares of ours,
All to discover how we may prefer
His wish’d retreat, and Neptune make forbear
His stern eye to him, since no one God can,
In spite of all, prevail, but ’gainst a man.”
To this, this answer made the grey-eyed Maid:
“Supreme of rulers, since so well apaid
The blesséd Gods are all then, now, in thee,
To limit wise Ulysses’ misery,
And that you speak as you referr’d to me
Prescription for the means, in this sort be
Their sacred order: Let us now address
With utmost speed our swift Argicides,
To tell the nymph that bears the golden tress
In th’ isle Ogygia, that ’tis our will
She should not stay our lov’d Ulysses still,
But suffer his return; and then will I
To Ithaca, to make his son apply
His sire’s inquest the more; infusing force
Into his soul, to summon the concourse
Of curl’d-head Greeks to council, and deter
Each wooer, that hath been the slaughterer
Of his fat sheep and crooked-headed beeves.
From more wrong to his mother, and their leaves
