by Homer
And with his purple weed his weepings hide.’
Then Nestor’s son, Pisistratus, replied:
‘Great pastor of the people, kept of god,
He is Ulysses’ son, but his abode
Not made before here, and he modest too,
He holds it an indignity to do
A deed so vain, to use the boast of words,
Where your words are on wing; whose voice affords
Delight to us as if a god did break
The air amongst us, and vouchsafe to speak.
But me my father, old duke Nestor, sent
To be his consort hither, his content
Not to be heighten’d so as with your sight,
In hope that therewith words and actions might
Inform his comforts from you, since he is
Extremely grieved and injured by the miss
Of his great father; suffering even at home,
And few friends found to help him overcome
His too weak suff’rance, now his sire is gone –
Amongst the people not afforded one
To check the miseries that mate him thus.
And this the state is of Telemachus.’
‘O gods,’ said he, ‘how certain, now, I see
My house enjoys that friend’s son, that for me
Hath undergone so many willing fights!
Whom I resolved, past all the Grecian knights,
To hold in love, if our return by seas
The far-off Thunderer did ever please
To grant our wishes. And to his respect
A palace and a city to erect,
My vow had bound me; whither bringing then
His riches and his son and all his men
From barren Ithaca (some one sole town
Inhabited about him batter’d down),
All should in Argos live. And there would I
Ease him of rule, and take the empery
Of all on me. And often here would we,
Delighting, loving either’s company,
Meet and converse; whom nothing should divide
Till death’s black veil did each all over hide.
But this perhaps hath been a mean to take
Ev’n god himself with envy, who did make
Ulysses therefore only the unblest,
That should not reach his loved country’s rest.’
These woes made every one with woe in love.
Ev’n Argive Helen wept, the seed of Jove;
Ulysses’ son wept, Atreus’ son did weep,
And Nestor’s son his eyes in tears did steep –
But his tears fell not from the present cloud
That from Ulysses was exhaled, but flow’d
From brave Antilochus’ remember’d due,
Whom the renown’d son of the Morning slew;
Which yet he thus excus’d: ‘O Atreus’ son,
Old Nestor says, there lives not such a one
Amongst all mortals as Atrides is
For deathless wisdom. ’Tis a praise of his,
Still giv’n in your remembrance, when at home
Our speech concerns you. Since then overcome
You please to be with sorrow, ev’n to tears,
That are in wisdom so exempt from peers,
Vouchsafe the like effect in me excuse,
If it be lawful. I affect no use
Of tears thus after meals – at least at night;
But when the morn brings forth, with tears, her light,
It shall not then impair me to bestow
My tears on any worthy’s overthrow.
It is the only rite that wretched men
Can do dead friends, to cut hair, and complain.
But death my brother took, whom none could call
The Grecian coward, you best knew of all.
I was not there, nor saw, but men report
Antilochus excell’d the common sort
For footmanship, or for the chariot race,
Or in the fight for hardy hold of place.’
‘O friend,’ said he, ‘since thou hast spoken so,
At all parts as one wise should say and do,
And like one far beyond thyself in years,
Thy words shall bounds be to our former tears.
O he is questionless a right-born son,
That of his father hath not only won
The person but the wisdom; and that sire
Complete himself that hath a son entire.
Jove did not only his full fate adorn,
When he was wedded, but when he was born.
As now Saturnius, through his life’s whole date,
Hath Nestor’s bliss raised to as steep a state,
Both in his age to keep in peace his house,
And to have children wise and valorous.
But let us not forget our rear feast thus.
Let some give water here. Telemachus!
The morning shall yield time to you and me
To do what fits, and reason mutually.’
This said, the careful servant of the king,
Asphalion, pour’d on th’ issue of the spring
And all to ready feast set ready hand.
But Helen now on new device did stand,
Infusing straight a medicine to their wine,
That drowning cares and angers, did decline
All thought of ill. Who drunk her cup could shed
All that day not a tear, no not if dead
That day his father or his mother were,
Not if his brother, child, or chiefest dear,
He should see murder’d then before his face.
Such useful medicines, only borne in grace
Of what was good, would Helen ever have.
And this juice to her Polydamna gave
The wife of Thoön, an Egyptian born,
Whose rich earth herbs of medicine do adorn
In great abundance. Many healthful are,
And many baneful. Every man is there
A good physician out of Nature’s grace,
For all the nation sprung of Paeon’s race.
When Helen then her medicine had infus’d,
She bad pour wine to it, and this speech us’d:
‘Atrides, and these good men’s sons, great Jove
Makes good and ill one after other move,
In all things earthly; for he can do all.
The woes past, therefore, he so late let fall,
The comforts he affords us let us take;
Feast and, with fit discourses, merry make.
Nor will I other use. As then our blood
Griev’d for Ulysses since he was so good,
Since he was good, let us delight to hear
How good he was, and what his sufferings were –
Though every fight and every suffering deed
Patient Ulysses underwent, exceed
My woman’s pow’r to number or to name.
But what he did and suffer’d, when he came
Amongst the Trojans, where ye Grecians all
Took part with suff’rance, I in part can call
To your kind memories – how with ghastly wounds
Himself he mangled, and the Trojan bounds,
Thrust thick with enemies, adventur’d on,
His royal shoulders having cast upon
Base abject weeds, and enter’d like a slave.
Then, beggar-like, he did of all men crave,
And such
a wretch was, as the whole Greek fleet
Brought not besides. And thus through every street
He crept discovering, of no one man known.
And yet through all this difference, I alone
Smoked his true person, talk’d with him; but he
Fled me with wiles still. Nor could we agree,
Till I disclaim’d him quite; and so (as mov’d
With womanly remorse of one that prov’d
So wretched an estate, whate’er he were)
Won him to take my house. And yet ev’n there,
Till freely I, to make him doubtless, swore
A powerful oath, to let him reach the shore
Of ships and tents before Troy understood,
I could not force on him his proper good.
But then I bath’d and sooth’d him, and he then
Confess’d, and told me all; and, having slain
A number of the Trojan guards, retired,
And reach’d the fleet, for sleight and force admired.
Their husbands’ deaths by him the Trojan wives
Shriek’d for; but I made triumphs for their lives,
For then my heart conceiv’d, that once again
I should reach home; and yet did still retain
Woe for the slaughters Venus made for me,
When both my husband, my Hermione,
And bridal room, she robb’d of so much right,
And drew me from my country with her sleight,
Though nothing under heaven I here did need,
That could my fancy or my beauty feed.’
Her husband said: ‘Wife! What you please to tell
Is true at all parts, and becomes you well;
And I myself, that now may say have seen
The minds and manners of a world of men,
And groat heroës, measuring many a ground,
Have never, by these eyes that light me, found
One with a bosom so to be belov’d,
As that in which th’ accomplish’d spirit mov’d
Of patient Ulysses. What, brave man,
He both did act and suffer, when he won
The town of Ilion, in the brave-built horse,
When all we chief states of the Grecian force
Were hous’d together, bringing death and fate
Amongst the Trojans, you, wife, may relate;
For you, at last, came to us; god, that would
The Trojans’ glory give, gave charge you should
Approach the engine; and Deiphobus,
The godlike, follow’d. Thrice ye circled us
With full survey of it; and often tried
The hollow crafts that in it were implied.
When all the voices of their wives in it
You took on you with voice so like and fit,
And every man by name so visited,
That I, Ulysses, and king Diomed,
(Set in the midst, and hearing how you call’d
Tydides and myself) as half appall’d
With your remorseful plaints, would passing fain
Have broke own silence, rather than again
Endure, respectless, their so moving cries.
But Ithacus our strongest fantasies
Contain’d within us from the slenderest noise,
And every man there sat without a voice.
Anticlus only would have answer’d thee,
But his speech Ithacus incessantly
With strong hand held in, till, Minerva’s call
Charging thee off, Ulysses sav’d us all.’
Telemachus replied: ‘Much greater is
My grief, for hearing this high praise of his.
For all this doth not his sad death divert,
Nor can, though in him swell’d an iron heart.
Prepare, and lead then, if you please, to rest:
Sleep, that we hear not, will content us best.’
Then Argive Helen made her handmaid go,
And put fair bedding in the portico,
Lax purple blankets on rugs warm and soft,
And cast an arras coverlet aloft.
They torches took, made haste, and made the bed;
When both the guests were to their lodgings led
Within a portico without the house.
Atrides, and his large-train-wearing spouse,
The excellent of women, for the way,
In a retired receit, together lay.
The morn arose; the king rose, and put on
His royal weeds, his sharp sword hung upon
His ample shoulders, forth his chamber went,
And did the person of a god present.
Telemachus accosts him, who begun
Speech of his journey’s proposition:
‘And what, my young Ulyssean heroë,
Provoked thee on the broad back of the sea
To visit Lacedaemon the divine?
Speak truth: some public good, or only thine?’
‘I come,’ said he, ‘to hear if any fame
Breath’d of my father to thy notice came.
My house is sack’d, my fat works of the field
Are all destroy’d; my house doth nothing yield
But enemies, that kill my harmless sheep
And sinewy oxen, nor will ever keep
Their steels without them. And these men are they
That woo my mother, most inhumanly
Committing injury on injury.
To thy knees therefore I am come, t’ attend
Relation of the sad and wretched end
My erring father felt, if witness’d by
Your own eyes, or the certain news that fly
From others’ knowledges. For, more than is
The usual heap of human miseries,
His mother bore him to. Vouchsafe me then,
Without all ruth of what I can sustain,
The plain and simple truth of all you know.
Let me beseech so much, if ever vow
Was made, and put in good effect to you,
At Troy, where suff’rance bred you so much smart,
Upon my father good Ulysses’ part,
And quit it now to me (himself in youth)
Unfolding only the unclosed truth.’
He, deeply sighing, answer’d him: ‘O shame,
That such poor vassals should affect the fame
To share the joys of such a worthy’s bed!
As when a hind, her calves late farrowed,
To give suck enters the bold lion’s den,
He roots of hills and herby vallies then
For food (there feeding) hunting, but at length
Returning to his cavern, gives his strength
The lives of both the mother and her brood
In deaths indecent: so the wooers’ blood
Must pay Ulysses’ pow’rs as sharp an end.
O would to Jove, Apollo, and thy friend
The wise Minerva, that thy father were
As once he was, when he his spirits did rear
Against Philomelides, in a fight
Perform’d in well-built Lesbos, where downright
He strook the earth with him, and gat a shout
Of all the Grecians! O, if now full out
He were as then, and with the wooers cop’d,
Short-liv’d they all were, and their nuptials hop’d
Would prove as desperate. But, for thy demand
Enforc’d with prayers, I’ll let thee understand
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The truth directly, nor decline a thought,
Much less deceive or soothe 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 solicitous heart.
I was in Egypt, 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 Egypt, 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 seafarer. Her mind I made 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 seafarer in these seas, that gives
