by Homer
And gold engrav’n with infinite device,
I wish that each of us should add beside
A tripod, and a cauldron, amplified
With size, and metal of most rate, and great;
For we, in council of taxation met,
Will from our subjects gain their worth again;
Since ’tis unequal one man should sustain
A charge so weighty, being the grace of all,
Which borne by many is a weight but small.’
Thus spake Alcinous, and pleas’d the rest;
When each man clos’d with home and sleep his feast.
But when the colour-giving light arose,
All to the ship did all their speeds dispose,
And wealth, that honest men makes, brought with them.
All which ev’n he that wore the diadem
Stow’d in the ship himself, beneath the seats
The rowers sat in, stooping, lest their lets
In any of their labours he might prove.
Then home he turn’d, and after him did move
The whole assembly to expected feast.
Among whom he a sacrifice address’d,
And slew an ox, to weather-wielding Jove,
Beneath whose empire all things are, and move.
The thighs then roasting, they made glorious cheer,
Delighted highly; and amongst them there
The honour’d-of-the-people us’d his voice,
Divine Demodocus. Yet, through this choice
Of cheer and music, had Ulysses still
An eye directed to the eastern hill,
To see him rising that illustrates all:
For now into his mind a fire did fall
Of thirst for home. And as in hungry vow
To needful food a man at fixed plow
(To whom the black ox all day long hath turn’d
The stubborn fallows up, his stomach burn’d
With empty heat and appetite to food,
His knees afflicted with his spirit-spent blood)
At length the long-expected sun-set sees,
That he may sit to food, and rest his knees:
So to Ulysses set the friendly light
The sun afforded, with as wish’d a sight.
Who straight bespake that oar-affecting state,
But did in chief his speech appropriate
To him by name, that with their rule was crown’d.
‘Alcinous, of all men most renown’d,
Dismiss me with as safe pass as you vow
(Your off’ring past), and may the gods to you
In all contentment use as full a hand;
For now my landing here and stay shall stand
In all perfection with my heart’s desire,
Both my so safe deduction to aspire,
And loving gifts; which may the gods to me
As blest in use make as your acts are free,
Ev’n to the finding firm in love and life,
With all desir’d event, my friends and wife.
When, as myself shall live delighted there,
May you with your wives rest as happy here,
Your sons and daughters, in particular state,
With every virtue render’d consummate;
And, in your general empire, may ill never
Approach your land, but good your good quit ever.’
This all applauded, and all jointly cried:
‘Dismiss the stranger! He hath dignified
With fit speech his dismission.’ Then the king
Thus charg’d the herald: ‘Fill for offering
A bowl of wine; which through the whole large house
Dispose to all men, that, propitious
Our father Jove made with our pray’rs, we may
Give home our guest in full and wished way.’
This said, Pontonous commix’d a bowl
Of such sweet wine as did delight the soul.
Which making sacred to the blessed gods,
That hold in broad heav’n their supreme abodes,
godlike Ulysses from his chair arose,
And in the hands of th’ empress did impose
The all-round cup; to whom, fair spoke, he said:
‘Rejoice, O queen, and be your joys repaid
By heav’n, for me, till age and death succeed;
Both which inflict their most unwelcome need
On men and dames alike. And first, for me,
I must from hence, to both: live you here free,
And ever may all living blessings spring,
Your joy in children, subjects, and your king.’
This said, divine Ulysses took his way;
Before whom the unalterable sway
Of king Alcinous’ virtue did command
A herald’s fit attendance to the strand,
And ship appointed. With him likewise went
Handmaids, by Arete’s injunction sent.
One bore an out-and in-weed, fair and sweet,
The other an embroider’d cabinet,
The third had bread to bear, and ruddy wine;
All which, at sea and ship arriv’d, resign
Their freight conferr’d. With fair attendants then,
The sheets and bedding of the man of men –
Within a cabin of the hollow keel,
Spread and made soft, that sleep might sweetly seal
His restful eyes – he enter’d, and his bed
In silence took. The rowers ordered
Themselves in several seats, and then set gone
The ship, the cable from the hollow stone
Dissolv’d and weigh’d up, all together, close
Then beat the sea. His lids in sweet repose
Sleep bound so fast, it scarce gave way to breath,
Inexcitable, next of all to death.
And as amids a fair field four brave horse
Before a chariot, stung into their course
With fervent lashes of the smarting scourge,
That all their fire blows high, and makes them urge
To utmost speed the measure of their ground:
So bore the ship aloft her fiery bound;
About whom rush’d the billows black and vast,
In which the sea-roars burst. As firm as fast
She ply’d her course yet; nor her winged speed
The falcon-gentle could for pace exceed;
So cut she through the waves, and bore a man
Ev’n with the gods in counsels, that began
And spent his former life in all misease,
Battles of men, and rude waves of the seas,
Yet now securely slept, forgetting all.
And when heav’n’s brightest star, that first doth call
The early morning out, advanc’d her head,
Then near to Ithaca the billow-bred
Phaeacian ship approach’d. There is a port,
That th’ aged sea-god Phorcys makes his fort,
Whose earth the Ithacensian people own,
In which two rocks inaccessible are grown
Far forth into the sea, whose each strength binds
The boist’rous waves in from the high-flown winds
On both the out-parts so, that all within
The well-built ships, that once their harbour win
In his calm bosom, without anchor rest,
Safe, and unstirr’d. From forth the hav’n’s high crest
Branch the well-brawn’d arms of an olive
-tree;
Beneath which runs a cave from all sun free,
Cool and delightsome, sacred to th’ access
Of nymphs whose surnames are the Naiades;
In which flew humming bees, in which lay thrown
Stone cups, stone vessels, shittles all of stone,
With which the nymphs their purple mantles wove,
In whose contexture art and wonder strove;
In which pure springs perpetually ran;
To which two entries were: the one for man,
On which the North breath’d; th’ other for the gods,
On which the South; and that bore no abodes
For earthy men, but only deathless feet
Had there free way. This port these men thought meet
To land Ulysses, being the first they knew;
Drew then their ship in, but no further drew
Than half her bulk reach’d, by such cunning hand
Her course was manag’d. Then her men took land,
And first brought forth Ulysses, bed, and all
That richly furnish’d it, he still in thrall
Of all-subduing sleep. Upon the sand
They set him softly down; and then the strand
They strew’d with all the goods he had, bestow’d
By the renown’d Phaeacians, since he show’d
So much Minerva. At the olive root
They drew them then in heap, most far from foot
Of any traveller, lest, ere his eyes
Resum’d their charge, they might be others’ prise.
These then turn’d home; nor was the sea’s supreme
Forgetful of his threats, for Polypheme
Bent at divine Ulysses, yet would prove
(Ere their performance) the decree of Jove:
‘Father! No more the gods shall honour me,
Since men despise me, and those men that see
The light in lineage of mine own lov’d race.
I vow’d Ulysses should, before the grace
Of his return, encounter woes enow
To make that purchase dear; yet did not vow
Simply against it, since thy brow had bent
To his reduction, in the fore-consent
Thou hadst vouchsaf’d it; yet, before my mind
Hath full pow’r on him, the Phaeacians find
Their own minds’ satisfaction with his pass,
So far from suff’ring what my pleasure was,
That ease and softness now is habited
In his secure breast, and his careless head
Return’d in peace of sleep to Ithaca,
The brass and gold of rich Phaeacia
Rocking his temples, garments richly wov’n,
And worlds of prise, more than was ever strov’n
From all the conflicts he sustain’d at Troy,
If safe he should his full share there enjoy.’
The Shower-dissolver answer’d: ‘What a speech
Hath pass’d thy palate, O thou great in reach
Of wrackful empire! Far the gods remain
From scorn of thee, for ’twere a work of pain
To prosecute with ignominies one
That sways our ablest and most ancient throne.
For men, if any so beneath in pow’r
Neglect thy high will, now, or any hour
That moves hereafter, take revenge to thee,
Soothe all thy will, and be thy pleasure free.’
‘Why then,’ said he, ‘thou blacker of the fumes
That dim the sun, my licens’d pow’r resumes
Act from thy speech; but I observe so much
And fear thy pleasure, that I dare not touch
At any inclination of mine own,
Till thy consenting influence be known.
But now this curious-built Phaeacian ship,
Returning from her convoy, I will strip
Of all her fleeting matter, and to stone
Transform and fix it, just when she hath gone
Her full time home, and jets before their prease
In all her trim, amids the sable seas,
That they may cease to convoy strangers still,
When they shall see so like a mighty hill
Their glory stick before their city’s grace,
And my hands cast a mask before her face.’
‘O friend,’ said Jove, ‘it shows to me the best
Of all earth’s objects, that their whole prease, dress’d
In all their wonder, near their town shall stand,
And stare upon a stone, so near the land,
So like a ship, and dam up all their lights,
As if a mountain interpos’d their sights.’
When Neptune heard this, he for Scheria went,
Whence the Phaeacians took their first descent.
Which when he reach’d, and, in her swiftest pride,
The water-treader by the city’s side
Came cutting close, close he came swiftly on,
Took her in violent hand, and to a stone
Turn’d all her sylvan substance; all below
Firm’d her with roots, and left her. This strange show
When the Phaeacians saw, they stupid stood,
And ask’d each other, who amids the flood
Could fix their ship so in her full speed home,
And quite transparent make her bulk become?
Thus talk’d they; but were far from knowing how
These things had issue. Which their king did show,
And said: ‘O friends, the ancient prophecies
My father told to me, to all our eyes
Are now in proof. He said, the time would come
When Neptune, for our safe conducting home
All sorts of strangers, out of envy fir’d,
Would meet our fairest ship as she retir’d,
And all the goodly shape and speed we boast
Should like a mountain stand before us lost,
Amids the moving waters; which we see
Perform’d in full end to our prophecy.
Hear then my counsel, and obey me then:
Renounce henceforth our convoy home of men,
Whoever shall hereafter greet our town;
And to th’ offended deity’s renown
Twelve chosen oxen let us sacred make,
That he may pity us, and from us take
This shady mountain. They, in fear, obey’d,
Slew all the beeves, and to the godhead pray’d,
The dukes and princes all ensphering round
The sacred altar; while whose tops were crown’d,
Divine Ulysses, on his country’s breast
Laid bound in sleep, now rose out of his rest,
Nor (being so long remov’d) the region knew.
Besides which absence, yet Minerva threw
A cloud about him, to make strange the more
His safe arrival, lest upon his shore
He should make known his face, and utter all
That might prevent th’ event that was to fall.
Which she prepar’d so well, that not his wife,
Presented to him, should perceive his life –
No citizen, no friend, till righteous fate
Upon the wooers’ wrongs were consummate.
Through which cloud all things show’d now to the king
Of foreign fashion; the enflower’d spring
Amongst the trees there, the perpetual waves,
The rocks, that did more high their foreheads raise
To his rapt eye than naturally they did,
And all the hav’n, in which a man seem’d hid
From wind and weather, when storms loudest chid.
He therefore, being risen, stood and view’d
His country earth; which, not perceiv’d, he ru’d,
And, striking with his hurl’d-down hands his thighs,
He mourn’d, and said: ‘O me! Again where lies
My desert way? To wrongful men and rude,
And with no laws of human right endu’d?
Or are they human, and of holy minds?
What fits my deed with these so many kinds
Of goods late giv’n? What with myself will floods
And errors do? I would to god, these goods
Had rested with their owners, and that I
Had fall’n on kings of more regality,
To grace out my return, that lov’d indeed,
And would have giv’n me consorts of fit speed
To my distresses’ ending! But, as now,
All knowledge flies me, where I may bestow
My labour’d purchase. Here they shall not stay,
Lest what I car’d for others make their prey.
O gods! I see the great Phaeacians then
Were not all just and understanding men,
That land me elsewhere than their vaunts pretended,
Assuring me my country should see ended
My miseries told them, yet now eat their vaunts.
O Jove! Great guardian of poor suppliants,
That others sees, and notes too, shutting in
All in thy plagues, that most presume on sin,
Revenge me on them. Let me number now
The goods they gave, to give my mind to know
If they have stol’n none, in their close retreat.’
The goodly cauldrons then, and tripods, set
In sev’ral ranks from out the heap, he told,
His rich wrought garments too, and all his gold,
And nothing lack’d; and yet this man did mourn
The but suppos’d miss of his home-return –
And creeping to the shore, with much complaint,
Minerva (like a shepherd, young and quaint,
As king’s sons are, a double mantle cast
Athwart his shoulders, his fair goers grac’d
With fitted shoes, and in his hand a dart)
Appear’d to him, whose sight rejoic’d his heart;
To whom he came, and said: ‘O friend! Since first
I meet your sight here, be all good the worst
That can join our encounter. Fare you fair,
