by Homer
He was himself? And what th’ inhabited place
Where liv’d his parents? Whence he fetch’d his race?
‘O woman,’ he replied, ‘with whom no man,
That moves in earth’s unbounded circle, can
Maintain contention for true honour giv’n,
Whose fame hath reach’d the fairly-flowing heav’n,
Who, like a never-ill-deserving king,
That is well spoke of, first for worshipping,
And striving to resemble god in empire;
Whose equal hand impartially doth temper
Greatness and goodness; to whom therefore bears
The black earth store of all grain, trees confers
Cracking with burthen, long-liv’d herds creates,
All which the sea with her sorts emulates;
And all this feeds beneath his powerful hand
Men valiant, many, making strong his land
With happy lives led; nothing else the cause
Of all these blessings but well-order’d laws:
Like such a king are you, in love, in fame,
And all the bliss that deifies a dame.
And therefore do not mix this with a moan
So wretched as is now in question;
Ask not my race nor country, lest you fill
My heart yet fuller with repeated ill;
For I must follow it with many tears,
Though ’tis not seemly to sit wounding ears
In public roofs with our particular life.
Time’s worst expense is still-repeated grief.
I should be irksome to your ladies here,
And you yourself would say you urg’d your ear
To what offends it, my still-broken eyne
Supposing wounded with your too-much wine.’
‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘you fear your own excess
With giving me too great a nobleness.
The gods my person, beauty, virtue too,
Long since subverted, when the Ilion woe
The Greek design attempted; in which went
My praise and honour. In his government
Had I deserv’d your utmost grace, but now
Sinister deity makes dishonour woo,
In show of grace, my ruin. All the peers –
Sylvan Zacynthus’ and Dulichius’ spheres,
Samos and Ithaca – strange strifes have shown
To win me, spending on me all mine own;
Will wed me, in my spite; and these are those
That take from me all virtue to dispose
Or guest or suppliant, or take any course
Amongst my heralds, that should all disburse,
To order anything. Though I need none
To give me grief at home, abroad errs one
That my veins shrink for, whom these holding gone,
Their nuptials hasten, and find me as slow.
Good spirits prompted me to make a show
Of undertaking a most curious task,
That an unmeasur’d space of time would ask;
Which they enduring long would often say,
“When ends thy work?” I soon had my delay,
And pray’d their stay; for though my lord were dead,
His father’s life yet matter ministred
That must employ me; which, to tell them true,
Was that great work I nam’d. For now near drew
Laertes’ death, and on my hand did lie
His funeral-robe, whose end, being now so nigh,
I must not leave, and lose so much begun,
The rather lest the Greek dames might be won
To tax mine honour, if a man so great
Should greet his grave without his winding sheet.
Pride made them credulous, and I went on;
When whatsoever all the day had done
I made the night help to undo again,
Though oil and watch it cost, and equal pain.
Three years my wit secur’d me undiscern’d,
Yet, when the fourth came, by my maids discern’d,
False careless wenches, how they were deluded;
When, by my light discern’d, they all intruded,
Us’d threat’ning words, and made me give it end.
And then could I to no more length extend
My linger’d nuptials; not a counsel more
Was to be stood upon; my parents bore
Continual hand on me to make me wed;
My son grew angry that so ruined
His goods were by them. He is now a man
Wise in a great degree, and one that can
Himself give order to his household fare –
And Jove give equal glory to his care.
But thus you must not pass me; I must know,
It may be for more end, from whence doth grow
Your race and you; for I suppose you none
Sprung of old oak, or justled out of stone.’
He answer’d: ‘O Ulysses’ reverend wife!
Yet hold you purpose to inquire my life?
I’ll tell you, though it much afflict me more
Than all the sorrows I have felt before –
As worthily it may, since so long time
As I have wander’d from my native clime
Through human cities, and in suff’rance still,
To rip all wounds up, though of all their ill
I touch but part, must actuate all their pain.
But, ask you still, I’ll tell, though still sustain.
In middle of the sable sea there lies
An isle call’d Crete, a ravisher of eyes,
Fruitful, and mann’d with many an infinite store;
Where ninety cities crown the famous shore,
Mix’d with all-languag’d men. There Greeks survive,
There the great-minded Eteocretans live,
There the Dorensians never out of war,
The Cydons there, and there the singular
Pelasgian people. There doth Cnossus stand,
That mighty city, where had most command
Great Jove’s disciple, Minos, who nine years
Conferr’d with Jove, both great familiars
In mutual counsels. And this Minos’ son,
The mighty-minded king Deucalion,
Was sire to me and royal Idomen,
Who with Atrides went to Ilion then,
My elder brother and the better man,
My name Aëthon. At that time began
My knowledge of Ulysses, whom my home
Receiv’d with guest-rites. He was thither come
By force of weather, from the Malean coast
But new got off, where he the navy lost,
Then under sail for Troy, and wind-bound lay
Long in Amnisus, hardly got away
From horrid storms, that made him anchor there,
In hav’ns that sacred to Lucina were,
Dreadful and dangerous, in whose bosom crept
Lucina’s cavern. But in my roof slept
Ulysses, shor’d in Crete; who first inquir’d
For royal Idomen, and much desir’d
To taste his guest-rites, since to him had been
A welcome guest my brother Idomen.
The tenth or ’leventh light on Ulysses shin’d
In stay at Crete, attending then the wind
For threaten’d Ilion. All which time my house
With love and entertainments curious
&
nbsp; Embrac’d his person, though a number more
My hospitable roofs receiv’d before.
His men I likewise call’d, and from the store
Allow’d them meal and heat-exciting wine,
And oxen for their slaughter, to confine
In my free hand the utmost of their need.
Twelve days the Greeks stay’d, ere they got them freed,
A gale so bitter blew out of the north,
That none could stand on earth, being tumbled forth
By some stern god. But on the thirteenth day
The tempest ceas’d, and then went Greeks their way.’
Thus many tales Ulysses told his wife,
At most but painting, yet most like the life;
Of which her heart such sense took through her ears,
It made her weep as she would turn to tears.
And as from off the mountains melts the snow,
Which Zephyr’s breath conceal’d, but was made flow
By hollow Eurus, which so fast pours down,
That with their torrent floods have overflown:
So down her fair cheeks her kind tears did glide,
Her miss’d lord mourning, set so near her side.
Ulysses much was mov’d to see her mourn;
Whose eyes yet stood as dry as iron or horn
In his untroubled lids, which in his craft
Of bridling passion he from issue sav’d.
When she had given her moan so many tears,
That now ’twas satiate, her yet loving fears
Ask’d thus much further: ‘You have thus far tried
My love’s credulity, but if gratified
With so long stay he was with you, you can
Describe what weed he wore, what kind of man
Both he himself was, and what followers
Observ’d him there.’ ‘Alas,’ said he, ‘the years
Have grown so many since – this making now
Their twentieth revolution – that my show
Of these slight notes will set my memory sore;
But, to my now remembrance, this he wore:
A double purple robe, drawn close before
With golden buttons, plaited thick, and bore
A facing where a hundred colours shin’d.
About the skirts a hound a freckled hind
In full course hunted; on the foreskirts, yet,
He pinch’d and pull’d her down, when with her feet,
And all her force, she struggled hard for flight.
Which had such life in gold, that to the sight
It seem’d the hind itself for every hue,
The hound and all so answering the view,
That all admir’d all. I observ’d beside
His inner weed, so rarely beautified
That dumb amaze it bred, and was as thin
As any dry and tender onion skin;
As soft ’twas, too, and glister’d like the sun.
The women were to loving wonder won
By him and by his weeds. But, by the way,
You must excuse me, that I cannot say
He brought this suit from home, or had it there
Sent for some present, or, perhaps, elsewhere
Receiv’d it for his guest-gift; for your lord
Had friends not few, the fleet did not afford
Many that had not fewer. I bestow’d
A well-edg’d sword on him, a robe that flow’d
In folds and fulness, and did reach his feet,
Of richest purple; brought him to his fleet
With all my honour; and besides, to add
To all this sifted circumstance, he had
A herald there, in height a little more
Put from the earth, that thicker shoulders wore,
A swarth complexion and a curled head,
His name Eurybates; and much in stead
He stood your king, employ’d in most command,
Since most of all his mind could understand.’
When all these signs she knew for chiefly true,
Desire of moan upon her beauties grew,
And yet, ev’n that desire suffic’d, she said:
‘Till this, my guest, a wretched state array’d
Your ill-us’d person, but from this hour forth
You shall be honour’d, and find all the worth
That fits a friend. Those weeds these hands bestow’d
From my wardrobe, those gold buttons sew’d
Before for closure and for ornament.
But never more must his return present
The person that gave those adornments state;
And therefore, under an abhorred fate,
Was he induc’d to feed the common fame,
To visit vile Troy, ay too vile to name.’
‘No more yet mourn,’ said he, ‘nor thus see pin’d
Your lovely person. Weeping wastes the mind.
And yet I blame you not; for any dame
That weds one young, and brings to him his name,
Whatever man he is, will mourn his loss.
Much more respectful then must show your woes
That weep thus for Ulysses, who, fame says,
Was equal with the gods in all his ways.
But where no cause is there must be no moan;
And therefore hear me, my relation
Shall lay the clear truth naked to your view:
I heard amongst the Thesprots for most true,
That lord Ulysses liv’d, and stood just now
On his return for home; that wealth did flow
In his possession, which he made not known,
But begg’d amongst the people, since alone
He quite was left, for all his men were lost
In getting off from the Trinacrian coast;
Jove and the Sun was wroth with them for rape
Made of his oxen, and no man let ’scape
The rugged deeps of Neptune; only he,
The ship’s keel only keeping, was by sea
Cast on the fair Phaeacian continent,
Where men survive that are the gods’ descent,
And like a god receiv’d him, gave him heaps
Of wealthy gifts, and would conduct his steps
Themselves safe home; which he might long ago
His pleasure make, but profit would not so.
He gather’d going, and had mighty store
Of gold in safeguard; so beyond the shore
That common sails kept, his high food of wit
Bore glorious top, and all the world for it
Hath far exceeded. All this Phaedon told,
That doth the sceptre of Thesprotia hold,
Who swore to me, in household sacrifice,
The ship was launch’d, and men to man the prise,
That soon should set him on his country earth;
Show’d me the goods, enough to serve the birth
That in the tenth age of his seed should spring,
Yet in his court contain’d. But then the king,
Your husband, for Dodona was in way,
That from th’ oraculous oak he might display
Jove’s will what course for home would best prevail,
To come in pomp, or bear a secret sail.
But me the king dispatch’d in course before,
A ship then bound for the Dulichian shore.
So thus you see his safety whom you mourn;
Who now is passing near, and his return
No more will punish with delays, but see
His friends and country. All which truth to thee
I’ll seal with sacred oath. Be witness, Jove,
Thou first and best of all the thron’d above!
And thou house of the great Laertes’ heir,
To whose high roofs I tender my repair,
That what I tell the queen event shall crown!
This year Ulysses shall possess his own,
Nay ere the next month ends shall here arrive,
Nay, ere it enters, here abide alive!’
‘O may this prove,’ said she, ‘gifts, friendship then
Should make your name the most renown’d of men.
But ’tis of me receiv’d, and must so sort,
That nor my lord shall ever see his court,
Nor you gain your deduction thence, for now
The alter’d house doth no such man allow
As was Ulysses, if he ever were,
To entertain a reverend passenger,
And give him fair dismission. But, maids, see
Ye bathe his feet, and then with tapestry,
Best sheets and blankets, make his bed, and lay
Soft waistcoats by him, that, lodg’d warm, he may
Ev’n till the golden-seated morning’s ray
Enjoy good rest; and then, with her first light,
Bathe, and give alms, that cherish’d appetite
He may apply within our hall, and sit
Safe by Telemachus. Or, if th’ unfit
And harmful mind of any be so base
To grieve his age again, let none give grace
Of doing any deed he shall command,
How wroth soever, to his barbarous hand.
For how shall you, guest, know me for a dame
That pass so far, nay, turn and wind the fame
Of other dames for wisdom, and the frame
Of household usage, if your poor thin weeds
I let draw on you want, and worser deeds,
That may, perhaps, cause here your latest day?
The life of man is short and flies away.
And if the ruler’s self of households be
Ungentle, studying inhumanity,
The rest prove worse, but he bears all the blame;
All men will, living, vow against his name
Mischiefs and miseries, and, dead, supply
With bitter epitaphs his memory.
But if himself be noble, noble things
Doing and knowing, all his underlings
Will imitate his noblesse, and all guests
Give it, in many, many interests.’
‘But, worthiest queen,’ said he, ‘where you command
Baths and rich beds for me, I scorn to stand
