Know’st not that thy own father refuge found
Here, when he fled before the people’s wrath
Whom he had irritated by a wrong
Which, with a band of Taphian robbers joined,
He offer’d to the Thesprots, our allies?
They would have torn his heart, and would have laid
All his delights and his possessions waste,
But my Ulysses slaked the furious heat
Of their revenge, whom thou requitest now
Wasting his goods, soliciting his wife,
Slaying his son, and filling me with woe.
But cease, I charge thee, and bid cease the rest.
Eurymachus.—Icarius’ daughter wise!
Take courage, fair Penelope, and chace
These fears unreasonable from thy mind!
The man lives not, nor shall, who while I live,
And faculty of sight retain, shall harm
Telemachus, thy son. For thus I say,
And thus will I perform; his blood shall stream
A sable current from my lance’s point
That moment; for the city-waster Chief
Ulysses, oft, me placing on his knees,
Hath fill’d my infant grasp with sav’ry food,
And giv’n me ruddy wine. I, therefore, hold
Telemachus of all men most my friend,
Nor hath he death to fear from hand of ours.
Yet, if the Gods shall doom him, die he must.
Plotted his death. She, re-ascending, sought
Her stately chamber, and, arriving there,
Deplored with tears her long-regretted Lord
Till Athenæan Pallas azure-eyed
Dews of soft slumber o’er her lids diffused.
Ulysses and his son. A yearling swine
Just slain they skilfully for food prepared,
When Pallas, drawing nigh, smote with her wand
Ulysses, at the stroke rend’ring him old,
And his apparel sordid as before,
Lest, knowing him, the swain at once should seek
Penelope, and let the secret forth.
Noble Eumæus! thou art come; what news
Bring’st from the city? Have the warrior band
Of suitors, hopeless of their ambush, reach’d
The port again, or wait they still for me?
No time for such enquiry, nor to range,
Curious, the streets had I, but anxious wish’d
To make my message known, and to return.
But, as it chanced, a nimble herald sent
From thy companions, met me on the way,
Who reach’d thy mother first. Yet this I know,
For this I saw. Passing above the town
Where they have piled a way-side hill of stones
To Mercury, I beheld a gallant bark
Ent’ring the port; a bark she was of ours,
The crew were num’rous, and I mark’d her deep- Laden
with shields and spears of double edge.
Theirs I conjectured her, and could no more.
Telemachus his father eyed and smiled.
Their task accomplish’d, and the table spread,
They ate, nor any his due portion miss’d,
And hunger, now, and thirst both sated, all
To rest repair’d, and took the gift of sleep.
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