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On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the labours of Peisistratus were wholly of an editorial character, although I must confess that I can lay down nothing respecting the extent of his labours. At the same time, so far from believing that the composition or primary arrangement of these poems, in their present form, was the work of Peisistratus, I am rather persuaded that the fine taste and elegant, mind of that Athenian would lead him to preserve an ancient and traditional order of the poems, rather than to patch and reconstruct them according to a fanciful hypothesis. I will not repeat the many discussions respecting whether the poems were written or not, or whether the art of writing was known in the time of their reputed author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read, the less satisfied we are upon either subject.

I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version of the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical probability must be measured by that of many others relating to the Spartan Confucius.

I will conclude this sketch of the Homeric theories with an attempt, made by an ingenious friend, to unite them into something like consistency. It is as follows:--

"No doubt the common soldiers of that age had, like the common sailors of some fifty years ago, some one qualified to 'discourse in excellent music' among them. Many of these, like those of the negroes in the United States, were extemporaneous, and allusive to events passing around them. But what was passing around them? The grand events of a spirit-stirring war; occurrences likely to impress themselves, as the mystical legends of former times had done, upon their memory; besides which, a retentive memory was deemed a virtue of the first water, and was cultivated accordingly in those ancient times. Ballads at first, and down to the beginning of the war with Troy, were merely recitations, with an intonation. Then followed a species of recitative, probably with an intoned burden. Tune next followed, as it aided the memory considerably.

"It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war, that a poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Moeonides, but most probably the former. He saw that these ballads might be made of great utility to his purpose of writing a poem on the social position of Hellas, and, as a collection, he published these lays connecting them by a tale of his own. This poem now exists, under the title of the 'Odyssea.' The author, however, did not affix his own name to the poem, which, in fact, was, great part of it, remodelled from the archaic dialect of Crete, in which tongue the ballads were found by him. He therefore called it the poem of Homeros, or the Collector; but this is rather a proof of his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging arrangement of other people's ideas; for, as Grote has finely observed, arguing for the unity of authorship, 'a great poet might have re-cast pre-existing separate songs into one comprehensive whole; but no mere arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so.'

"While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a ballad, recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble mind seized the hint that there presented itself, and the Achilleis grew under his hand. Unity of design, however, caused him to publish the poem under the same pseudonyme as his former work; and the disjointed lays of the ancient bards were joined together, like those relating to the Cid, into a chronicle history, named the Iliad. Melesigenes knew that the poem was destined to be a lasting one, and so it has proved; but, first, the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes and corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the streets, assemblies, and agoras. However, Solon first, and then Peisistratus, and afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the poems, and restored the works of Melesigenes Homeros to their original integrity in a great measure."

Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which have developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I must still express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems. To deny that many corruptions and interpolations disfigure them, and that the intrusive hand of the poetasters may here and there have inflicted a wound more serious than the negligence of the copyist, would be an absurd and captious assumption; but it is to a higher criticism that we must appeal, if we would either understand or enjoy these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of their one author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, /quocunque nomine vocari eum jus fasque sit/, I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of historical evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these great works to a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal evidence, and that which springs from the deepest and most immediate impulse of the soul, also speaks eloquently to the contrary.

The minutiae of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise. Indeed, considering the character of some of my own books, such an attempt would be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its importance in a philological view, I am inclined to set little store on its aesthetic value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the emendations made upon poets are mere alterations, some of which, had they been suggested to the author by his Maecenas or Africanus, he would probably have adopted. Moreover, those who are most exact in laying down rules of verbal criticism and interpretation, are often least competent to carry out their own precepts. Grammarians are not poets by profession, but may be so per accidens. I do not at this moment remember two emendations on Homer, calculated to substantially improve the poetry of a passage, although a mass of remarks, from Herodotus down to Loewe, have given us the history of a thousand minute points, without which our Greek knowledge would be gloomy and jejune.

But it is not on words only that grammarians, mere grammarians, will exercise their elaborate and often tiresome ingenuity. Binding down an heroic or dramatic poet to the block upon which they have previously dissected his words and sentences, they proceed to use the axe and the pruning knife by wholesale; and, inconsistent in everything but their wish to make out a case of unlawful affiliation, they cut out book after book, passage after passage, till the author is reduced to a collection of fragments, or till those who fancied they possessed the works of some great man, find that they have been put off with a vile counterfeit got up at second hand. If we compare the theories of Knight, Wolf, Lachmann; and others, we shall feel better satisfied of the utter uncertainty of criticism than of the apocryphal position of Homer. One rejects what another considers the turning-point of his theory. One cuts a supposed knot by expunging what another would explain by omitting something else.

Nor is this morbid species of sagacity by any means to be looked upon as a literary novelty. Justus Lipsius, a scholar of no ordinary skill, seems to revel in the imaginary discovery, that the tragedies attributed to Seneca are by four different authors. Now, I will venture to assert, that these tragedies are so uniform, not only in their borrowed phraseology--a phraseology with which writers like Boethius and Saxo Grammaticus were more charmed than ourselves--in their freedom from real poetry, and last, but not least, in an ultra-refined and consistent abandonment of good taste, that few writers of the present day would question the capabilities of the same gentleman, be he Seneca or not, to produce not only these, but a great many more equally bad. With equal sagacity, Father Hardouin astonished the world with the startling announcement that the AEneid of Virgil, and the satires of Horace, were literary deceptions. Now, without wishing to say one word of disrespect against the industry and learning--nay, the refined acuteness--which scholars like Wolf have bestowed upon this subject, I must express my fears, that many of our modern Homeric theories will become matter for the surprise and entertainment, rather than the instruction, of posterity. Nor can I help thinking that the literary history of more recent times will account for many points of difficulty in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey to a period so remote from that of their first creation.

I have already expressed my belief that the labours of Peisistratus were of a purely editorial character; and there seems no more reason why corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in his day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should have given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after all, the main fault in all the Homeric theories is, that they demand too great a sacrifice of those feelings to which poetry most powerfully appeals, and which are its most fitting judges. The ingenuity which has sought to rob us of the name and existence of Homer, does too much violence to that inward emotion, which makes our whole soul yearn with love and admiration for the blind bard of Chios. To believe the author of the Iliad a mere compiler, is to degrade the powers of human invention; to elevate analytical judgment at the expense of the most ennobling impulses of the soul; and to forget the ocean in the contemplation of a polypus. There is a catholicity, so to speak, in the very name of Homer. Our faith in the author of the Iliad may be a mistaken one, but as yet nobody has taught us a better.

While, however, I look upon the belief in Homer as one that has nature herself for its mainspring; while I can join with old Ennius in believing in Homer as the ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers round the bed of the poet, and even bestows rare gifts from that wealth of imagination which a host of imitators could not exhaust,--still I am far from wishing to deny that the author of these great poems found a rich fund of tradition, a well-stocked mythical storehouse, from whence he might derive both subject and embellishment. But it is one thing to use existing romances in the embellishment of a poem, another to patch up the poem itself from such materials. What consistency of style and execution can be hoped for from such an attempt? or, rather, what bad taste and tedium will not be the infallible result?

A blending of popular legends, and a free use of the songs of other bards, are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In fact, the most original writer is still drawing upon outward impressions--nay, even his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents which support and feed the impulses of imagination. But unless there be some grand pervading principle--some invisible, yet most distinctly stamped archetypus of the great whole, a poem like the Iliad can never come to the birth. Traditions the most picturesque, episodes the most pathetic, local associations teeming with the thoughts of gods and great men, may crowd in one mighty vision, or reveal themselves in more substantial forms to the mind of the poet; but, except the power to create a grand whole, to which these shall be but as details and embellishments, be present, we shall have nought but a scrap-book, a parterre filled with flowers and weeds strangling each other in their wild redundancy; we shall have a cento of rags and tatters, which will require little acuteness to detect.

Sensible as I am of the difficulty of disproving a negative, and aware as I must be of the weighty grounds there are for opposing my belief, it still seems to me that the Homeric question is one that is reserved for a higher criticism than it has often obtained. We are not by nature intended to know all things; still less, to compass the powers by which the greatest blessings of life have been placed at our disposal. Were faith no virtue, then we might indeed wonder why God willed our ignorance on any matter. But we are too well taught the contrary lesson; and it seems as though our faith should be especially tried, touching the men and the events which have wrought most influence upon the condition of humanity. And there is a kind of sacredness attached to the memory of the great and the good, which seems to bid us repulse the scepticism which would allegorize their existence into a pleasing apologue, and measure the giants of intellect by an homaeopathic dynameter.

Long and habitual reading of Homer appears to familiarize our thoughts even to his incongruities; or rather, if we read in a right spirit and with a heartfelt appreciation, we are too much dazzled, too deeply wrapped in admiration of the whole, to dwell upon the minute spots which mere analysis can discover. In reading an heroic poem, we must transform ourselves into heroes of the time being, we in imagination must fight over the same battles, woo the same loves, burn with the same sense of injury, as an Achilles or a Hector. And if we can but attain this degree of enthusiasm , we shall feel that the poems of Homer are not only the work of one writer, but of the greatest writer that ever touched the hearts of men by the power of song.

And it was this supposed unity of authorship which gave these poems their powerful influence over the minds of the men of old. Heeren, who is evidently little disposed in favour of modern theories, finely observes:--

"It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No poet has ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his countrymen. Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the character of other nations; it was reserved to a poet to form that of the Greeks. This is a feature in their character which was not wholly erased even in the period of their degeneracy. When lawgivers and sages appeared in Greece, the work of the poet had already been accomplished; and they paid homage to his superior genius. He held up before his nation the mirror in which they were to behold the world of gods and heroes, no less than of feeble mortals, and to behold them reflected with purity and truth. His poems are founded on the first feeling of human nature; on the love of children, wife, and country; on that passion which outweighs all others, the love of glory. His songs were poured forth from a breast which sympathized with all the feelings of man; and therefore they enter, and will continue to enter, every breast which cherishes the same sympathies. If it is granted to his immortal spirit, from another heaven than any of which he dreamed on earth, to look down on his race, to see the nations from the fields of Asia, to the forests of Hercynia, performing pilgrimages to the fountain which his magic wand caused to flow; if it is permitted to him to view the vast assemblage of grand, of elevated, of glorious productions, which had been called into being by means of his songs; wherever his immortal spirit may reside, this alone would suffice to complete his happiness."

Can we contemplate that ancient monument, on which the "Apotheosis of Homer" is depictured, and not feel how much of pleasing association, how much that appeals most forcibly and most distinctly to our minds, is lost by the admittance of any theory but our old tradition? The more we read, and the more we think--think as becomes the readers of Homer,--the more rooted becomes the conviction that the Father of Poetry gave us this rich inheritance, whole and entire. Whatever were the means of its preservation, let us rather be thankful for the treasury of taste and eloquence thus laid open to our use, than seek to make it a mere centre around which to drive a series of theories, whose wildness is only equalled by their inconsistency with each other.

As the hymns, and some other poems usually ascribed to Homer, are not included in Pope's translation, I will content myself with a brief account of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, from the pen of a writer who has done it full justice:--

"This poem," says Coleridge, "is a short mock-heroic of ancient date. The text varies in different editions, and is obviously disturbed and corrupt to a great degree; it is commonly said to have been a juvenile essay of Homer's genius; others have attributed it to the same Pigrees mentioned above, and whose reputation for humour seems to have invited the appropriation of any piece of ancient wit, the author of which was uncertain; so little did the Greeks, before the age of the Ptolemies, know or care about that department of criticism employed in determining the genuineness of ancient writings. As to this little poem being a youthful prolusion of Homer, it seems sufficient to say that from the beginning to the end, it is a plain and palpable parody, not only of the general spirit, but of numerous passages of the Iliad itself; and, even if no such intention to parody were discernible in it, the objection would still remain, that to suppose a work of mere burlesque to be the primary effort of poetry in a simple age, seems to reverse that order in the development of national taste, which the history of every other people in Europe, and of many in Asia, has almost ascertained to be a law of the human mind; it is in a state of society much more refined and permanent than that described in the Iliad, that any popularity would attend such a ridicule of war and the gods as is contained in this poem; and the fact of there having existed three other poems of the same kind attributed, for aught we can see, with as much reason to Homer, is a strong inducement to believe that none of them were of the Homeric age. Knight infers from the usage of the word /deltoz/, 'writing tablet,' instead of /diphthera/, 'skin,' which, according to Herod 5, 58, was the material employed by the Asiatic Greeks for that purpose, that this poem was another offspring of Attic ingenuity; and generally that the familiar mention of the cock is a strong argument against so ancient a date for its composition."

Having thus given a brief account of the poems comprised in Pope's design, I will now proceed to make a few remarks on his translation, and on my own purpose in the present edition.

Pope was not a Grecian. His whole education had been irregular, and his earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby. It is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive deeply into the minute and delicate features of language. Hence his whole work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a translation. There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes, which prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical attainments were sounder than his own, during the undertaking; but it is probable that these examinations were the result rather of the contradictory versions already existing, than of a desire to make a perfect transcript of the original. And in those days, what is called literal translation was less cultivated than at present. If something like the general sense could be decorated with the easy gracefulness of a practised poet; if the charms of metrical cadence and a pleasing fluency could be made consistent with a fair interpretation of the poet's meaning, his words were less jealously sought for, and those who could read so good a poem as Pope's Iliad had fair reason to be satisfied.

It would be absurd, therefore, to test Pope's translation by our own advancing knowledge of the original text. We must be content to look at it as a most delightful work in itself,--a work which is as much a part of English literature as Homer himself is of Greek. We must not be torn from our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most cherished companion, or our most looked-for prize, merely because Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to /amphikipellon/ being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from us to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman's fine, bold, rough old English;--far be it from us to hold up his translation as what a translation of Homer might be. But we can still dismiss Pope's Iliad to the hands of our readers, with the consciousness that they must have read a very great number of books before they have read its fellow.

THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY.

Christ Church.

THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER

BOOK I

ARGUMENT.

MINERVA'S DESCENT TO ITHACA.

The poem opens within forty eight days of the arrival of Ulysses in his dominions. He had now remained seven years in the Island of Calypso, when the gods assembled in council, proposed the method of his departure from thence and his return to his native country. For this purpose it is concluded to send Mercury to Calypso, and Pallas immediately descends to Ithaca. She holds a conference with Telemachus, in the shape of Mantes, king of Taphians; in which she advises him to take a journey in quest of his father Ulysses, to Pylos and Sparta, where Nestor and Menelaus yet reigned; then, after having visibly displayed her divinity, disappears. The suitors of Penelope make great entertainments, and riot in her palace till night. Phemius sings to them the return of the Grecians, till Penelope puts a stop to the song. Some words arise between the suitors and Telemachus, who summons the council to meet the day following.

The man for wisdom's various arts renown'd, Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound; Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall, Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd, Their manners noted, and their states survey'd, On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore, Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore: Vain toils! their impious folly dared to prey On herds devoted to the god of day; The god vindictive doom'd them never more to touch that natal shore. Oh, snatch some portion of these acts from fate, Celestial Muse! and to our world relate.

Now at their native realms the Greeks arrived; All who the wars of ten long years survived; And 'scaped the perils of the gulfy main. Ulysses, sole of all the victor train, An exile from his dear paternal coast, Deplored his absent queen and empire lost. Calypso in her caves constrain'd his stay, With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay; In vain-for now the circling years disclose The day predestined to reward his woes. At length his Ithaca is given by fate, Where yet new labours his arrival wait; At length their rage the hostile powers restrain, All but the ruthless monarch of the main. But now the god, remote, a heavenly guest, In AEthiopia graced the genial feast ; There on the world's extremest verge revered With hecatombs and prayer in pomp preferr'd, Distant he lay: while in the bright abodes Of high Olympus, Jove convened the gods: The assembly thus the sire supreme address'd, AEgysthus' fate revolving in his breast, Whom young Orestes to the dreary coast Of Pluto sent, a blood-polluted ghost.

"Perverse mankind! whose wills, created free, Charge all their woes on absolute degree; All to the dooming gods their guilt translate, And follies are miscall'd the crimes of fate. When to his lust AEgysthus gave the rein, Did fate, or we, the adulterous act constrain? Did fate, or we, when great Atrides died, Urge the bold traitor to the regicide? Hermes I sent, while yet his soul remain'd Sincere from royal blood, and faith profaned; To warn the wretch, that young Orestes, grown To manly years, should re-assert the throne. Yet, impotent of mind, and uncontroll'd, He plunged into the gulf which Heaven foretold."

Here paused the god; and pensive thus replies Minerva, graceful with her azure eyes:

"Daughter! what words have pass'd thy lips unweigh'd! Deem not unjustly by my doom oppress'd, Of human race the wisest and the best. Neptune, by prayer repentant rarely won, Afflicts the chief, to avenge his giant son, Whose visual orb Ulysses robb'd of light; Great Polypheme, of more than mortal might? Him young Thousa bore ; Whom Neptune eyed with bloom of beauty bless'd, And in his cave the yielding nymph compress'd For this the god constrains the Greek to roam, A hopeless exile from his native home, From death alone exempt--but cease to mourn; Let all combine to achieve his wish'd return; Neptune atoned, his wrath shall now refrain, Or thwart the synod of the gods in vain."

"Father and king adored!" Minerva cried, "Since all who in the Olympian bower reside Now make the wandering Greek their public care, Let Hermes to the Atlantic isle repair; Bid him, arrived in bright Calypso's court, The sanction of the assembled powers report: That wise Ulysses to his native land Must speed, obedient to their high command. Meantime Telemachus, the blooming heir Of sea-girt Ithaca, demands my care; 'Tis mine to form his green, unpractised years In sage debates; surrounded with his peers, To save the state, and timely to restrain The bold intrusion of the suitor-train; Who crowd his palace, and with lawless power His herds and flocks in feastful rites devour. To distant Sparta, and the spacious waste Of Sandy Pyle, the royal youth shall haste. There, warm with filial love, the cause inquire That from his realm retards his god-like sire; Delivering early to the voice of fame The promise of a green immortal name."

She said: the sandals of celestial mould, Fledged with ambrosial plumes, and rich with gold, Surround her feet: with these sublime she sails The aerial space, and mounts the winged gales; O'er earth and ocean wide prepared to soar, Her dreaded arm a beamy javelin bore, Ponderous and vast: which, when her fury burns, Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns. From high Olympus prone her flight she bends, And in the realms of Ithaca descends, Her lineaments divine, the grave disguise Of Mentes' form conceal'd from human eyes ; A glittering spear waved awful in her hand. There in the portal placed, the heaven-born maid Enormous riot and misrule survey'd. On hides of beeves, before the palace gate , the suitors sate. With rival art, and ardour in their mien, At chess they vie, to captivate the queen; Divining of their loves. Attending nigh, A menial train the flowing bowl supply. Others, apart, the spacious hall prepare, And form the costly feast with busy care. There young Telemachus, his bloomy face Glowing celestial sweet, with godlike grace Amid the circle shines: but hope and fear his bosom tear. Now, imaged in his mind, he sees restored In peace and joy the people's rightful lord; The proud oppressors fly the vengeful sword. While his fond soul these fancied triumphs swell'd, The stranger guest the royal youth beheld; Grieved that a visitant so long should wait Unmark'd, unhonour'd, at a monarch's gate; Instant he flew with hospitable haste, And the new friend with courteous air embraced. "Stranger, whoe'er thou art, securely rest, Affianced in my faith, a ready guest; Approach the dome, the social banquet share, And then the purpose of thy soul declare."

Thus affable and mild, the prince precedes, And to the dome the unknown celestial leads. The spear receiving from the hand, he placed Against a column, fair with sculpture graced; Where seemly ranged in peaceful order stood Ulysses' arms now long disused to blood. He led the goddess to the sovereign seat, Her feet supported with a stool of state ; Then drew his seat, familiar, to her side; Far from the suitor-train, a brutal crowd, With insolence, and wine, elate and loud: Where the free guest, unnoted, might relate, If haply conscious, of his father's fate. The golden ewer a maid obsequious brings, Replenish'd from the cool, translucent springs; With copious water the bright vase supplies A silver laver of capacious size; They wash. The tables in fair order spread, They heap the glittering canisters with bread: Viands of various kinds allure the taste, Of choicest sort and savour, rich repast! Delicious wines the attending herald brought; The gold gave lustre to the purple draught. Lured with the vapour of the fragrant feast, In rush'd the suitors with voracious haste; Marshall'd in order due, to each a sewer Presents, to bathe his hands, a radiant ewer. Luxurious then they feast. Observant round Gay stripling youths the brimming goblets crown'd. The rage of hunger quell'd, they all advance And form to measured airs the mazy dance; To Phemius was consign'd the chorded lyre, Whose hand reluctant touch'd the warbling wire; Phemius, whose voice divine could sweetest sing High strains responsive to the vocal string.

Meanwhile, in whispers to his heavenly guest His indignation thus the prince express'd:

"Indulge my rising grief, whilst these With song and dance the pompous revel end. Light is the dance, and doubly sweet the lays, When for the dear delight another pays. His treasured stores those cormarants consume, Whose bones, defrauded of a regal tomb And common turf, lie naked on the plain, Or doom'd to welter in the whelming main. Should he return, that troop so blithe and bold, With purple robes inwrought, and stiff with gold, Precipitant in fear would wing their flight, And curse their cumbrous pride's unwieldy weight. But ah, I dream!-the appointed hour is fled. And hope, too long with vain delusion fed, Deaf to the rumour of fallacious fame, Gives to the roll of death his glorious name! With venial freedom let me now demand Thy name, thy lineage, and paternal land; Sincere from whence began thy course, recite, And to what ship I owe the friendly freight? Now first to me this visit dost thou deign, Or number'd in my father's social train? All who deserved his choice he made his own, And, curious much to know, he far was known."

"My birth I boast From great Anchialus, renown'd and wise; Mentes my name; I rule the Taphian race, Whose bounds the deep circumfluent waves embrace; A duteous people, and industrious isle, To naval arts inured, and stormy toil. Freighted with iron from my native land, I steer my voyage to the Brutian strand To gain by commerce, for the labour'd mass, A just proportion of refulgent brass. Far from your capital my ship resides At Reitorus, and secure at anchor rides; Where waving groves on airy Neign grow, Supremely tall and shade the deeps below. Thence to revisit your imperial dome, An old hereditary guest I come; Your father's friend. Laertes can relate Our faith unspotted, and its early date; Who, press'd with heart-corroding grief and years, To the gay court a rural shed pretors, Where, sole of all his train, a matron sage Supports with homely fond his drooping age, With feeble steps from marshalling his vines Returning sad, when toilsome day declines.

"With friendly speed, induced by erring fame, To hail Ulysses' safe return I came; But still the frown of some celestial power With envious joy retards the blissful hour. Let not your soul be sunk in sad despair; He lives, he breathes this heavenly vital air, Among a savage race, whose shelfy bounds With ceaseless roar the foaming deep surrounds. The thoughts which roll within my ravish'd breast, To me, no seer, the inspiring gods suggest; Nor skill'd nor studious, with prophetic eye To judge the winged omens of the sky. Yet hear this certain speech, nor deem it vain; Though adamantine bonds the chief restrain, The dire restraint his wisdom will defeat, And soon restore him to his regal seat. But generous youth! sincere and free declare, Are you, of manly growth, his royal heir? For sure Ulysses in your look appears, The same his features, if the same his years. Such was that face, on which I dwelt with joy Ere Greece assembled stemm'd the tides to Troy; But, parting then for that detested shore, Our eyes, unhappy never greeted more."

"To prove a genuine birth On female truth assenting faith relies. Thus manifest of right, I build my claim Sure-founded on a fair maternal fame, Ulysses' son: but happier he, whom fate Hath placed beneath the storms which toss the great! Happier the son, whose hoary sire is bless'd With humble affluence, and domestic rest! Happier than I, to future empire born, But doom'd a father's wretch'd fate to mourn!"

To whom, with aspect mild, the guest divine: "Oh true descendant of a sceptred line! The gods a glorious fate from anguish free To chaste Penelope's increase decree. But say, yon jovial troops so gaily dress'd, Is this a bridal or a friendly feast? Or from their deed I rightlier may divine, Unseemly flown with insolence and wine? Unwelcome revellers, whose lawless joy Pains the sage ear, and hurts the sober eye."

"Magnificence of old Beneath our roof with virtue could reside; Unblamed abundance crowned the royal board, What time this dome revered her prudent lord; Who now is doom'd to mourn, Bitter constraint, erroneous and forlorn. Better the chief, on Ilion's hostile plain, Had fall'n surrounded with his warlike train; Or safe return'd, the race of glory pass'd, New to his friends' embrace, and breathed his last! Then grateful Greece with streaming eyes would raise, Historic marbles to record his praise; His praise, eternal on the faithful stone, Had with transmissive honour graced his son. Now snatch'd by harpies to the dreary coast. Sunk is the hero, and his glory lost; Vanish'd at once! unheard of, and unknown! And I his heir in misery alone. Nor for a dear lost father only flow The filial tears, but woe succeeds to woe To tempt the spouseless queen with amorous wiles Resort the nobles from the neighbouring isles; From Samos, circled with the Ionian main, Dulichium, and Zacynthas' sylvan reign; Ev'n with presumptuous hope her bed to ascend, The lords of Ithaca their right pretend. She seems attentive to their pleaded vows, Her heart detesting what her ear allows. They, vain expectants of the bridal hour, My stores in riotous expense devour. In feast and dance the mirthful months employ, And meditate my doom to crown their joy."

"The counsel of my friend Imprints conviction on my grateful mind. So fathers speak Their sage experience to the favourite child. But, since to part, for sweet refection due, The genial viands let my train renew; And the rich pledge of plighted faith receive, Worthy the air of Ithaca to give."

"Defer the promised boon , And let me now regain the Reithrian port; From Temese return'd, your royal court I shall revisit, and that pledge receive; And gifts, memorial of our friendship, leave."

Abrupt, with eagle-speed she cut the sky; Instant invisible to mortal eye. Then first he recognized the ethereal guest; Wonder and joy alternate fire his breast; Heroic thoughts, infused, his heart dilate; Revolving much his father's doubtful fate. At length, composed, he join'd the suitor-throng; Hush'd in attention to the warbled song. His tender theme the charming lyrist chose. Minerva's anger, and the dreadful woes Which voyaging from Troy the victors bore, While storms vindictive intercept the store. The shrilling airs the vaulted roof rebounds, Reflecting to the queen the silver sounds. With grief renew'd the weeping fair descends; Their sovereign's step a virgin train attends: A veil, of richest texture wrought, she wears, And silent to the joyous hall repairs. There from the portal, with her mild command, Thus gently checks the minstrel's tuneful hand:

"Phemius! let acts of gods, and heroes old, What ancient bards in hall and bower have told, Attemper'd to the lyre, your voice employ; Such the pleased ear will drink with silent joy. But, oh! forbear that dear disastrous name, To sorrow sacred, and secure of fame; My bleeding bosom sickens at the sound, And every piercing note inflicts a wound."

"Why, dearest object of my duteous love, will you the bard reprove? Oft, Jove's ethereal rays The chanters soul and raptured song inspire Instinct divine? nor blame severe his choice, Warbling the Grecian woes with heart and voice; For novel lays attract our ravish'd ears; But old, the mind with inattention hears: Patient permit the sadly pleasing strain; Familiar now with grief, your tears refrain, And in the public woe forget your own; You weep not for a perish'd lord alone. What Greeks new wandering in the Stygian gloom, Wish your Ulysses shared an equal doom! Your widow'd hours, apart, with female toil And various labours of the loom beguile; There rule, from palace-cares remote and free; That care to man belongs, and most to me."

Mature beyond his years, the queen admires His sage reply, and with her train retires. Then swelling sorrows burst their former bounds, With echoing grief afresh the dome resounds; Till Pallas, piteous of her plaintive cries, In slumber closed her silver-streaming eyes.

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