The Odyssey (Wisehouse Classics Edition). Homer

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СКАЧАТЬ burnish’d laver flames with solid gold,

      In solid gold the purple vintage flows,

      And on the board a second banquet rose.

      When thus the king, with hospitable port;

      “Accept this welcome to the Spartan court:

      The waste of nature let the feast repair,

      Then your high lineage and your names declare;

      Say from what sceptred ancestry ye claim,

      Recorded eminent in deathless fame,

      For vulgar parents cannot stamp their race

      With signatures of such majestic grace.”

      Ceasing, benevolent he straight assigns

      The royal portion of the choicest chines

      To each accepted friend; with grateful haste

      They share the honours of the rich repast.

      Sufficed, soft whispering thus to Nestor’s son,

      His head reclined, young Ithacus begun:

      “View’st thou unmoved, O ever-honour’d most!

      These prodigies of art, and wondrous cost!

      Above, beneath, around the palace shines

      The sunless treasure of exhausted mines;

      The spoils of elephants the roofs inlay,

      And studded amber darts the golden ray;

      Such, and not nobler, in the realms above

      My wonder dictates is the dome of Jove.”

      The monarch took the word, and grave replied:

      “Presumptuous are the vaunts, and vain the pride

      Of man, who dares in pomp with Jove contest,

      Unchanged, immortal, and supremely blest!

      With all my affluence, when my woes are weigh’d,

      Envy will own the purchase dearly paid.

      For eight slow-circling years, by tempests toss’d,

      From Cypress to the far Phoenician coast

      (Sidon the capital), I stretch’d my toil

      Through regions fatten’d with the flows of Nile.

      Next Aethiopia’s utmost bound explore,

      And the parch’d borders of the Arabian shore;

      Then warp my voyage on the southern gales,

      O’er the warm Lybian wave to spread my sails;

      That happy clime, where each revolving year

      The teeming ewes a triple offspring bear;

      And two fair crescents of translucent horn

      The brows of all their young increase adorn:

      The shepherd swains, with sure abundance blest,

      On the fat flock and rural dainties feast;

      Nor want of herbage makes the dairy fail,

      But every season fills the foaming pail.

      Whilst, heaping unwash’d wealth, I distant roam,

      The best of brothers, at his natal home,

      By the dire fury of a traitress wife,

      Ends the sad evening of a stormy life;

      Whence, with incessant grief my soul annoy’d,

      These riches are possess’d, but not enjoy’d!

      My wars, the copious theme of every tongue,

      To you your fathers have recorded long.

      How favouring Heaven repaid my glorious toils

      With a sack’d palace, and barbaric spoils.

      Oh! had the gods so large a boon denied

      And life, the just equivalent supplied

      To those brave warriors, who, with glory fired

      Far from their country, in my cause expired!

      Still in short intervals of pleasing woe.

      Regardful of the friendly dues I owe,

      I to the glorious dead, for ever dear!

      Indulge the tribute of a grateful tear.

      But oh! Ulysses — deeper than the rest

      That sad idea wounds my anxious breast!

      My heart bleeds fresh with agonizing pain;

      The bowl and tasteful viands tempt in vain;

      Nor sleep’s soft power can close my streaming eyes,

      When imaged to my soul his sorrows rise.

      No peril in my cause he ceased to prove,

      His labours equall’d only by my love:

      And both alike to bitter fortune born,

      For him to suffer, and for me to mourn!

      Whether he wanders on some friendly coast,

      Or glides in Stygian gloom a pensive ghost,

      No fame reveals; but, doubtful of his doom,

      His good old sire with sorrow to the tomb

      Declines his trembling steps; untimely care

      Withers the blooming vigour of his heir;

      And the chaste partner of his bed and throne

      Wastes all her widow’d hours in tender moan.”

      While thus pathetic to the prince he spoke,

      From the brave youth the streaming passion broke;

      Studious to veil the grief, in vain repress’d,

      His face he shrouded with his purple vest.

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