The Odyssey of Homer. Homer

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       A garden-vine luxuriant on all sides 80

       Mantled the spacious cavern, cluster-hung

       Profuse; four fountains of serenest lymph

       Their sinuous course pursuing side by side,

       Stray’d all around, and ev’ry where appear’d

       Meadows of softest verdure, purpled o’er

       With violets; it was a scene to fill

       A God from heav’n with wonder and delight.

       Hermes, Heav’n’s messenger, admiring stood

       That sight, and having all survey’d, at length

       Enter’d the grotto; nor the lovely nymph 90

       Him knew not soon as seen, for not unknown

       Each to the other the Immortals are,

       How far soever sep’rate their abodes.

       Yet found he not within the mighty Chief

       Ulysses; he sat weeping on the shore,

       Forlorn, for there his custom was with groans

       Of sad regret t’ afflict his breaking heart.

       Looking continual o’er the barren Deep.

       Then thus Calypso, nymph divine, the God

       Question’d, from her resplendent throne august. 100

       Hermes! possessor of the potent rod!

       Who, though by me much reverenc’d and belov’d,

       So seldom com’st, say, wherefore comest now?

       Speak thy desire; I grant it, if thou ask

       Things possible, and possible to me.

       Stay not, but ent’ring farther, at my board

       Due rites of hospitality receive.

       So saying, the Goddess with ambrosial food

       Her table cover’d, and with rosy juice

       Nectareous charged the cup. Then ate and drank 110

       The argicide and herald of the skies,

       And in his soul with that repast divine

       Refresh’d, his message to the nymph declared.

       Questionest thou, O Goddess, me a God?

       I tell thee truth, since such is thy demand.

       Not willing, but by Jove constrain’d, I come.

       For who would, voluntary, such a breadth

       Enormous measure of the salt expanse,

       Where city none is seen in which the Gods

       Are served with chosen hecatombs and pray’r? 120

       But no divinity may the designs

       Elude, or controvert, of Jove supreme.

       He saith, that here thou hold’st the most distrest

       Of all those warriors who nine years assail’d

       The city of Priam, and, (that city sack’d)

       Departed in the tenth; but, going thence,

       Offended Pallas, who with adverse winds

       Opposed their voyage, and with boist’rous waves.

       Then perish’d all his gallant friends, but him

       Billows and storms drove hither; Jove commands 130

       That thou dismiss him hence without delay,

       For fate ordains him not to perish here

       From all his friends remote, but he is doom’d

       To see them yet again, and to arrive

       At his own palace in his native land.

       He said; divine Calypso at the sound

       Shudder’d, and in wing’d accents thus replied.

       Ye are unjust, ye Gods, and envious past

       All others, grudging if a Goddess take

       A mortal man openly to her arms! 140

       So, when the rosy-finger’d Morning chose

       Orion, though ye live yourselves at ease,

       Yet ye all envied her, until the chaste

       Diana from her golden throne dispatch’d

       A silent shaft, which slew him in Ortygia.

       So, when the golden-tressed Ceres, urged

       By passion, took Iäsion to her arms

       In a thrice-labour’d fallow, not untaught

       Was Jove that secret long, and, hearing it,

       Indignant, slew him with his candent bolt. 150

       So also, O ye Gods, ye envy me

       The mortal man, my comfort. Him I saved

       Myself, while solitary on his keel

       He rode, for with his sulph’rous arrow Jove

       Had cleft his bark amid the sable Deep.

       Then perish’d all his gallant friends, but him

       Billows and storms drove hither, whom I lov’d

       Sincere, and fondly destin’d to a life

       Immortal, unobnoxious to decay.

       But since no Deity may the designs 160

       Elude or controvert of Jove supreme,

       Hence with him o’er the barren Deep, if such

       The Sov’reign’s will, and such his stern command.

       But undismiss’d he goes by me, who ships

       Myself well-oar’d and mariners have none

       To send with him athwart the spacious flood;

       Yet freely, readily, my best advice

       I will afford him, that, escaping all

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