The Odyssey. Homer

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       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:

       "O thou! from whom the whole creation springs,

       The source of power on earth derived to kings!

       His death was equal to the direful deed;

       So may the man of blood be doomed to bleed!

       But grief and rage alternate wound my breast

       For brave Ulysses, still by fate oppress'd.

       Amidst an isle, around whose rocky shore

       The forests murmur, and the surges roar,

       The blameless hero from his wish'd-for home

       A goddess guards in her enchanted dome;

       (Atlas her sire, to whose far-piercing eye

       The wonders of the deep expanded lie;

       The eternal columns which on earth he rears

       End in the starry vault, and prop the spheres).

       By his fair daughter is the chief confined,

       Who soothes to dear delight his anxious mind;

       Successless all her soft caresses prove,

       To banish from his breast his country's love;

       To see the smoke from his loved palace rise,

       While the dear isle in distant prospect lies,

       With what contentment could he close his eyes!

       And will Omnipotence neglect to save

       The suffering virtue of the wise and brave?

       Must he, whose altars on the Phrygian shore

       With frequent rites, and pure, avow'd thy power,

       Be doom'd the worst of human ills to prove,

       Unbless'd, abandon'd to the wrath of Jove?"

       "Daughter! what words have pass'd thy lips unweigh'd!

       (Replied the Thunderer to the martial maid;)

       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 (the bright increase

       Of Phorcys, dreaded in the sounds and seas);

       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

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