And thus, by me, doth ev’ry other friend,
Professing love to her, reply to thee;
That ev’n thyself, and all Greeks else, may see,
That we offend not in our stay, but she.
To free thy house then, send her to her sire,
Commanding that her choice be left entire
To his election, and one settled will.
Nor let her vex with her illusions still
Her friends that woo her, standing on her wit,
Because wise Pallas hath giv’n wills to it
So full of art, and made her understand
All works in fair skill of a lady’s hand.
But (for her working mind) we read of none
Of all the old world, in which Greece hath shown
Her rarest pieces, that could equal her:
Tyro, Alcmena, and Mycena were
To hold comparison in no degree,
For solid brain, with wise Penelope.
And yet, in her delays of us, she shows
No prophet’s skill with all the wit she owes;
For all this time thy goods and victuals go
To utter ruin; and shall ever so,
While thus the Gods her glorious mind dispose.
Glory herself may gain, but thou shalt lose
Thy longings ev’n for necessary food,
For we will never go where lies our good,
Nor any other where, till this delay
She puts on all she quits with th’ endless stay
Of some one of us, that to all the rest
May give free farewell with his nuptial feast.”
The wise young prince replied: “Antinous!
I may by no means turn out of my house
Her that hath brought me forth and nourish’d me.
Besides, if quick or dead my father be
In any region, yet abides in doubt;
And ’twill go hard, my means being so run out,
To tender to Icarius again,
If he again my mother must maintain
In her retreat, the dow’r she brought with her.
And then a double ill it will confer,
Both from my father and from God on me,
When, thrust out of her house, on her bent knee,
My mother shall the horrid Furies raise
With imprecations, and all men dispraise
My part in her exposure. Never then
Will I perform this counsel. If your spleen
Swell at my courses, once more I command
Your absence from my house; some other’s hand
Charge with your banquets; on your own goods eat,
And either other mutually in treat,
At either of your houses, with your feast.
But if ye still esteem more sweet and best
Another’s spoil, so you still wreakless live,
Gnaw, vermin-like, things sacred, no laws give [1]
To your devouring; it remains that I
Invoke each Ever-living Deity,
And vow, if Jove shall deign in any date
Pow’r of like pains for pleasure so past rate,
From thenceforth look, where ye have revell’d so
Unwreak’d, your ruins all shall undergo.”
Thus spake Telemachus; t’ assure whose threat,
Far-seeing Jove upon their pinions set
Two eagles from the high brows of a hill,
That, mounted on the Winds, together still
Their strokes extended; but arriving now
Amidst the Council, over ev’ry brow
Shook their thick wings and, threat’ning death’s cold fears,
Their necks and cheeks tore with their eager seres;
Then, on the court’s right hand away they flew,
Above both court and city. With whose view,
And study what events they might foretell
The Council into admiration fell.
The old heroë, Halitherses, then,
The son of Nestor, that of all old men,
His peers in that court, only could foresee
By flight of fowls man’s fixed destiny,
’Twixt them and their amaze, this interpos’d:
“Hear, Ithacensians, all your doubts disclos’d.
The Wooers most are touch’d in this ostent,
To whom are dangers great and imminent;
For now not long more shall Ulysses bear
Lack of his most lov’d, but fills some place near,
Addressing to these Wooers fate and death.
And many more this mischief menaceth
Of us inhabiting this famous isle.
Let us consult yet, in this long forewhile,
How to ourselves we may prevent this ill.
Let these men rest secure, and revel still;
Though they might find it safer, if with us
They would in time prevent what threats them thus;
Since not without sure trial I foretell
These coming storms, but know their issue well.
For to Ulysses all things have event,
As I foretold him, when for Ilion went
The whole Greek fleet together, and with them
Th’ abundant-in-all-counsels took the stream.
I told him, that, when much ill he had past,
And all his men were lost, he should at last,
The twentieth year, turn home, to all unknown;
All which effects are to perfection grown.”
Eurymachus, the son of Polybus,
Oppos’d this man’s presage, and answer’d thus:
“Hence, great in years, go, prophesy at home,
Thy children teach to shun their ills to come.
In these superior far to thee am I.
A world of fowls beneath the sun-beams fly
That are not