“The Gods sure did not make the future strain
Both of thy race and days obscure to thee,
Since thou wert born so of Penelope.
The style may by thy after acts be won,
Of so great sire the high undoubted son.
Say truth in this then: What’s this feasting here?
What all this rout? Is all this nuptial cheer?
Or else some friendly banquet made by thee?
For here no shots are, where all sharers be.
Past measure contumeliously this crew
Fare through thy house; which should th’ ingenuous view
Of any good or wise man come and find,
(Impiety seeing play’d in ev’ry kind)
He could not but through ev’ry vein be mov’d.”
Again Telemachus: “My guest much lov’d.
Since you demand and sift these sights so far,
I grant ’twere fit a house so regular,
Rich, and so faultless once in government,
Should still at all parts the same form present
That gave it glory while her lord was here.
But now the Gods, that us displeasure bear,
Have otherwise appointed, and disgrace
My father most of all the mortal race.
For whom I could not mourn so were he dead,
Amongst his fellow-captains slaughteréd
By common enemies, or in the hands
Of his kind friends had ended his commands,
After he had egregiously bestow’d
His pow’r and order in a war so vow’d,
And to his tomb all Greeks their grace had done,
That to all ages he might leave his son
Immortal honour; but now Harpies have
Digg’d in their gorges his abhorréd grave.
Obscure, inglorious, death hath made his end,
And me, for glories, to all griefs contend.
Nor shall I any more mourn him alone,
The Gods have giv’n me other cause of moan.
For look how many optimates remain
In Samos, or the shores Dulichian,
Shady Zacynthus, or how many bear
Rule in the rough brows of this island here;
So many now my mother and this house
At all parts make defam’d and ruinous;
And she her hateful nuptials nor denies,
Nor will despatch their importunities,
Though she beholds them spoil still as they feast
All my free house yields, and the little rest
Of my dead sire in me perhaps intend
To bring ere long to some untimely end.”
This Pallas sigh’d and answer’d: “O,” said she,
“Absent Ulysses is much miss’d by thee,
That on these shameless suitors he might lay
His wreakful hands. Should he now come, and stay
In thy court’s first gates, arm’d with helm and shield,
And two such darts as I have seen him wield,
When first I saw him in our Taphian court,
Feasting, and doing his desert’s disport;
When from Ephyrus he return’d by us
From Ilus, son to Centaur Mermerus,
To whom he travell’d through the wat’ry dreads,
For bane to poison his sharp arrows’ heads,
That death, but touch’d, caus’d; which he would not give,
Because he fear’d the Gods that ever live
Would plague such death with death; and yet their fear
Was to my father’s bosom not so dear
As was thy father’s love; (for what he sought
My loving father found him to a thought.)
If such as then Ulysses might but meet
With these proud wooers, all were at his feet
But instant dead men, and their nuptialls
Would prove as bitter as their dying galls.
But these things in the Gods’ knees are repos’d,
If his return shall see with wreak inclos’d,
These in his house, or he return no more;
And therefore I advise thee to explore
All ways thyself, to set these wooers gone;
To which end give me fit attentión:
To-morrow into solemn council call
The Greek heroës, and declare to all
(The Gods being witness) what thy pleasure is.
Command to towns of their nativity
These frontless wooers. If thy mother’s mind
Stands to her second nuptials so inclin’d,
Return she to her royal father’s tow’rs,
Where th’ one of these may wed her, and her dow’rs
Make rich, and such as may consort with grace
So dear a daughter of so great a race
And thee I warn as well (if thou as well
Wilt hear and follow) take thy best-built sail,
With twenty oars mann’d, and haste t’ inquire
Where the abode is of thy absent sire,
If any can inform thee, or thine ear
From Jove the fame of his retreat may hear,
For chiefly Jove gives all that honours men.
To Pylos first be thy addression then,
To god-like Nestor; thence to Sparta haste,
To gold-lock’d Menelaus, who was last
Of all the brass-arm’d Greeks that sail’d from Troy;
And try from both these, if thou canst enjoy
News of thy sire’s return’d life anywhere,
Though sad thou suffer’st in his search a year.
If of his death thou hear’st, return thou home,
And to his memory erect a tomb,
Performing parent-rites, of feast and game,
Pompous, and such as best may fit his fame;
And then thy mother a fit husband give.