And, when their oath was ended, thus again
The woman of Phœnicia them bespake.
Accost me, though he meet me on the road,
Or at yon fountain; lest some tattler run
With tidings home to my old master’s ear,
Who, with suspicion touch’d, may me confine
In cruel bonds, and death contrive for you.
But be ye close; purchase your stores in haste;
And when your vessel shall be freighted full,
Quick send me notice, for I mean to bring
What gold soever opportune I find,
And will my passage cheerfully defray
With still another moveable. I nurse
The good man’s son, an urchin shrewd, of age
To scamper at my side; him will I bring,
Whom at some foreign market ye shall prove
Saleable at what price soe’er ye will.
They, there abiding the whole year, their ship
With purchased goods freighted of ev’ry kind,
And when, her lading now complete, she lay
For sea prepared, their messenger arrived
To summon down the woman to the shore.
A mariner of theirs, subtle and shrewd,
Then, ent’ring at my father’s gate, produced
A splendid collar, gold with amber strung.
My mother (then at home) with all her maids
Handling and gazing on it with delight,
Proposed to purchase it, and he the nod
Significant, gave unobserv’d, the while,
To the Phœnician woman, and return’d.
She, thus informed, leading me by the hand
Went forth, and finding in the vestibule
The cups and tables which my father’s guests
Had used, (but they were to the forum gone
For converse with their friends assembled there)
Convey’d three cups into her bosom-folds,
And bore them off, whom I a thoughtless child
Accompanied, at the decline of day,
When dusky evening had embrown’d the shore.
We, stepping nimbly on, soon reach’d the port
Renown’d, where that Phœnician vessel lay.
They shipp’d us both, and all embarking cleav’d
Their liquid road, by favourable gales,
Jove’s gift, impell’d. Six days we day and night
Continual sailed, but when Saturnian Jove
Now bade the sev’nth bright morn illume the skies,
Then, shaft-arm’d Dian struck the woman dead.
At once she pitch’d headlong into the bilge
Like a sea-coot, whence heaving her again,
The seamen gave her to be fishes’ food,
And I survived to mourn her. But the winds
And rolling billows them bore to the coast
Of Ithaca, where with his proper goods
Laertes bought me. By such means it chanced
That e’er I saw the isle in which I dwell.
Eumæus! thou hast moved me much, thy woes
Enumerating thus at large. But Jove
Hath neighbour’d all thy evil with this good,
That after num’rous sorrows thou hast reach’d
The house of a kind master, at whose hands
Thy sustenance is sure, and here thou lead’st
A tranquil life; but I have late arrived,
City after city of the world explored.
Save for short sleep, by morning soon surprized.
Meantime the comrades of Telemachus
Approaching land, cast loose the sail, and lower’d
Alert the mast, then oar’d the vessel in.
The anchors heav’d aground, and hawsers tied
Secure, themselves, forth-issuing on the shore,
Breakfast prepared, and charged their cups with wine.
When neither hunger now, nor thirst remained
Unsatisfied, Telemachus began.
Home to the city. I will to the field
Among my shepherds, and, (my rural works
Survey’d,) at eve will to the town return.
To-morrow will I set before you wine
And plenteous viands, wages of your toil.
Whither must I, my son? who, of the Chiefs
Of rugged Ithaca, shall harbour me?
Shall I to thine and to thy mother’s house?
I would invite thee to proceed at once
To our abode, since nought should fail thee there
Of kind reception, but it were a course
Now not adviseable; for I must myself,
Be absent, neither would my mother’s eyes
Behold thee, so unfrequent she appears
Before the suitors, shunning whom, she sits
Weaving continual at the palace-top.
But I will name to thee another Chief
Whom thou may’st seek, Eurymachus, the son
Renown’d of prudent Polybus, whom all
The people here reverence as a God.
Far noblest of them all is he, and seeks
More ardent than his rivals far, to wed
My mother, and to
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