be (a boon which much thou need’st)
Tunic and mantle; but she gives no more;
Thy sustenance thou must, as now, obtain,
Begging it at their hands who chuse to give.

   Then thus Ulysses, Hero toil-inured.
Eumæus! readily I can relate
Truth, and truth only, to the prudent Queen
Icarius’ daughter; for of him I know
Much, and have suff’red sorrows like his own.
But dread I feel of this imperious throng
Perverse, whose riot and outrageous acts
Of violence echo through the vault of heav’n.
And, even now, when for no fault of mine
Yon suitor struck me as I pass’d, and fill’d
My flesh with pain, neither Telemachus
Nor any interposed to stay his arm.
Now, therefore, let Penelope, although
Impatient, till the sun descend postpone
Her questions; then she may enquire secure
When comes her husband, and may nearer place
My seat to the hearth-side, for thinly clad
Thou know’st I am, whose aid I first implored.

   He ceas’d; at whose reply Eumæus sought
Again the Queen, but ere he yet had pass’d
The threshold, thus she greeted his return.

   Com’st thou alone, Eumæus? why delays
The invited wand’rer? dreads he other harm?
Or sees he aught that with a bashful awe
Fills him? the bashful poor are poor indeed.

   To whom, Eumæus, thou didst thus reply.
He hath well spoken; none who would decline
The rudeness of this contumelious throng
Could answer otherwise; thee he entreats
To wait till sun-set, and that course, O Queen,
Thou shalt thyself far more commodious find,
To hold thy conf’rence with the guest, alone.

   Then answer thus Penelope return’d.
The stranger, I perceive, is not unwise,
Whoe’er he be, for on the earth are none
Proud, insolent, and profligate as these.

   So spake the Queen. Then (all his message told)
The good Eumæus to the suitors went
Again, and with his head inclined toward
Telemachus, lest others should his words
Witness, in accents wing’d him thus address’d.

   Friend and kind master! I return to keep
My herds, and to attend my rural charge,
Whence we are both sustain’d. Keep thou, meantime,
All here with vigilance, but chiefly watch
For thy own good, and save thyself from harm;
For num’rous here brood mischief, whom the Gods
Exterminate, ere yet their plots prevail!

   To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied.
So be it, father! and (thy evening-mess
Eaten) depart; to-morrow come again,
Bringing fair victims hither; I will keep,
I and the Gods, meantime, all here secure.

   He ended; then resumed once more the swain
His polish’d seat, and, both with wine and food
Now satiate, to his charge return’d, the court
Leaving and all the palace throng’d with guests;
They (for it now was evening) all alike
Turn’d jovial to the song and to the dance.

  By PanEris using Melati.

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