Was fired with these braves, the approv’d desert
Of her Ulysses chiding, saying: ‘No more
Thy force nor fortitude as heretofore
Will gain thee glory, when nine years at Troy
White-wristed Helen’s rescue did employ
Thy arms and wisdom, still and ever us’d,
The bloods of thousands through the field diffus’d
By thy vast valour. Priam’s broad-way’d town
By thy grave parts was sack’d and overthrown;
And now, amongst thy people and thy goods,
Against the wooers’ base and petulant bloods
Stint’st thou thy valour, rather mourning here
Than manly fighting? Come, friend, stand we near,
And note my labour, that thou may’st discern
Amongst thy foes how Mentor’s nerves will earn
All thy old bounties.’ This she spake, but stay’d
Her hand from giving each-way-often-sway’d
Uncertain conquest to his certain use,
But still would try what self-pow’rs would produce
Both in the father and the glorious son.
Then on the wind-beam that along did run
The smoky roof, transform’d, Minerva sat,
Like to a swallow, sometimes cuffing at
The swords and lances, rushing from her seat,
And up and down the troubled house did beat
Her wing at every motion. And as she
Had rous’d UIysses, so the enemy
Damastor’s son excited, Polybus,
Amphimedon, and Demoptolemus,
Eurynomus, and Polyetorides;
For these were men that of the wooing prease
Were most egregious, and the clearly best
In strength of hand of all the desperate rest
That yet surviv’d, and now fought for their souls;
Which straight swift arrows sent among the fowls.
But first, Damastor’s son had more spare breath
To spend on their excitements ere his death,
And said: that now Ulysses would forbear
His dismal hand, since Mentor’s spirit was there,
And blew vain vaunts about Ulysses’ ears;
In whose trust he would cease his massacres,
Rest him, and put his friend’s huge boasts in proof;
And so was he beneath the entry’s roof
Left with Telemachus, and th’ other two.
‘At whom,’ said he, ‘discharge no darts, but throw
All at Ulysses, rousing his faint rest;
Whom if we slaughter, by our interest
In Jove’s assistance, all the rest may yield
Our pow’rs no care, when he strews once the field.’
As he then will’d, they all at random threw
Where they suppos’d he rested; and then flew
Minerva after every dart, and made
Some strike the threshold, some the walls invade,
Some beat the doors, and all acts render’d vain
Their grave steel offer’d. Which escap’d, again
Came on Ulysses, saying: ‘O that we
The wooers’ troop with our joint archery
Might so assail, that where their spirits dream
On our deaths first, we first may slaughter them!’
Thus the much-sufferer said; and all let fly,
When every man struck dead his enemy.
Ulysses slaughter’d Demoptolemus.
Euryades by young Telemachus
His death encounter’d. Good Eumaeus slew
Elatus. And Philoetius overthrew
Pisander. All which tore the paved floor
Up with their teeth. The rest retir’d before
Their second charge to inner rooms; and then
Ulysses follow’d, from the slaughter’d men
Their darts first drawing. While which work was done,
The wooers threw with huge contention
To kill them all; when with her swallow wing
Minerva cuf
f
’
d, and made their javelins ring
Against the doors and thresholds, as before.
Some yet did graze upon their marks. One tore
The prince’s wrist, which was Amphimedon,
Th’ extreme part of the skin but touch’d upon.
Ctesippus over good Eumaeus’ shield
His shoulder’s top did taint; which yet did yield
The lance free pass, and gave his hurt the ground.
Again then charged the wooers, and girt round
Ulysses with their lances; who turn’d head,
And with his javelin struck Eurydamas dead.
Telemachus disli
f
’
d Amphimedon;
Eumaeus, Polybus; Philoetius won
Ctesippus’ bosom with his dart, and said,
In quittance of the jester’s part he play’d,
The neat’s foot hurling at Ulysses: ‘Now,
Great son of Polytherses, you that vow
Your wit to bitter taunts, and love to wound
The heart of any with a jest, so crown’d
Your wit be with a laughter, never yielding
To fools in folly, but your glory building
On putting down in fooling, spitting forth
Puf
f
’
d words at all sorts, cease to scoff at worth,
And leave revenge of vile words to the gods,
Since their wits bear the sharper edge by odds;
And, in the mean time, take the dart I drave,
For that right hospitable foot you gave
Divine Ulysses, begging but his own.’
Thus spake the black-ox-herdsman; and straight down
Ulysses struck another with his dart –
Damastor’s son. Telemachus did part,
Just in the midst, the belly of the fair
Evenor’s son, his fierce pile taking air
Out at his back. Flat fell he on his face,
His whole brows knocking, and did mark the place.
And now man-slaught’ring Pallas took in hand
Her snake-fring’d shield, and on that beam took stand
In her true form, where swallow-like she sat.
And then, in this way of the house and that,
The wooers, wounded at the heart with fear,
Fled the encounter, as, in pastures where
Fat herds of oxen feed, about the field
(As if wild madness their instincts impell’d)
The high-fed bullocks fly, whom in the spring,
When days are long, gad-bees or breezes sting.
UIysses and his son the flyers chas’d,
As when, with crooked beaks and seres, a cast
Of hill-bred eagles, cast off at some game,
That yet their strengths keep, but (put up) in flame
The eagle stoops; from which along the field
The poor fowls make wing, this and that way yield
Their hard-flown pinions, then the clouds assay
For ’scape or shelter, their forlorn dismay
All spirit exhaling, all wings’ strength to carry
Their bodies forth, and, truss’d up, to the quarry
Their falc’ners ride in, and rejoice to see
Their hawks perform a flight so fervently:
So, in their flight, Ulysses with his heir
Did stoop and cuff the wooers, that the air
Broke in vast sighs, whose heads they shot and cleft,
The pavement boiling with the souls they reft.
Liodes, running to Ulysses, took
His knees, and thus did on his name invoke:
‘Ulysses! Let me pray thee, to my place
Afford the reverence, and to me the grace,
That never did or said to any dame
Thy court contain’d, or deed or word to blame,
But others so affected I have made
Lay down their insolence; and, if the trade
They kept with wickedness have made them still
Despise my speech, and use their wonted ill,
They have their penance by the stroke of death,
Which their desert divinely warranteth.
But I am priest amongst them, and shall I,
That nought have done worth death, amongst them die?
From thee this proverb then will men derive:
Good turns do never their mere deeds survive.’
He, bending his displeased forehead, said:
‘If you be priest among them, as you plead,
Yet you would marry, and with my wife too,
And have descent by her. For all that woo
Wish to obtain – which they should never do,
Dames’ husbands living. You must therefore pray,
Of force and oft, in court here, that the day
Of my return for home might never shine;
The death to me wish’d therefore shall be thine.’
This said, he took a sword up that was cast
From Agelaus, having struck his last,
And on the priest’s mid neck he laid a stroke
That struck his head off, tumbling as he spoke.
Then did the poet Phemius (whose surname
Was call’d Terpiades, who thither came
Forced by the wooers) fly death; but being near
The court’s great gate, he stood, and parted there
In two his counsels: either to remove
And take the altar of Herceian Jove
(Made sacred to him, with a world of art
Engrav’n about it, where were wont t’ impart
Laertes and Ulysses many a thigh
Of broad-brow’d oxen to the deity),
Or venture to Ulysses, clasp his knee,
And pray his ruth. The last was the decree
His choice resolv’d on. ’Twixt the royal throne
And that fair table that the bowl stood on
With which they sacrific’d, his harp he laid
Along the earth, the king’s knees hugg’d, and said:
‘Ulysses! Let my pray’rs obtain of thee
My sacred skill’s respect, and ruth to me!
It will hereafter grieve thee to have slain
A poet, that doth sing to gods and men.
I of myself am taught, for god alone
All sorts of song hath in my bosom sown,
And I, as to a god, will sing to thee;
Then do not thou deal like the priest with me.
Thine own lov’d son Telemachus will say,
That not to beg here, nor with willing way
Was my access to thy high court address’d,
To give the wooers my song after feast,
But, being many, and so much more strong,
They forc’d me hither, and compell’d my song.’
This did the prince’s sacred virtue hear,
And to the king, his father, said: ‘Forbear
To mix the guiltless with the guilty’s blood.
And with him likewise let our mercies save
Medon the herald, that did still behave
Himself with care of my good from a child,
If by Eumaeus yet he be not kill’d,
Or by Philoetius, nor your fury met,
While all this blood about the house it swet.’
This Medon heard, as lying hid beneath
A throne set near, half dead with fear of death;
A new-flay’d oxhide, as but there thrown by,
His serious shroud made, he lying there to fly.
But hearing this he quickly left the throne,
His oxhide cast as quickly, and as soon
The prince’s knees seiz’d, saying: ‘O my love,
I am not slain, but here alive and move.
Abstain yourself, and do not see your sire
Quench with my cold blood the unmeasur’d fire
That flames in his strength, making spoil of me,
His wrath’s right, for the wooers’ injury.’
Ulysses smiled, and said: ‘Be confident
This man hath sav’d and made thee different,
To let thee know, and say, and others see,
Good life is much more safe than villany.
Go then, sit free without from death within,
This much-renowned singer from the sin
Of these men likewise quit. Both rest you there,
While I my house purge as it fits me here.’
This said, they went and took their seat without
At Jove’s high altar, looking round about,
Expecting still their slaughter; when the king
Search’d round the hall, to try life’s hidden wing
Made from more death. But all laid prostrate there
In blood and gore he saw. Whole shoals they were,
And lay as thick as in a hollow creek
Without the white sea, when the fishers break
Their many-meshed draught-net up, there lie
Fish frisking on the sands, and fain the dry
Would for the wet change, but th’ all-seeing beam
The sun exhales hath suck’d their lives from them:
So one by other sprawl’d the wooers there.
Ulysses and his son then bid appear
The nurse Euryclea, to let her hear
His mind in something fit for her affair.
He op’d the door, and call’d, and said: ‘Repair,
Grave matron long since born, that art our spy
To all this house’s servile housewi
f
’
ry;
My father calls thee, to impart some thought
That asks thy action.’ His word found in nought
Her slack observance, who straight op’d the door
And enter’d to him, when himself before
Had left the hall. But there the king she view’d
Amongst the slain, with blood and gore imbru’d.
And as a lion skulking all in night,
Far-off in pastures, and come home, all dight
In jaws and breast-locks with an ox’s blood
New feasted on him, his looks full of mood:
So look’d Ulysses, all his hands and feet
Freckled with purple. When which sight did greet
The poor old woman (such works being for eyes
Of no soft temper) out she brake in cries,
Whose vent, though throughly open’d, he yet clos’d,
Call’d her more near, and thus her plaints compos’d:
‘Forbear, nor shriek thus, but vent joys as loud.
It is no piety to bemoan the proud,
Though ends befall them moving ne’er so much;
These are the portions of the gods to such.
Men’s own impieties in their instant act
Sustain their plagues, which are with stay but wrack’d.
But these men gods nor men had in esteem,
Nor good nor bad had any sense in them.
Their lives directly ill were, therefore, cause
That death in these stern forms so deeply draws.
Recount, then, to me those licentious dames
That lost my honour and their sex’s shames.’
‘I’ll tell you truly,’ she replied: ‘There are
Twice five-and-twenty women here that share
All work amongst them; whom I taught to spin,