Thus spoke the gen’ral voice: but, staff in hand, Ulysses rose; Minerva by his side, In likeness of a herald, bade the crowd Keep silence, that the Greeks, from first to last, Might hear his words, and ponder his advice. He thus with prudent phrase his speech began: “Great son of Atreus, on thy name, O King, Throughout the world will foul reproach be cast, If Greeks forget their promise, nor make good The vow they took to thee, when hitherward We sailed from Argos’ grassy plains, to raze, Ere our return, the well-built walls of Troy. But now, like helpless widows, or like babes, They mourn their cruel fate, and pine for home. ’Tis hard indeed defeated to return; The seaman murmurs, if from wife and home, Ev’n for one month, his well-found bark be stay’d, Toss’d by the wint’ry blasts and stormy sea; But us the ninth revolving year beholds Still ling’ring here: I cannot therefore blame Our valiant Greeks, if by the ships I hear Their murmurs; yet ’twere surely worst of all Long to remain, and bootless to return. Bear up, my friends, remain awhile, and see If Calchas truly prophesy, or no. For this ye all have seen, and can yourselves Bear witness, all who yet are spar’d by fate, Not long ago, when ships of Greece were met At Aulis, charg’d with evil freight for Troy, And we, around a fountain, to the Gods Our altars rear’d, with faultless hecatombs, Near a fair plane-tree, where bright water flow’d, Behold a wonder! by Olympian Jove Sent forth to light, a snake, with burnish’d scales, Of aspect fearful, issuing from beneath The altars, glided to the plane-tree straight. There, on the topmost bough, beneath the leaves Cow’ring, a sparrow’s callow nestlings lay; Eight fledglings, and the parent bird the ninth. All the eight nestlings, utt’ring piercing cries, The snake devour’d; and as the mother flew, Lamenting o’er her offspring, round and round, Uncoiling, caught her, shrieking, by the wing. Then, when the sparrow’s nestlings and herself The snake had swallowed, by the God, who first Sent him to light, a miracle was wrought: For Jove, the deep-designing Saturn’s son, Turn’d him to stone; we stood, and wond’ring gaz’d. But when this prodigy befell our rites, Calchas, inspir’d of Heaven, took up his speech: ‘Ye long-haired sons of Greece, why stand ye thus In mute amaze? to us Olympian Jove, To whom be endless praise, vouchsafes this sign, Late sent, of late fulfilment: as ye saw The snake devour the sparrow and her young, Eight nestlings, and the parent bird the ninth: So, for so many years, are we condemn’d To wage a fruitless war; but in the tenth The wide-built city shall at last be ours.’ Thus he foretold, and now the time is come. Here then, ye well-greav’d Greeks, let all remain, Till Priam’s wealthy city be our own.”