“Unhappy stranger! (thus the faithful swain Began with accent gracious and humane), What sorrow had been mine, if at my gate Thy reverend age had met a shameful fate! Enough of woes already have I known; Enough my master’s sorrows and my own. While here (ungrateful task!) his herds I feed, Ordain’d for lawless rioters to bleed! Perhaps, supported at another’s board! Far from his country roams my hapless lord; Or sigh’d in exile forth his latest breath, Now cover’d with the eternal shade of death! “But enter this my homely roof, and see Our woods not void of hospitality. Then tell me whence thou art, and what the share Of woes and wanderings thou wert born to bear.” He said, and, seconding the kind request, With friendly step precedes his unknown guest. A shaggy goat’s soft hide beneath him spread, And with fresh rushes heap’d an ample bed; Jove touch’d the hero’s tender soul, to find So just reception from a heart so kind: And “Oh, ye gods! with all your blessings grace (He thus broke forth) this friend of human race!” The swain replied: “It never was our guise To slight the poor, or aught humane despise: For Jove unfolds our hospitable door, ’Tis Jove that sends the stranger and the poor, Little, alas! is all the good I can A man oppress’d, dependent, yet a man: Accept such treatment as a swain affords, Slave to the insolence of youthful lords! Far hence is by unequal gods removed That man of bounties, loving and beloved! To whom whate’er his slave enjoys is owed, And more, had Fate allow’d, had been bestow’d: But Fate condemn’d him to a foreign shore; Much have I sorrow’d, but my Master more. Now cold he lies, to death’s embrace resign’d: Ah, perish Helen! perish all her kind! For whose cursed cause, in Agamemnon’s name, He trod so fatally the paths of fame.”