“Small is the faith the prince and queen ascribe (Replied Eumaeus) to the wandering tribe. For needy strangers still to flattery fly, And want too oft betrays the tongue to lie. Each vagrant traveller, that touches here, Deludes with fallacies the royal ear, To dear remembrance makes his image rise, And calls the springing sorrows from her eyes. Such thou mayst be. But he whose name you crave Moulders in earth, or welters on the wave, Or food for fish or dogs his relics lie, Or torn by birds are scatter’d through the sky. So perish’d he: and left (for ever lost) Much woe to all, but sure to me the most. So mild a master never shall I find; Less dear the parents whom I left behind, Less soft my mother, less my father kind. Not with such transport would my eyes run o’er, Again to hail them in their native shore, As loved Ulysses once more to embrace, Restored and breathing in his natal place. That name for ever dread, yet ever dear, E’en in his absence I pronounce with fear: In my respect, he bears a prince’s part; But lives a very brother in my heart.” Thus spoke the faithful swain, and thus rejoin’d The master of his grief, the man of patient mind: “Ulysses, friend! shall view his old abodes (Distrustful as thou art), nor doubt the gods. Nor speak I rashly, but with faith averr’d, And what I speak attesting Heaven has heard. If so, a cloak and vesture be my meed: Till his return no title shall I plead, Though certain be my news, and great my need. Whom want itself can force untruths to tell, My soul detests him as the gates of hell. “Thou first be witness, hospitable Jove! And every god inspiring social love! And witness every household power that waits, Guard of these fires, and angel of these gates! Ere the next moon increase or this decay, His ancient realms Ulysses shall survey, In blood and dust each proud oppressor mourn, And the lost glories of his house return.”