The hero paused, and ponder’d this request, While love and duty warr’d within his breast. At length resolved, he turn’d his ready hand, And lash’d his panting coursers to the strand. There, while within the poop with care he stored The regal presents of the Spartan lord, “With speed begone (said he); call every mate, Ere yet to Nestor I the tale relate: ’Tis true, the fervour of his generous heart Brooks no repulse, nor couldst thou soon depart: Himself will seek thee here, nor wilt thou find, In words alone, the Pylian monarch kind. But when, arrived, he thy return shall know How will his breast with honest fury glow!” This said, the sounding strokes his horses fire, And soon he reached the palace of his sire. “Now (cried Telemachus) with speedy care Hoist every sail, and every oar prepare.” Swift as the word his willing mates obey, And seize their seats, impatient for the sea. Meantime the prince with sacrifice adores Minerva, and her guardian aid implores; When lo! a wretch ran breathless to the shore, New from his crime; and reeking yet with gore. A seer he was, from great Melampus sprung, Melampus, who in Pylos flourish’d long, Till, urged by wrongs, a foreign realm he chose, Far from the hateful cause of all his woes. Neleus his treasures one long year detains, As long he groan’d in Philacus’s chains: Meantime, what anguish and what rage combined For lovely Pero rack’d his labouring mind! Yet ’scaped he death; and vengeful of his wrong To Pylos drove the lowing herds along: Then (Neleus vanquish’d, and consign’d the fair To Bias’ arms) he so sought a foreign air; Argos the rich for his retreat he chose, There form’d his empire; there his palace rose. From him Antiphates and Mantius came: The first begot Oicleus great in fame, And he Amphiaraus, immortal name! The people’s saviour, and divinely wise, Beloved by Jove, and him who gilds the skies; Yet short his date of life! by female pride he dies. From Mantius Clitus, whom Aurora’s love Snatch’d for his beauty to the thrones above; And Polyphides, on whom Phœbus shone With fullest rays, Amphiaraus now gone; In Hyperesia’s groves he made abode, And taught mankind the counsels of the god. From him sprung Theoclymenus, who found (The sacred wine yet foaming on the ground) Telemachus: whom, as to Heaven he press’d His ardent vows, the stranger thus address’d: “O thou! that dost thy happy course prepare With pure libations and with solemn prayer: By that dread power to whom thy vows are paid; By all the lives of these; thy own dear head, Declare sincerely to no foe’s demand Thy name, thy lineage, and paternal land.” “Prepare, then (said Telemachus), to know A tale from falsehood free, not free from woe. From Ithaca, of royal birth I came, And great Ulysses (ever honour’d name!) Once was my sire, though now, for ever lost, In Stygian gloom he glides a pensive ghost! Whose fate inquiring through the world we rove; The last, the wretched proof of filial love.”