“‘Ye peers, (I cry,) who press to gain a heart, Where dead Ulysses claims no future part; Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend, Till this funeral web my labours end: Cease, till to good Laertes I bequeath A pall of state, the ornament of death. For when to fate he bows, each Grecian dame With just reproach were licensed to defame, Should he, long honour’d in supreme command, Want the last duties of a daughter’s hand.’ The fiction pleased; their loves I long elude; The night still ravell’d what the day renew’d: Three years successful in my heart conceal’d, My ineffectual fraud the fourth reveal’d: Befriended by my own domestic spies, The woof unwrought the suitor-train surprise. From nuptial rites they now no more recede, And fear forbids to falsify the brede. My anxious parents urge a speedy choice, And to their suffrage gain the filial voice. For rule mature, Telemachus deplores His dome dishonour’d, and exhausted stores— But, stranger! as thy days seem full of fate, Divide discourse, in turn thy birth relate: Thy port asserts thee of distinguish’d race; No poor unfather’d product of disgrace.” “Princess! (he cries,) renew’d by your command, The dear remembrance of my native land Of secret grief unseals the fruitful source; Fond tears repeat their long-forgotten course! So pays the wretch whom fate constrains to roam, The dues of nature to his natal home!— But inward on my soul let sorrow prey, Your sovereign will my duty bids obey. “Crete awes the circling waves, a fruitful soil! And ninety cities crown the sea-born isle: Mix’d with her genuine sons, adopted names In various tongues avow their various claims: Cydonians, dreadful with the bended yew, And bold Pelasgi boast a native’s due: The Dorians, plumed amid the files of war, Her foodful glebe with fierce Achaians share; Cnossus, her capital of high command; Where sceptred Minos with impartial hand Divided right: each ninth revolving year, By Jove received in council to confer. His son Deucalion bore successive sway: His son, who gave me first to view the day! The royal bed an elder issue bless’d, Idomeneus whom Ilion fields attest Of matchless deeds: untrain’d to martial toil, I lived inglorious in my native isle, Studious of peace, and Æthon is my name. ’Twas then to Crete the great Ulysses came. For elemental war, and wintry Jove, From Malea’s gusty cape his navy drove To bright Lucina’s fane; the shelfy coast Where loud Amnisus in the deep is lost. His vessels moor’d (an incommodious port!) The hero speeded to the Cnossian court: Ardent the partner of his arms to find, In leagues of long commutual friendship join’d. Vain hope! ten suns had warm’d the western strand Since my brave brother, with his Cretan band, Had sail’d for Troy: but to the genial feast My honour’d roof received the royal guest: Beeves for his train the Cnossian peers assign, A public treat, with jars of generous wine. Twelve days while Boreas vex’d the aërial space, My hospitable dome he deign’d to grace: