“What marks of luxury the marble stain Its wonted lustre let the floor regain; The seats with purple clothe in order due; And let the abstersive sponge the board renew; Let some refresh the vase’s sullied mould; Some bid the goblets boast their native gold; Some to the spring, with each a jar, repair, And copious waters pure for bathing bear; Dispatch! for soon the suitors will essay The lunar feast-rites to the god of day.” She said: with duteous haste a bevy fair Of twenty virgins to the spring repair; With varied toils the rest adorn the dome. Magnificent, and blithe, the suitors come. Some wield the sounding axe; the dodder’d oaks Divide, obedient to the forceful strokes. Soon from the fount, with each a brimming urn (Eumaeus in their train), the maids return. Three porkers for the feast, all brawny-chined, He brought; the choicest of the tusky-kind; In lodgments first secure his care he viewed, Then to the king this friendly speech renew’d: “Now say sincere, my guest! the suitor-train Still treat thy worth with lordly dull disdain; Or speaks their deed a bounteous mind humane?” “Some pitying god (Ulysses sad replied) With vollied vengeance blast their towering pride! No conscious blush, no sense of right, restrains The tides of lust that swell the boiling veins; From vice to vice their appetites are toss’d, All cheaply sated at another’s cost!” While thus the chief his woes indignant told, Melanthius, master of the bearded fold, The goodliest goats of all the royal herd Spontaneous to the suitors’ feast preferr’d; Two grooms assistant bore the victims bound; With quavering cries the vaulted roofs resound; And to the chief austere aloud began The wretch unfriendly to the race of man: “Here vagrant, still? offensive to my lords! Blows have more energy than airy words; These arguments I’ll use: nor conscious shame, Nor threats, thy bold intrusion will reclaim. On this high feast the meanest vulgar boast A plenteous board! Hence! seek another host!” Rejoinder to the churl the king disdain’d, But shook his head, and rising wrath restrain’d. From Cephalenia ’cross the surgy main Philaetius late arrived, a faithful swain. A steer ungrateful to the bull’s embrace. And goats he brought, the pride of all their race; Imported in a shallop not his own; The dome re-echoed to the mingl’d moan. Straight to the guardian of the bristly kind He thus began, benevolent of mind: “What guest is he, of such majestic air? His lineage and paternal clime declare: Dim through the eclipse of fate, the rays divine Of sovereign state with faded splendour shine. If monarchs by the gods are plunged in woe, To what abyss are we foredoom’d to go!” Then affable he thus the chief address’d, Whilst with pathetic warmth his hand he press’d: