Yet warn’d in vain, with laughter loud elate The peers reproach the sure divine of Fate; And thus Eurymachus: “The dotard’s mind To every sense is lost, to reason blind; Swift from the dome conduct the slave away; Let him in open air behold the day.” “Tax not (the heaven-illumined seer rejoin’d) Of rage, or folly, my prophetic mind, No clouds of error dim the ethereal rays, Her equal power each faithful sense obeys. Unguided hence my trembling steps I bend, Far hence, before yon hovering deaths descend; Lest the ripe harvest of revenge begun, I share the doom ye suitors cannot shun.” This said, to sage Piraeus sped the seer, His honour’d host, a welcome inmate there. O’er the protracted feast the suitors sit, And aim to wound the prince with pointless wit: Cries one, with scornful leer and mimic voice, “Thy charity we praise, but not thy choice; Why such profusion of indulgence shown To this poor, timorous, toil-detesting drone? That others feeds on planetary schemes, And pays his host with hideous noon-day dreams. But, prince! for once at least believe a friend; To some Sicilian mart these courtiers send, Where, if they yield their freight across the main, Dear sell the slaves! demand no greater gain.” Thus jovial they; but nought the prince replies; Full on his sire he roll’d his ardent eyes: Impatient straight to flesh his virgin-sword; From the wise chief he waits the deathful word. Nigh in her bright alcove, the pensive queen To see the circle sate, of all unseen. Sated at length they rise, and bid prepare An eve-repast, with equal cost and care: But vengeful Pallas, with preventing speed, A feast proportion’d to their crimes decreed; A feast of death, the feasters doom’d to bleed! BOOK XXI. ARGUMENT. THE BENDING OF ULYSSES’ BOW. Penelope, to put an end to the solicitation of the suitors, proposes to marry the person who shall first bend the bow of Ulysses, and shoot through the ringlets. After their attempts have proved ineffectual, Ulysses, taking Eumaeus and Philaetius apart, discovers himself to them; then returning, desires leave to try his strength at the bow, which, though refused with indignation by the suitors, Penelope and Telemachus cause it to be delivered to his hands. He bends it immediately, and shoots through all the rings. Jupiter at the same instant thunders from heaven; Ulysses accepts the omen, and gives a sign to Telemachus, who stands ready armed at his side. And Pallas now, to raise the rivals’ fires, With her own art Penelope inspires Who now can bend Ulysses’ bow, and wing The well-aim’d arrow through the distant ring, Shall end the strife, and win the imperial dame: But discord and black death await the game!