“What words (the matron cries) have reach’d my ears? Doubt we his presence, when he now appears! Then hear conviction: Ere the fatal day That forced Ulysses o’er the watery way, A boar, fierce rushing in the sylvan war, Plough’d half his thigh; I saw, I saw the scar, And wild with transport had reveal’d the wound; But ere I spoke, he rose, and check’d the sound. Then, daughter, haste away! and if a lie Flow from this tongue, then let thy servant die!” To whom with dubious joy the queen replies: “Wise is thy soul, but errors seize the wise; The works of gods what mortal can survey? Who knows their motives, who shall trace their way? But learn we instant how the suitors trod The paths of death, by man, or by a god.” Thus speaks the queen, and no reply attends, But with alternate joy and fear descends; At every step debates her lord to prove; Or, rushing to his arms, confess her love! Then gliding through the marble valves, in state Opposed, before the shining sire she sate. The monarch, by a column high enthroned, His eye withdrew, and fix’d it on the ground; Curious to hear his queen the silence break: Amazed she sate, and impotent to speak; O’er all the man her eyes she rolls in vain, Now hopes, now fears, now knows, then doubts again. At length Telemachus: “Oh, who can find A woman like Penelope unkind? Why thus in silence? why with winning charms Thus slow to fly with rapture to his arms? Stubborn the breast that with no transport glows, When twice ten years are pass’d of mighty woes; To softness lost, to spousal love unknown, The gods have formed that rigid heart of stone!” “O my Telemachus! (the queen rejoin’d,) Distracting fears confound my labouring mind; Powerless to speak. I scarce uplift my eyes, Nor dare to question; doubts on doubts arise. Oh deign he, if Ulysses, to remove These boding thoughts, and what he is, to prove!” Pleased with her virtuous fears, the king replies: “Indulge, my son, the cautions of the wise; Time shall the truth to sure remembrance bring: This garb of poverty belies the king: No more. This day our deepest care requires, Cautious to act what thought mature inspires. If one man’s blood, though mean, distain our hands, The homicide retreats to foreign lands; By us, in heaps the illustrious peerage falls, The important deed our whole attention calls.” “Be that thy care (Telemachus replies) The world conspires to speak Ulysses wise; For wisdom all is thine! lo, I obey, And dauntless follow where you led the way; Nor shalt thou in the day of danger find Thy coward son degenerate lag behind.”