High on a throne, amid the Scherian powers, My royal father shares the genial hours: But to the queen thy mournful tale disclose, With the prevailing eloquence of woes: So shalt thou view with joy thy natal shore, Though mountains rise between and oceans roar.” She added not, but waving, as she wheel’d, The silver scourge, it glitter’d o’er the field; With skill the virgin guides the embroider’d rein, Slow rolls the car before the attending train, Now whirling down the heavens, the golden day Shot through the western clouds a dewy ray; The grove they reach, where, from the sacred shade, To Pallas thus the pensive hero pray’d: “Daughter of Jove! whose arms in thunder wield The avenging bolt, and shake the dreadful shield; Forsook by thee, in vain I sought thy aid When booming billows closed above my bead; Attend, unconquer’d maid! accord my vows, Bid the Great hear, and pitying, heal my woes.” This heard Minerva, but forbore to fly (By Neptune awed) apparent from the sky; Stern god! who raged with vengeance, unrestrain’d. Till great Ulysses hail’d his native land. BOOK VII. ARGUMENT. THE COURT OF ALCINOUS. The princess Nausicaa returns to the city and Ulysses soon after follows thither. He is met by Pallas in the form of a young virgin, who guides him to the palace, and directs him in what manner to address the queen Arete. She then involves him in a mist which causes him to pass invisible. The palace and gardens of Alcinous described. Ulysses falling at the feet of the queen, the mist disperses, the Phæacians admire, and receive him with respect. The queen inquiring by what means he had the garments he then wore, be relates to her and Alcinous his departure from Calypso, and his arrival in their dominions. The same day continues, and the book ends with the night. The patient heavenly man thus suppliant pray’d; While the slow mules draws on the imperial maid; Through the proud street she moves, the public gaze; The turning wheel before the palace stays. With ready love her brothers, gathering round, Received the vestures, and the mules unbound. She seeks the bridal bower: a matron there The rising fire supplies with busy care, Whose charms in youth her father’s heart inflamed, Now worn with age, Eurymedusa named; The captive dame Phæacian rovers bore, Snatch’d from Epirus, her sweet native shore (A grateful prize), and in her bloom bestow’d On good Alcinous, honor’d as a god; Nurse of Nausicaa from her infant years, And tender second to a mother’s cares.