“Let no such thought (with modest grace rejoin’d The prudent Greek) possess the royal mind. Alas! a mortal, like thyself, am I; No glorious native of yon azure sky: In form, ah how unlike their heavenly kind! How more inferior in the gifts of mind! Alas, a mortal! most oppress’d of those Whom Fate has loaded with a weight of woes; By a sad train of Miseries alone Distinguish’d long, and second now to none! By Heaven’s high will compell’d from shore to shore; With Heaven’s high will prepared to suffer more. What histories of toil could I declare! But still long-wearied nature wants repair; Spent with fatigue, and shrunk with pining fast, My craving bowels still require repast. Howe’er the noble, suffering mind may grieve Its load of anguish, and disdain to live, Necessity demands our daily bread; Hunger is insolent, and will be fed. But finish, oh ye peers! what you propose, And let the morrow’s dawn conclude my woes. Pleased will I suffer all the gods ordain, To see my soil, my son, my friends again. That view vouchsafed, let instant death surprise With ever-during shade these happy eyes!” The assembled peers with general praise approved His pleaded reason, and the suit he moved. Each drinks a full oblivion of his cares, And to the gifts of balmy sleep repairs, Ulysses in the regal walls alone Remain’d: beside him, on a splendid throne, Divine Arete and Alcinous shone. The queen, on nearer view, the guest survey’d, Rob’d in the garments her own hands had made, Not without wonder seen. Then thus began, Her words addressing to the godlike man: “Camest thou hither, wondrous stranger! say, From lands remote and o’er a length of sea? Tell, then, whence art thou? whence, that princely air? And robes like these, so recent and so fair?”