Beds in the portico with purple rugs Resplendent, and with arras, overspread, 370 And cover'd warm with cloaks of shaggy pile. Forth went the maidens, bearing each a torch, And spread the couches; next, the herald them Led forth, and in the vestibule the son Of Nestor and the youthful Hero slept, Telemachus; but in the interior house Atrides, with the loveliest of her sex Beside him, Helen of the sweeping stole. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Glow'd in the East, then from his couch arose 380 The warlike Menelaus, fresh attir'd; His faulchion o'er his shoulders slung, he bound His sandals fair to his unsullied feet, And like a God issuing, at the side Sat of Telemachus, to whom he spake. Hero! Telemachus! what urgent cause Hath hither led thee, to the land far-famed Of Lacedæmon o'er the spacious Deep? Public concern or private? Tell me true. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. 390 Atrides! Menelaus! prince renown'd! News seeking of my Sire, I have arrived. My household is devour'd, my fruitful fields Are desolated, and my palace fill'd With enemies, who while they mutual wage Proud competition for my mother's love, My flocks continual slaughter, and my beeves. For this cause, at thy knees suppliant, I beg That thou wouldst tell me his disastrous end, If either thou beheld'st with thine own eyes 400 His death, or from some wand'rer of the Greeks Hast heard it; for no common woes, alas! Was he ordain'd to share ev'n from the womb. Neither through pity or o'erstrain'd respect Flatter me, but explicit all relate Which thou hast witness'd. If my noble Sire E'er gratified thee by performance just Of word or deed at Ilium, where ye fell So num'rous slain in fight, oh recollect Now his fidelity, and tell me true! 410 Then Menelaus, sighing deep, replied. Gods! their ambition is to reach the bed Of a brave man, however base themselves. But as it chances, when the hart hath lay'd Her fawns new-yean'd and sucklings yet, to rest Within some dreadful lion's gloomy den, She roams the hills, and in the grassy vales Feeds heedless, till the lion, to his lair Return'd, destroys her and her little-ones, So them thy Sire shall terribly destroy. 420 Jove, Pallas and Apollo! oh that such As erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove With Philomelides, and threw him flat, A sight at which Achaia's sons rejoic'd, Such, now, Ulysses might assail them all! Short life and bitter nuptials should be theirs. But thy enquiries neither indirect Will I evade, nor give thee false reply, But all that from the Antient of the Deep[14] I have receiv'd will utter, hiding nought.