Your Fates shall land ye; but presage says sure, If once ye spoil them, spoil to all thy friends, Spoil to thy fleet, and if the justice ends Short of thyself, it shall be long before, And that length forc’d out with inflictions store, When, losing all thy fellows, in a sail Of foreign built (when most thy Fates prevail In thy deliv’rance) thus th’ event shall sort: Thou shalt find shipwrack raging in thy port, Proud men thy goods consuming, and thy wife Urging with gifts, give charge upon thy life. But all these wrongs revenge shall end to thee, And force, or cunning, set with slaughter free The house of all thy spoilers. Yet again Thou shalt a voyage make, and come to men That know no sea, nor ships, nor oars that are Wings to a ship, nor mix with any fare[3] Salt’s savoury vapour. Where thou first shalt land, This clear-giv’n sign shall let thee understand, That there those men remain: Assume ashore Up to thy royal shoulder a ship oar, With which, when thou shalt meet one on the way That will in country admiration say What dost thou with that wan upon thy neck? There fix that wan thy oar, and that shore deck With sacred rites to Neptune; slaughter there A ram, a bull, and (who for strength doth bear The name of husband to a herd) a boar. And, coming home, upon thy natural shore, Give pious hecatombs to all the Gods, Degrees observ’d. And then the periods Of all thy labours in the peace shall end Of easy death; which shall the less extend His passion to thee, that thy foe, the Sea, Shall not enforce it, but Death’s victory Shall chance in only-earnest-pray-vow’d age,[4] Obtain’d at home, quite emptied of his rage, Thy subjects round about thee, rich and blest. And here hath Truth summ’d up thy vital rest.’ I answer’d him: ‘We will suppose all these Decreed in Deity; let it likewise please Tiresias to resolve me, why so near The blood and me my mother’s soul doth bear, And yet nor word, nor look, vouchsafe her son? Doth she not know me?’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘nor none Of all these spirits, but myself alone, Knows anything till he shall taste the blood. But whomsoever you shall do that good, He will the truth of all you wish unfold; Who you envy it to will all withhold.’ Thus said the kingly soul, and made retreat Amidst the inner parts of Pluto’s seat, When he had spoke thus by divine instinct. Still I stood firm, till to the blood’s precinct My mother came, and drunk; and then she knew I was her son, had passion to renew Her natural plaints, which thus she did pursue: ‘How is it, O my son, that you alive This deadly-darksome region underdive? ’Twixt which, and earth, so many mighty seas, And horrid currents, interpose their prease, Oceanus in chief? Which none (unless More help’d than you) on foot now can transgress. A well-built ship he needs that ventures there. Com’st thou from Troy but now, enforc’d to err All this time with thy soldiers? Nor hast seen, Ere this long day, thy country, and thy queen?’ I answer’d: ‘That a necessary end