In her retreat, the dow’r she brought with her. And then a double ill it will confer, Both from my father and from God on me, When, thrust out of her house, on her bent knee, My mother shall the horrid Furies raise With imprecations, and all men dispraise My part in her exposure. Never then Will I perform this counsel. If your spleen Swell at my courses, once more I command Your absence from my house; some other’s hand Charge with your banquets; on your own goods eat, And either other mutually in treat, At either of your houses, with your feast. But if ye still esteem more sweet and best Another’s spoil, so you still wreakless live, Gnaw, vermin-like, things sacred, no laws give[1] To your devouring; it remains that I Invoke each Ever-living Deity, And vow, if Jove shall deign in any date Pow’r of like pains for pleasure so past rate, From thenceforth look, where ye have revell’d so Unwreak’d, your ruins all shall undergo.” Thus spake Telemachus; t’ assure whose threat, Far-seeing Jove upon their pinions set Two eagles from the high brows of a hill, That, mounted on the Winds, together still Their strokes extended; but arriving now Amidst the Council, over ev’ry brow Shook their thick wings and, threat’ning death’s cold fears, Their necks and cheeks tore with their eager seres; Then, on the court’s right hand away they flew, Above both court and city. With whose view, And study what events they might foretell The Council into admiration fell. The old heroë, Halitherses, then, The son of Nestor, that of all old men, His peers in that court, only could foresee By flight of fowls man’s fixed destiny, ’Twixt them and their amaze, this interpos’d: “Hear, Ithacensians, all your doubts disclos’d. The Wooers most are touch’d in this ostent, To whom are dangers great and imminent; For now not long more shall Ulysses bear Lack of his most lov’d, but fills some place near, Addressing to these Wooers fate and death. And many more this mischief menaceth Of us inhabiting this famous isle. Let us consult yet, in this long forewhile, How to ourselves we may prevent this ill. Let these men rest secure, and revel still; Though they might find it safer, if with us They would in time prevent what threats them thus; Since not without sure trial I foretell These coming storms, but know their issue well. For to Ulysses all things have event, As I foretold him, when for Ilion went The whole Greek fleet together, and with them Th’ abundant-in-all-counsels took the stream. I told him, that, when much ill he had past, And all his men were lost, he should at last, The twentieth year, turn home, to all unknown; All which effects are to perfection grown.” Eurymachus, the son of Polybus, Oppos’d this man’s presage, and answer’d thus: “Hence, great in years, go, prophesy at home, Thy children teach to shun their ills to come. In these superior far to thee am I. A world of fowls beneath the sun-beams fly That are not fit t’ inform a prophecy. Besides, Ulysses perish’d long ago;