Aurora rose from high-born Tithon’s bed, That men and Gods might be illustrated, And then the Deities sat. Imperial Jove, That makes the horrid murmur beat above, Took place past all, whose height for ever springs, And from whom flowers th’ eternal pow’r of things. Then Pallas, mindful of Ulysses, told The many cares that in Calypso’s hold He still sustain’d, when he had felt before So much affliction, and such dangers more. “O Father,” said she, “and ye Ever-blest, Give never king hereafter interest In any aid of yours, by serving you, By being gentle, human, just, but grow Rude, and for ever scornful of your rights, All justice ord’ring by their appetites, Since he, that rul’d as it in right behov’d, That all his subjects as his children lov’d, Finds you so thoughtless of him and his birth. Thus men begin to say, ye rule in earth, And grudge at what ye let him undergo, Who yet the least part of his suff’rance know: Thrall’d in an island, shipwrack’d in his tears, And, in the fancies that Calypso bears, Bound from his birthright, all his shipping gone, And of his soldiers not retaining one. And now his most-lov’d son’s life doth inflame Their slaught’rous envies; since his father’s fame He puts in pursuit, and is gone as far As sacred Pylos, and the singular Dame-breeding Sparta.” This, with this reply, The Cloud-assembler answer’d: “What words fly Thine own remembrance, daughter? Hast not thou The counsel giv’n thyself, that told thee how Ulysses shall with his return address His Wooers wrong? And, for the safe access His son shall make to his innative port, Do thou direct it, in as curious sort As thy wit serves thee; it obeys thy pow’rs; And in their ship return the speedless Wooers.” Then turn’d he to his issue Mercury, And said: “Thou hast made good our ambassy To th’ other Statists, to the Nymph then now, On whose fair head a tuft of gold doth grow, Bear our true-spoken counsel, for retreat Of patient Ulysses; who shall get No aid from us, nor any mortal man, But in a patch’d-up skiff (built as he can,[1] And suff’ring woes enough) the twentieth day At fruitful Scheria let him breathe his way, With the Phæacians, that half Deities live, Who like a God will honour him, and give His wisdom clothes, and ship, and brass, and gold, More than for gain of Troy he ever told; Where, at the whole division of the prey, If he a saver were, or got away Without a wound, if he should grudge, ’twas well. But th’ end shall crown all; therefore Fate will deal So well with him, to let him land, and see His native earth, friends, house, and family.” Thus charg’d he; nor Argicides denied, But to his feet his fair wing’d shoes he tied, Ambrosian, golden, that in his command Put either sea, or the unmeasur’d land, With pace as speedy as a puft of wind. Then up his rod went, with which he declin’d The eyes of any waker, when he pleas’d, And any sleeper, when he wish’d, diseas’d. This took; he stoop’d Pieria, and thence