To do a suppliant’s due, and press so near, As to embrace thy knees. Nor is it strange, For one of fresh and firmest spirit would change T’ embrace so bright an object. But, for me, A cruel habit of calamity Prepar’d the strong impression thou hast made; For this last day did fly night’s twentieth shade Since I, at length, escap’d the sable seas; When in the mean time th’ unrelenting prease Of waves and stern storms toss’d me up and down, From th’ isle Ogygia. And now God hath thrown My wrack on this shore, that perhaps I may My mis’ries vary here; for yet their stay, I fear, Heav’n hath not order’d, though, before These late afflictions, it hath lent me store. O queen, deign pity then, since first to you My fate importunes my distress to vow. No other dame, nor man, that this Earth own, And neighbour city, I have seen or known. The town then show me; give my nakedness Some shroud to shelter it, if to these seas Linen or woollen you have brought to cleanse. God give you, in requital, all th’ amends Your heart can wish, a husband, family, And good agreement. Nought beneath the sky More sweet, more worthy is, than firm consent Of man and wife in household government. It joys their wishers-well, their enemies wounds, But to themselves the special good redounds.” She answer’d: “Stranger! I discern in thee Nor sloth, nor folly, reigns; and yet I see Th’ art poor and wretched. In which I conclude, That industry nor wisdom make endued Men with those gifts that make them best to th’ eye; Jove only orders man’s felicity. To good and bad his pleasure fashions still The whole proportion of their good and ill. And he, perhaps, hath form’d this plight in thee, Of which thou must be patient, as he free. But after all thy wand’rings, since thy way, Both to our earth, and near our city, lay, As being expos’d to our cares to relieve, Weeds, and what else a human hand should give To one so suppliant and tam’d with woe, Thou shalt not want. Our city I will show, And tell our people’s name: This neighbour town, And all this kingdom, the Phæacians own. And (since thou seem’dst so fain to know my birth, And mad’st a question, if of heav’n or earth.) This earth hath bred me; and my father’s name Alcinous is, that in the pow’r and frame Of this isle’s rule is supereminent.” Thus, passing him, she to the virgins went, And said: “Give stay both to your feet and fright. Why thus disperse ye for a man’s mere sight? Esteem you him a Cyclop, that long since Made use to prey upon our citizens? This man no moist man is, (nor wat’rish thing,[5] That’s ever flitting, ever ravishing All it can compass; and, like it, doth range In rape of women, never stay’d in change). This man is truly manly, wise, and stay’d,[6] In soul more rich the more to sense decay’d, Who nor will do, nor suffer to be done, Acts lewd and abject; nor can such a one Greet the Phæacians with a mind envíous, Dear to the Gods they are, and he is pious, Besides, divided from the world we are,