Perhaps abides with us in his abode, And other things will think upon than we, The Gods’ wills stand, who ever yet were free Of their appearance to us, when to them We offer’d hecatombs of fit esteem, And would at feast sit with us, ev’n where we Order’d our session. They would likewise be Encount’rers of us, when in way alone About his fit affairs went any one. Nor let them cloak themselves in any care To do us comfort, we as near them are, As are the Cyclops, or the impious race[8] Of earthy giants, that would heav’n outface.” Ulysses answer’d: “Let some other doubt Employ your thoughts than what your words give out, Which intimate a kind of doubt that I Should shadow in this shape a Deity. I bear no such least semblance, or in wit, Virtue, or person. What may well befit One of those mortals, whom you chiefly know Bears up and down the burthen of the woe Appropriate to poor man, give that to me; Of whose moans I sit in the most degree, And might say more, sustaining griefs that all The Gods consent to; no one ’twixt their fall And my unpitied shoulders letting down The least diversion. Be the grace then shown, To let me taste your free-giv’n food in peace. _Through greatest grief the belly must have ease; Worse than an envious belly nothing is._ It will command his strict necessities, Of men most griev’d in body or in mind, That are in health, and will not give their kind A desp’rate wound. When most with cause I grieve, It bids me still, Eat, man, and drink, and live; And this makes all forgot. Whatever ill I ever bear, it ever bids me fill. But this ease is but forc’d, and will not last, Till what the mind likes be as well embrac’d; And therefore let me wish you would partake In your late purpose; when the morn shall make Her next appearance, deign me but the grace, Unhappy man, that I may once embrace My country-earth. Though I be still thrust at By ancient ills, yet make me but see that. And then let life go, when withal I see My high-roof’d large house, lands, and family.” This all approv’d; and each will’d ev’ry one, Since he hath said so fairly, set him gone. Feast past and sacrifice, to sleep all vow Their eyes at either’s house. Ulysses now Was left here with Alcinous, and his Queen, The all-lov’d Arete. The handmaids then The vessel of the banquet took away. When Arete set eye on his array; Knew both his out and under weed, which she Made with her maids; and mus’d by what means he Obtain’d their wearing; which she made request To know, and wings gave to these speeches: “Guest! First let me ask, what, and from whence you are? And then, who grac’d you with the weeds you wear? Said you not lately, you had err’d at seas, And thence arriv’d here?” Laertiades To this thus answer’d: “’Tis a pain, O Queen, Still to be op’ning wounds wrought deep, and green, Of which the Gods have open’d store in me; Yet your will must be serv’d. Far hence, at sea, There lies an isle, that bears Ogygia’s name, Where Atlas’ daughter, the ingenious dame,