Ulysses thus resolv’d the king’s demands: “Alcinous, in whom this empire stands, You should not of so natural right disherit Your princely feast, as take from it the spirit. To hear a poet, that in accent brings The Gods’ breasts down, and breathes them as he sings, Is sweet, and sacred; nor can I conceive, In any common-weal, what more doth give Note of the just and blessed empery, Than to see comfort universally Cheer up the people, when in ev’ry roof She gives observers a most human proof Of men’s contents. To see a neighbour’s feast Adorn it through; and thereat hear the breast Of the divine Muse; men in order set; A wine-page waiting; tables crown’d with meat, Set close to guests that are to use it skill’d; The cup-boards furnish’d, and the cups still fill’d; This shows, to my mind, most humanely fair. Nor should you, for me, still the heav’nly air, That stirr’d my soul so; for I love such tears As fall from fit notes, beaten through mine ears With repetitions of what heav’n hath done, And break from hearty apprehensión Of God and goodness, though they show my ill. And therefore doth my mind excite me still, To tell my bleeding moan; but much more now, To serve your pleasure, that to over-flow My tears with such cause may by sighs be driv’n, Though ne’er so much plagued I may seem by heav’n. And now my name; which way shall lead to all My mis’ries after, that their sounds may fall Through your ears also, and show (having fled So much affliction) first, who rests his head In your embraces, when, so far from home, I knew not where t’ obtain it resting room. I am Ulysses Laertiades, The fear of all the world for policies, For which my facts as high as heav’n resound. I dwell in Ithaca, earth’s most renown’d, All over-shadow’d with the shake-leaf hill,[1] Tree-fam’d Neritus; whose near confines fill Islands a number, well-inhabited, That under my observance taste their bread; Dulichius, Samos, and the full-of-food[2] Zacynthus, likewise grac’d with store of wood. But Ithaca, though in the seas it lie, Yet lies she so aloft she casts her eye Quite over all the neighbour continent; Far northward situate, and, being lent But little favour of the morn and sun, With barren rocks and cliffs is over-run; And yet of hardy youths a nurse of name; Nor could I see a soil, where’er I came, More sweet and wishful. Yet, from hence was I Withheld with horror by the Deity, Divine Calypso, in her cavy house, Enflam’d to make me her sole lord and spouse. Circe Ææa too, that knowing dame, Whose veins the like affections did enflame, Detain’d me likewise. But to neither’s love Could I be tempted; which doth well approve, Nothing so sweet is as our country’s earth,[3] And joy of those from whom we claim our birth. Though roofs far richer we far off possess, Yet, from our native, all our more is less. To which as I contended, I will tell The much-distress-conferring facts that fell By Jove’s divine prevention, since I set From ruin’d Troy my first foot in retreat.