beneath the setting sun. He went to grace a hecatomb of beeves And lambs, and sat delighted at the feast; While in the palace of Olympian Jove The other gods assembled, and to them The father of immortals and of men Was speaking. To his mind arose the thought Of that Aegisthus whom the famous son Of Agamemnon, Prince Orestes, slew. Of him he thought and thus bespake the gods:—
“How strange it is that mortals blame the gods And say that we inflict the ills they bear, When they, by their own folly and against The will of fate, bring sorrow on themselves! As late Aegisthus, unconstrained by fate, Married the queen of Atreus’ son and slew The husband just returned from war. Yet well He knew the bitter penalty, for we Warned him. We sent the herald Argicide, Bidding him neither slay the chief nor woo His queen, for that Orestes, when he came To manhood and might claim his heritage, Would take due vengeance for Atrides slain. So Hermes said; his prudent words moved not The purpose of Aegisthus who now pays The forfeit of his many crimes at once.”
Pallas, the blue-eyed goddess, thus replied:— “O father, son of Saturn, king of kings! Well he deserved his death. So perish all Guilty of deeds like his! But I am grieved For sage Ulysses, that most wretched man, So long detained, repining, and afar From those he loves, upon a distant isle Girt by the waters of the central deep— A forest isle, where dwells a deity The daughter of wise Atlas, him who knows The ocean to its utmost depths, and holds Upright the lofty columns which divide The earth from heaven. The daughter there detains The unhappy chieftain, and with flattering words Would win him to forget his Ithaca. Meanwhile, impatient to behold the smokes That rise from hearths in his own land, he pines And willingly would die. Is not thy heart, Olympics, touched by this? And did he not Pay grateful sacrifice to thee beside The Argive fleet in the broad realm of Troy? Why then, O Jove, art thou so wroth with him?”