Then answered cloud-compelling Jove: “My child, What words have passed thy lips? Can I forget Godlike Ulysses, who in gifts of mind Excels all other men, and who has brought Large offerings to the gods that dwell in heaven? Yet he who holds the earth in his embrace, Neptune, pursues him with perpetual hate Because of Polypheme, the Cyclops, strong Beyond all others of his giant race, Whose eye Ulysses had put out. The nymph Thoosa brought him forth—a daughter she Of Phorcys, ruling in the barren deep— And in the covert of o’erhanging rocks She met with Neptune. For this cause the god Who shakes the shores, although he slay him not, Sends forth Ulysses wandering far away From his own country. Let us now consult Together and provide for his return, And Neptune will lay by his wrath, for vain It were for one like him to strive alone Against the might of all the immortal gods.”
And then the blue-eyed Pallas spake again:— “O father! son of Saturn, king of kings! If such the pleasure of the blessed gods That now the wise Ulysses shall return To his own land, let us at once despatch Hermes, the Argicide, our messenger, Down to Ogygia, to the bright-haired nymph, And make our steadfast purpose known to bring The sufferer Ulysses to his home, And I will haste to Ithaca, and move His son, that with a resolute heart he call The long-haired Greeks together and forbid The excesses of the suitor train, who slay His flocks and slow-paced beeves with crooked horns. To Sparta I will send him and the sands Of Pylos, to inquire for the return Of his dear father. So a glorious fame Shall gather round him in the eyes of men.”
She spake, and fastened underneath her feet The fair, ambrosial golden sandals worn To bear her over ocean like the wind, And o’er the boundless land. In hand she took, Well tipped with trenchant brass, the mighty spear, Heavy and huge and strong, with which she bears Whole phalanxes of heroes to the earth, When she, the daughter of a mighty sire, Is angered. From the Olympian heights she plunged, And stood among the men of Ithaca, Just at the porch and threshold of their chief, Ulysses.