“O stranger, thou art other than thou wert; Thy garb is not the same, nor are thy looks; Thou surely art some deity of those Whose habitation is the ample heaven. Be gracious to us, let us bring to thee Such sacrifices as thou wilt accept And gifts of graven gold; be merciful.”
Ulysses, the great sufferer, thus replied: “I am no god; how am I like the gods? I am thy father, he for whom thy sighs Are breathed, and sorrows borne, and wrongs endured.”
He spake and kissed his son, and from his lids Tears fell to earth, that long had been restrained. And then Telemachus, who could not think The stranger was his father, answered thus:—
“Nay, thou art not my father, thou art not Ulysses; rather hath some deity Sought to deceive me, that my grief may be The sharper; for no mortal man would do What has been done, unless some god should come To aid him, and to make him young or old At pleasure; for thou wert a moment since An aged man, and sordidly arrayed, And now art like the gods of