Book XVII

brave man’s bed, As when a hart hath left two suckling fawns, Just born, asleep in a strong lion’s lair, And roams for pasturage the mountain slopes And grassy lawns, the lion suddenly Comes back, and makes a cruel end of both, So will Ulysses bring a sudden doom Upon the suitors. Would to Father Jove, And Pallas, and Apollo, that the chief, Returning mighty, as he was when once In well-built Lesbos, at a wrestling-match, He rose to strive with Philomelides, And threw him heavily, and all the Greeks Rejoiced⁠—would he might come as then he was! Short-lived would then the suitors be, and taste A bitter marriage-feast. But now, to come To what thou hast inquired, I will not seek To turn from it, and talk of other things, Nor will deceive. Of all that I was told By the Ancient of the Deep, whose words are true, I will not hide a single word from thee. He saw thy father in an isle, he said, A prey to wasting sorrows, and detained, Unwilling, in the palace of the nymph Calypso. To the country of his birth He cannot come; no ships are there with oars And crew to bear him o’er the great wide sea.’