Book XVII

might this stranger in thy hearing speak Words full of consolation. For three nights I had him with me, for three days I made My lodge his home⁠—for at the very first He came to me, escaping from his ship⁠— Nor when he left me had he told of all That he had suffered. As a hearer looks Upon a minstrel whom the gods have taught To sing the poems that delight all hearts, And, listening, longs to listen without end; So, as the stranger sat beneath my roof, He held me charmed. He was the ancestral friend, He said, of thy Ulysses, and his home Was Crete, where dwells the stock of Minos yet. From Crete he came, and much had suffered since, Driven on from place to place. And he had heard Some tidings of Ulysses yet alive⁠— So he affirmed⁠—in a rich region near The realm of the Thesprotians, and prepared To bring much riches to his native isle.”