Dolius leading them. They gathered thorns to fence the garden-grounds. There, delving in that fertile spot, around A newly planted tree, Ulysses saw His father only, sordidly arrayed In a coarse tunic, patched and soiled. He wore Patched greaves of bullock’s hide upon his thighs, A fence against the thorns; and on his hands gloves, to protect them from the prickly stems Of bramble; and upon his head a cap Of goatskin. There he brooded o’er his grief. Him when the much-enduring chief beheld, Wasted with age and sorrow-worn, he stopped Beside a lofty pear-tree’s stem and wept, And pondered whether he should kiss and clasp His father in his arms, and tell him all, How he had reached his native land and home, Or question first and prove him. Musing thus, It pleased him to begin with sportive words; And thus resolved, divine Ulysses drew Near to his father stooping at his task, And loosening the hard earth about a tree, And thus the illustrious son accosted him:—
“O aged man! there is no lack of skill In tending this fair orchard, which thy care Keeps flourishing; no growth is there of fig, Vine, pear, or olive, or of plants that grow In borders, that has missed thy friendly hand. Yet let me say, and be thou not displeased, Thou art ill cared for, burdened as thou art With years, and squalid, and in mean attire. It cannot be that for thy idleness