Ithaca, beneath the Neritus, And private, and not general, is the cause Of which I am to speak. I came to ask Concerning my great father, the large-souled And nobly-born Ulysses, who ’tis said With thee, his friend in arms, laid waste the town Of Ilium. We have heard where all the rest Who warred against the Trojans were cut off, And died sad deaths; his fate alone the son Of Saturn hath not chosen to reveal— Whether he fell on land by hostile hands, Or while at sea was whelmed beneath the waves Of Amphitritè. Wherefore to thy knees I come, to ask that thou—if so thou wilt— Relate the manner of his mournful death, As thou didst see it with thine eyes, or else As thou from other wanderers hast heard Its history; for she who brought him forth Bore him to be unhappy. Think thou not To soften aught, through tenderness to me, In thy recital, but in faithful words Tell me the whole, whatever thou hast seen. And I conjure thee, that if, in his life, My father, great Ulysses, ever gave Promise of word or deed for thee, and kept His promise, in the realm of Troy, where ye Achaians bore such hardships, that thou now Remember it and speak without disguise.”
And Nestor the Gerenian knight replied:— “My friend, since thou recallest to my mind The sufferings borne by us the sons of Greece, Although of peerless valor, in that land, Both when we ranged in ships the darkling sea For booty wheresoe’er Achilles led, And when around King Priam’s populous town We fought, where fell our bravest, know thou then That there the valiant Ajax lies, and there Achilles; there Patroclus, like the gods In council; there my well-beloved son Blameless and brave, Antilochus the swift Of foot and warlike—many woes beside We bore, and who of mortal birth could give Their history? Nay, though thou shouldst remain Five years or six, and ask of all the griefs Endured by the brave Greeks, thou wouldst depart Outwearied to thy home, ere thou hadst heard The whole. Nine years in harassing the foe We passed, beleaguering them and planning wiles Innumerable. Saturn’s son at last With difficulty seemed to close the war. Then was there none who might presume to vie In wisdom with Ulysses; that great man Excelled in every