“Art thou a goddess, and dost ask of me, A god, why came I hither? Yet, since thou Requirest, I will truly tell the cause. I came unwillingly, at Jove’s command; For who of choice would traverse the wide waste Of the salt ocean, with no city near Where men adore the gods with solemn rites And chosen hecatombs. No god has power To elude or to resist the purposes Of aegis-bearing Jove. With thee abides, He bids me say, the most unhappy man Of all who round the city of Priam waged The battle through nine years, and, in the tenth, Laying it waste, departed for their homes. But in their voyage they provoked the wrath Of Pallas, who called up the furious winds And angry waves against them. By his side Sank all his gallant comrades in the deep. Him did the winds and waves drive hither. Him Jove bids thee send away with speed; for here He must not perish, far from all he loves. So is it preordained that he behold His friends again, and stand once more within His high-roofed palace, on his native soil.”
He spake; Calypso, glorious goddess, heard, And shuddered, and with winged words replied:—
“Ye are unjust, ye gods, and, envious far Beyond all other beings, cannot bear That ever goddess openly should make A mortal man her consort. Thus it was When once Aurora, rosy-fingered, took Orion for her husband; ye were stung, Amid your blissful lives, with envious hate, Till chaste Diana, of the golden throne, Smote him with silent arrows from her bow, And slew him in Ortygia. Thus, again, When bright-haired Ceres, swayed by her own heart, In fields which bore three yearly harvests, met Iäsion as a lover, this was known Erelong to Jupiter, who flung from high A flaming thunderbolt, and laid him dead. And now ye envy me, that with me dwells A mortal man. I saved him as he clung Alone upon his floating keel; for Jove Had cloven with a bolt of