No More Learning

Beside the gate the reverend minstrel stands;
The lyre now silent trembling in his hands;
Dubious to supplicate the chief, or fly
To Jove's inviolable altar nigh,
Where oft Laertes holy vows had paid,
And oft Ulysses smoking victims laid.
His honour'd harp with care he first set down,
Between the laver and the silver throne;
Then prostrate stretch'd before the dreadful man,
Persuasive thus, with accent soft began:

"O king! to mercy be thy soul inclined,
And spare the poet's ever-gentle kind.
A deed like this thy future fame would wrong,
For dear to gods and men is sacred song.
Self-taught I sing; by Heaven, and Heaven alone,
The genuine seeds of poesy are sown:
And (what the gods bestow) the lofty lay
To gods alone and godlike worth we pay.
Save then the poet, and thyself reward!
'Tis thine to merit, mine is to record.
That here I sung, was force, and not desire;
This hand reluctant touch'd the warbling wire;
And let thy son attest, nor sordid pay,
Nor servile flattery, stain'd the moral lay. "

The moving words Telemachus attends,
His sire approaches, and the bard defends.
"O mix not, father, with those impious dead
The man divine! forbear that sacred head;
Medon, the herald, too, our arms may spare,
Medon, who made my infancy his care;
If yet he breathes, permit thy son to give
Thus much to gratitude, and bid him live. "

Beneath a table, trembling with dismay,
Couch'd close to earth, unhappy Medon lay,
Wrapp'd in a new-slain ox's ample hide;
Swift at the word he cast his screen aside,
Sprung to the prince, embraced his knee with tears,
And thus with grateful voice address'd his ears

"O prince! O friend! lo, here thy Medon stands
Ah stop the hero's unresisted hands,
Incensed too justly by that impious brood,
Whose guilty glories now are set in blood. "
To whom Ulysses with a pleasing eye:

"Be bold, on friendship and my son rely;
Live, an example for the world to read,
How much more safe the good than evil deed:
Thou, with the heaven-taught bard, in peace resort
From blood and carnage to yon open court:
Me other work requires.
" With timorous awe
From the dire scene the exempted two withdraw,
Scarce sure of life, look round, and trembling move
To the bright altars of Protector Jove.

Meanwhile Ulysses search'd the dome, to find
If yet there live of all the offending kind.
Not one! complete the bloody tale he found,
All steep'd in blood, all gasping on the ground.
So, when by hollow shores the fisher-train
Sweep with their arching nets the roaring main,
And scarce the meshy toils the copious draught contain,
All naked of their element, and bare,
The fishes pant, and gasp in thinner air;
Wide o'er the sands are spread the stiffening prey,
Till the warm sun exhales their soul away.

And now the king commands his son to call
Old Euryclea to the deathful hall:
The son observant not a moment stays;
The aged governess with speed obeys;
The sounding portals instant they display;
The matron moves, the prince directs the way.
On heaps of death the stern Ulysses stood,
All black with dust, and cover'd thick with blood.
So the grim lion from the slaughter comes,
Dreadful lie glares, and terribly he foams,
His breast with marks of carnage painted o'er,
His jaws all dropping with the bull's black gore.

Soon as her eyes the welcome object met,
The guilty fall'n, the mighty deed complete;
A scream of joy her feeble voice essay'd;
The hero check'd her, and composedly said.

"Woman, experienced as thou art, control
Indecent joy, and feast thy secret soul.
To insult the dead is cruel and unjust;
Fate and their crime have sunk them to the dust.
Nor heeded these the censure of mankind,
The good and bad were equal in their mind
Justly the price of worthlessness they paid,
And each now wails an unlamented shade.
But thou sincere! O Euryclea, say,
What maids dishonour us, and what obey? "

Then she: "In these thy kingly walls remain
(My son) full fifty of the handmaid train,
Taught by my care to cull the fleece or weave,
And servitude with pleasing tasks deceive;
Of these, twice six pursue their wicked way,
Nor me, nor chaste Penelope obey;
Nor fits it that Telemachus command
(Young as he is) his mother's female band.
Hence to the upper chambers let me fly
Where slumbers soft now close the royal eye;
There wake her with the news"--the matron cried
"Not so (Ulysses, more sedate, replied),
Bring first the crew who wrought these guilty deeds.