No More Learning

"
He said, and off his bitter arrow thrust
Right at Antinous, that struck him just
As he was lifting up the bowl, to show
That 'twixt the cup and lip much ill may grow.

Then the rest cried out upon him with threats, while they made vain
search for weapons in the hall.

He, frowning, said, "Dogs, see in me the man
Ye all held dead at Troy. My house it is
That thus ye spoil, and thus your luxuries
Fill with my women's rapes; in which ye woo
The wife of one that lives, and no thought show
Of man's fit fear, or gods', your present fame,
Or any fair sense of your future name;
And, therefore, present and eternal death
Shall end your base life. "

Then the Wooers made at Ulysses and Telemachus, who smote down first
Eurymachus and then Amphinomus. But a way to the armoury having
been left, the Wooers got arms by aid of a traitor; whom Eumaeus and
Philoetius smote, and then came to Ulysses and his son. Moreover,
Pallas also came to their help; so that the Wooers, being routed--

Ulysses and his son the flyers chased
As when, with crooked beaks and seres, a cast
Of hill-bred eagles, cast off at some game,
That yet their strengths keep, but, put up, in flame
The eagle stoops; from which, along the field
The poor fowls make wing this and that way yield
Their hard-flown pinions, then the clouds assay
For 'scape or shelter, their forlorn dismay
All spirit exhaling, all wings strength to carry
Their bodies forth, and, truss'd up, to the quarry
Their falconers ride in, and rejoice to see
Their hawks perform a flight so fervently;
So in their flight Ulysses with his heir
Did stoop and cuff the Wooers, that the air
Broke in vast sighs, whose heads they shot and cleft,
The pavement boiling with the souls they reft.

Now all the Wooers were slain, and they of the household that were
their accomplices; and the chamber was purified.

Then first did tears ensue
Her rapt assurance; when she ran and spread
Her arms about his neck, kiss'd oft his head.
He wept for joy, t'enjoy a wife so fit
For his grave mind, that knew his depth of wit.

But as for the Wooers, Hermes gathered the souls of them together,
and, as bats gibbering in a cavern rise, so came they forth gibbering
and went down to the House of Hades.


FOOTNOTES:

[G] Of the "Odyssey" it may be said with certainty that its
composition was later than that of the "Iliad," but it cannot be
affirmed that both poems were not composed within the life-time of one
man. It may be claimed that the best criticism declines to reject the
identity of authorship of the poet of the "Iliad" and the poet of the
"Odyssey," while admitting the probability that the work of other poets
was incorporated in his. We have given our readers the translation by
George Chapman, Shakespeare's contemporary, with which may be compared
the fine modern prose translation by Professor Butcher and Mr. Andrew
Lang.
On the other hand, Alexander Pope's verse rendering has nothing
Homeric about it. It may be regretted that Chapman did not in the
"Odyssey" retain the swinging metre which he used in the "Iliad. " The
poem relates the adventures of Odysseus (latinised into Ulysses) on his
homeward voyages, after the fall of Troy.




HORACE[H]




Poems




_Satires_


HUMAN DISCONTENT

Whence is it, sir, that none contented lives
With the fair lot which prudent reason gives,
Or chance presents, yet all with envy view
The schemes that others variously pursue?
Broken with toils, with ponderous arms oppressed,
The soldier thinks the merchant solely blest.
In opposite extreme, when tempests rise,
"War is a better choice," the merchant cries.
When early clients thunder at his gate,
Te barrister applauds the rustic's fate;
While, by _sub-poenas_ dragged from home, the clown
Thinks the supremely happy dwell in town!
Not to be tedious, mark the moral aim
Of these examples. Should some god proclaim,
"Your prayers are heard: you, soldier, to your seas;
You, lawyer, take that envied rustic's ease,--
Each to his several part--What! Ha! not move
Even to the bliss you wished! " And shall not Jove,
With cheeks inflamed and angry brow, forswear
A weak indulgence to their future prayer?


AVARICE

Some, self-deceived, who think their lust of gold
Is but a love of fame, this maxim hold,
"No fortune is enough, since others rate
Our worth proportioned to a large estate. "
Say, for their cure what arts would you employ?
Let them be wretched, and their choice enjoy.
Would you the real use of riches know?