No More Learning

"

With conscious shame they hear the stern rebuke,
Nor longer durst sustain the sovereign look.

Then to the servile task the monarch turns
His royal hands: each torch refulgent burns
With added day: meanwhile in museful mood,
Absorb'd in thought, on vengeance fix'd he stood.
And now the martial maid, by deeper wrongs
To rouse Ulysses, points the suitors' tongues:
Scornful of age, to taunt the virtuous man,
Thoughtless and gay, Eurymachus began:

"Hear me (he cries), confederates and friends!
Some god, no doubt, this stranger kindly sends;
The shining baldness of his head survey,
It aids our torchlight, and reflects the ray. "

Then to the king that levell'd haughty Troy:
"Say, if large hire can tempt thee to employ
Those hands in work; to tend the rural trade,
To dress the walk, and form the embowering shade.
So food and raiment constant will I give:
But idly thus thy soul prefers to live,
And starve by strolling, not by work to thrive. "

To whom incensed: "Should we, O prince, engage
In rival tasks beneath the burning rage
Of summer suns; were both constrain'd to wield
Foodless the scythe along the burden'd field;
Or should we labour while the ploughshare wounds,
With steers of equal strength, the allotted grounds,
Beneath my labours, how thy wondering eyes
Might see the sable field at once arise!
Should Jove dire war unloose, with spear and shield,
And nodding helm, I tread the ensanguined field,
Fierce in the van: then wouldst thou, wouldst thou,--say,--
Misname me glutton, in that glorious day?
No, thy ill-judging thoughts the brave disgrace
'Tis thou injurious art, not I am base.
Proud to seem brave among a coward train!
But now, thou art not valorous, but vain.
God! should the stern Ulysses rise in might,
These gates would seem too narrow for thy flight. "

While yet he speaks, Eurymachus replies,
With indignation flashing from his eyes:

"Slave, I with justice might deserve the wrong,
Should I not punish that opprobrious tongue.
Irreverent to the great, and uncontroll'd,
Art thou from wine, or innate folly, bold?
Perhaps these outrages from Irus flow,
A worthless triumph o'er a worthless foe! "

He said, and with full force a footstool threw;
Whirl'd from his arm, with erring rage it flew:
Ulysses, cautious of the vengeful foe,
Stoops to the ground, and disappoints the blow.
Not so a youth, who deals the goblet round,
Full on his shoulder it inflicts a wound;
Dash'd from his hand the sounding goblet flies,
He shrieks, he reels, he falls, and breathless lies.
Then wild uproar and clamour mount the sky,
Till mutual thus the peers indignant cry:
"Oh had this stranger sunk to realms beneath,
To the black realms of darkness and of death,
Ere yet he trod these shores! to strife he draws
Peer against peer; and what the weighty cause?
A vagabond! for him the great destroy,
In vile ignoble jars, the feast of joy. "

To whom the stern Telemachus uprose;
"Gods! what wild folly from the goblet flows!
Whence this unguarded openness of soul,
But from the license of the copious bowl?
Or Heaven delusion sends: but hence away!
Force I forbear, and without force obey. "

Silent, abash'd, they hear the stern rebuke,
Till thus Amphinomus the silence broke:

"True are his words, and he whom truth offends,
Not with Telemachus, but truth contends;
Let not the hand of violence invade
The reverend stranger, or the spotless maid;
Retire we hence, but crown with rosy wine
The flowing goblet to the powers divine!
Guard he his guest beneath whose roof he stands:
This justice, this the social rite demands. "

The peers assent: the goblet Mulius crown'd
With purple juice, and bore in order round:
Each peer successive his libation pours
To the blest gods who fill'd the ethereal bowers:
Then swill'd with wine, with noise the crowds obey,
And rushing forth, tumultuous reel away.



BOOK XIX.