No More Learning

Scarce all my herds their luxury suffice;
Scarce all my wine their midnight hours supplies.
Safe in my youth, in riot still they grow,
Nor in the helpless orphan dread a foe.
But come it will, the time when manhood grants
More powerful advocates than vain complaints.
Approach that hour! insufferable wrong
Cries to the gods, and vengeance sleeps too long.
Rise then, ye peers! with virtuous anger rise;
Your fame revere, but most the avenging skies.
By all the deathless powers that reign above,
By righteous Themis and by thundering Jove
(Themis, who gives to councils, or denies
Success; and humbles, or confirms the wise),
Rise in my aid! suffice the tears that flow
For my lost sire, nor add new woe to woe.
If e'er he bore the sword to strengthen ill,
Or, having power to wrong, betray'd the will,
On me, on me your kindled wrath assuage,
And bid the voice of lawless riot rage.
If ruin to your royal race ye doom,
Be you the spoilers, and our wealth consume.
Then might we hope redress from juster laws,
And raise all Ithaca to aid our cause:
But while your sons commit the unpunish'd wrong,
You make the arm of violence too strong. "

While thus he spoke, with rage and grief he frown'd,
And dash'd the imperial sceptre to the ground.
The big round tear hung trembling in his eye:
The synod grieved, and gave a pitying sigh,
Then silent sate--at length Antinous burns
With haughty rage, and sternly thus returns:

"O insolence of youth! whose tongue affords
Such railing eloquence, and war of words.
Studious thy country's worthies to defame,
Thy erring voice displays thy mother's shame.
Elusive of the bridal day, she gives
Fond hopes to all, and all with hopes deceives.
Did not the sun, through heaven's wide azure roll'd,
For three long years the royal fraud behold?
While she, laborious in delusion, spread
The spacious loom, and mix'd the various thread:
Where as to life the wondrous figures rise,
Thus spoke the inventive queen, with artful sighs:

"Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more,
Cease yet awhile to urge the bridal hour:
Cease, till to great Laertes I bequeath
A task of grief, his ornaments of death.
Lest when the Fates his royal ashes claim,
The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame;
When he, whom living mighty realms obey'd,
Shall want in death a shroud to grace his shade. '

"Thus she: at once the generous train complies,
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise.
The work she plied; but, studious of delay,
By night reversed the labours of the day.
While thrice the sun his annual journey made,
The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey'd;
Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;
The fourth her maid unfolds the amazing tale.
We saw, as unperceived we took our stand,
The backward labours of her faithless hand.
Then urged, she perfects her illustrious toils;
A wondrous monument of female wiles!

"But you, O peers! and thou, O prince! give ear
(I speak aloud, that every Greek may hear):
Dismiss the queen; and if her sire approves
Let him espouse her to the peer she loves:
Bid instant to prepare the bridal train,
Nor let a race of princes wait in vain.
Though with a grace divine her soul is blest,
And all Minerva breathes within her breast,
In wondrous arts than woman more renown'd,
And more than woman with deep wisdom crown'd;
Though Tyro nor Mycene match her name,
Not great Alemena (the proud boasts of fame);
Yet thus by heaven adorn'd, by heaven's decree
She shines with fatal excellence, to thee:
With thee, the bowl we drain, indulge the feast,
Till righteous heaven reclaim her stubborn breast.
What though from pole to pole resounds her name!
The son's destruction waits the mother's fame:
For, till she leaves thy court, it is decreed,
Thy bowl to empty and thy flock to bleed.