No More Learning

The table next in regal order spread,
The glittering canisters are heap'd with bread:
Viands of various kinds invite the taste,
Of choicest sort and savour, rich repast!
Thus feasting high, Alcinous gave the sign,
And bade the herald pour the rosy wine;
"Let all around the due libation pay
To Jove, who guides the wanderer on his way. "

He said. Pontonous heard the king's command;
The circling goblet moves from hand to hand;
Each drinks the juice that glads the heart of man.
Alcinous then, with aspect mild, began:

"Princes and peers, attend; while we impart
To you the thoughts of no inhuman heart.
Now pleased and satiate from the social rite
Repair we to the blessings of the night;
But with the rising day, assembled here,
Let all the elders of the land appear,
Pious observe our hospitable laws,
And Heaven propitiate in the stranger's cause;
Then join'd in council, proper means explore
Safe to transport him to the wished-for shore
(How distant that, imports us not to know,
Nor weigh the labour, but relieve the woe).
Meantime, nor harm nor anguish let him bear
This interval, Heaven trusts him to our care
But to his native land our charge resign'd,
Heaven's is his life to come, and all the woes behind.
Then must he suffer what the Fates ordain;
For Fate has wove the thread of life with pain?
And twins, e'en from the birth, are Misery and Man!
But if, descended from the Olympian bower,
Gracious approach us some immortal power;
If in that form thou comest a guest divine:
Some high event the conscious gods design.
As yet, unbid they never graced our feast,
The solemn sacrifice call'd down the guest;
Then manifest of Heaven the vision stood,
And to our eyes familiar was the god.
Oft with some favour'd traveller they stray,
And shine before him all the desert way;
With social intercourse, and face to face,
The friends and guardians of our pious race.
So near approach we their celestial kind,
By justice, truth, and probity of mind;
As our dire neighbours of Cyclopean birth
Match in fierce wrong the giant-sons of earth. "

"Let no such thought (with modest grace rejoin'd
The prudent Greek) possess the royal mind.
Alas!
a mortal, like thyself, am I;
No glorious native of yon azure sky:
In form, ah how unlike their heavenly kind!
How more inferior in the gifts of mind!
Alas, a mortal! most oppress'd of those
Whom Fate has loaded with a weight of woes;
By a sad train of Miseries alone
Distinguish'd long, and second now to none!
By Heaven's high will compell'd from shore to shore;
With Heaven's high will prepared to suffer more.
What histories of toil could I declare!
But still long-wearied nature wants repair;
Spent with fatigue, and shrunk with pining fast,
My craving bowels still require repast.
Howe'er the noble, suffering mind may grieve
Its load of anguish, and disdain to live,
Necessity demands our daily bread;
Hunger is insolent, and will be fed.
But finish, oh ye peers! what you propose,
And let the morrow's dawn conclude my woes.
Pleased will I suffer all the gods ordain,
To see my soil, my son, my friends again.
That view vouchsafed, let instant death surprise
With ever-during shade these happy eyes! "

The assembled peers with general praise approved
His pleaded reason, and the suit he moved.
Each drinks a full oblivion of his cares,
And to the gifts of balmy sleep repairs,
Ulysses in the regal walls alone
Remain'd: beside him, on a splendid throne,
Divine Arete and Alcinous shone.
The queen, an nearer view, the guest survey'd,
Rob'd in the garments her own hands had made,
Not without wonder seen. Then thus began,
Her words addressing to the godlike man:

"Camest thou hither, wondrous stranger I say,
From lands remote and o'er a length of sea?