The Odyssey · Homer
ARGUMENT. MINERVA’S DESCENT TO ITHACA.
Thus he, though conscious of the ethereal guest, Answer’d evasive of the sly request. Meantime the lyre rejoins the sprightly lay; Love-dittied airs, and dance, conclude the day But when the star of eve with golden light Adorn’d the matron brow of sable night, The mirthful train dispersing quit the court, And to their several domes to rest resort. A towering structure to the palace join’d; To this his steps the thoughtful prince inclined: In his pavilion there, to sleep repairs; The lighted torch, the sage Euryclea bears (Daughter of Ops, the just Pisenor’s son, For twenty beeves by great Laertes won; In rosy prime with charms attractive graced, Honour’d by him, a gentle lord and chaste, With dear esteem: too wise, with jealous strife To taint the joys of sweet connubial life. Sole with Telemachus her service ends, A child she nursed him, and a man attends). Whilst to his couch himself the prince address’d, The duteous dame received the purple vest; The purple vest with decent care disposed, The silver ring she pull’d, the door reclosed, The bolt, obedient to the silken cord, To the strong staple’s inmost depth restored, Secured the valves. There, wrapped in silent shade, Pensive, the rules the goddess gave he weigh’d; Stretch’d on the downy fleece, no rest he knows, And in his raptured soul the vision glows.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.