cast on the isle Ogygia, where the goddess Calypso had kindly received and long detained him. But all her blandishments had failed to efface from his remembrance his beloved home; and Calypso, wearied at length with his incessant grief and solicitude to depart, reluctantly consented to dismiss him, providing him with accommodation in her power. After his departure from Ogygia, Ulysses was again shipwrecked on the coast of Phæacia; and he relates, with feelings of delight, the gracious manner in which the princess their daughter had relieved his distress, and expresses his admiration of her beauty, and truly generous and dignified deportment.

every

Although the king appeared well pleased with the praises bestowed on his daughter, he blames her remissness in not herself conducting Ulysses to the

court.

Ulysses replies, Blame not, O hero, thy faultless hild. She bade me follow in the train of her attendants; but the fear of exciting thy displeasure detained my steps.

The king nobly rejoined, that, although he demanded a just regard to propriety, base suspicion found no place in his breast; but whatever was right he approved. Alcinous then expresses his fervent wish, that one whose appearance was so noble, and with sentiments so congenial to his own, would consent to espouse his daughter, and dwell forever among the princes and nobles of the land, endowed with wealth and honors. But if Ulysses be reluctant, no force shall detain him. Jove bids to set the stranger on his way. In proof of his sincerity, the king assures the

chief that at the morrow's dawn a ship will be in readiness to waft him to the shore where his soul rests.

Ulysses (says Dacier) gives not a direct answer to the proposal of Alcinous to bestow on him his daughter, as it would have seemed harsh to refuse her; but addressing the Eternal Father, he fervently prays that what the king has so nobly promised may be performed, and that he may be honored in every land,

Let fame be his, and O! my country mine!

It is probable that the king, who manifested great paternal tenderness and solicitude for his daughter, was acquainted with her sentiments in reference to Ulysses when he proffered the alliance.

The hour of rest had now arrived, when Arete bade her attendants spread the rich carpets, and prepare the fleecy couch and purple quilts, where undisturbed their guest might find repose. The busy train, after carefully performing the commands of their queen, with blazing torches in their hands attended Ulysses to his lofty and airy apartment; while far within the interior of the palace, the king and his royal consort sought repose.

The following morning the king, accompanied by the illustrious chief, repaired to the hall of council, when a herald was immediately despatched to inform the nobles and chiefs that a shipwrecked stranger, of lofty and graceful form, had arrived from unknown shores and implored their aid. The mandate of the sovereign was instantly obeyed, and the hall and court were filled with thronging multitudes, many of whom came only to gaze on the wondrous stranger and listen to his disastrous story.

The king, rising from his polished throne, informed the chiefs and senators of the stranger's unhappy fate, reminding them that, in compliance with ancient customs and the behests of Almighty Jove, no son of affliction should in vain implore their assistance. He then propossed that fifty and two youths, well skilled in naval affairs, should be selected and commanded to launch into the sacred deep' a vessel of prime speed, and be in readiness to convey the stranger to his longdesired home.

The orders of the king were instantly obeyed, and the whole assembly were invited to repair to the palace and partake of a banquet in honor of the noble stranger, and a herald was commanded to lead thither with care the tuneful bard that he might grace their festivity. The king, followed by the nobility, passed in state to the royal abode, and the sailors, having launched the galley, unfurled the shining sails, and arranged the oars, left her moored in deep water and resorted to the palThere soon the hall, the court, and the porticoes, were filled with multitudes of old and young.

ace.

While preparations were making for the feast, the herald arrived with the bard divine, whom the gods had blessed with powers of song and skilled to raise the lofty lay, but quenched his visual orbs in darkness, Pontonous guides the master of the song to a splendid throne near a lofty column, on which he hung his lyre, and placed before him on a polished table the choicest food and a goblet of rich wine.*

*It was the opinion of Maximus Tyrius, that Homer in this short history of the Phæacian bard gives us in reality his own.

Couper's Homer's Odyssey, p. 200,

When all had feasted, the bard, aroused by the muse, attuned his lyre and sang in lofty and harmonious strains the stern debate which arose between Achilles and the son of Laertes, when at a feast at Ilium, in honor of the gods, they doomed the fall of Troy. It was a song in that day extolled to the highest heaven. Ulysses was greatly moved, but, wishing to conceal his emotion, drew before his eyes the ample folds of his purple vest; but when the bard ceased his heroic lay, he brushed away his tears and drawing aside his mantle poured a pure libation to the gods.

The chiefs, delighted with the song, with loud applause again demand the strain; and Ulysses, overcome with contending emotions, again veiled his face. The king, who sat near, alone observed the secret sorrow of the stranger, and commanded the bard to be silent, and says,—

O, cease to sing!

Dumb be thy voice and mute the harmonious string!
Enough the feast has pleased, enough the power

Of heavenly song has crown'd the genial hour!
Incessant in the games your strength display,
Contest, ye brave, the honors of the day,
That pleased, the admiring stranger may proclaim
In distant regions the Phæacian fame:
None wield the gauntlet with so dire a sway,

Or swifter in the race devour the way;
None in the leap spring with so strong a bound,
Or firmer in the wrestling press the ground.
Thus spoke the king; the attending peers obey:
In state they move, Alcinous leads the way.

His golden lyre Demodocus unstrung,
High on a column in the palace hung:

And guided by a herald's guardian cares,

Majestic to the lists of fame repair.

The princes were followed to the forum by a countless throng, and while the peerage were contending in the games, the prince Laodamas courteously advanced and invited the noble stranger to try the illustrious labors of the field, and thus steal one transient day from corroding cares. Ulysses however declined the invitation, alleging that such pastimes ill suited him, who, oppressed with sorrow and exhausted with fatigue, was desirous only of again revisiting his native shores. Euryalus, a beautiful youth who had been victor in the games, reproved Laodamas for supposing Ulysses competent to contend in the sports of the great and the brave, and sneeringly insinuated that the stranger was some wandering merchant or mean seafarer in pursuit of gain.

Ulysses, greatly incensed, remarked on the flippancy and insensibility of those who were regardless of the wrongs they inflicted, and on the diversity of qualities which the gods had bestowed on man, and closed with observing that although they had given to Euryalus a beautiful exterior, yet was he deficient in that discernment and urbanity which marked a noble mind. But thus incited by slanderous accusations, he no longer declined to enter the lists and prove his claim to share in the heroic games of princes and chiefs, however oppressed with suffering and sorrow. Then instantly advancing, Ulysses seized a quoit, far transcending in

* Odyssey, Book viii. p. 190.