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To whom the leader of the Dardan race: “Be calm, nor Phœbus’ honour’d gift disgrace. The distant dart be praised, though here we need The rushing chariot and the bounding steed. Against yon hero let us bend our course, And, hand to hand, encounter force with force. Now mount my seat, and from the chariot’s height Observe my father’s steeds, renown’d in fight; Practised alike to turn, to stop, to chase, To dare the shock, or urge the rapid race; Secure with these, through fighting fields we go; Or safe to Troy, if Jove assist the foe. Haste, seize the whip, and snatch the guiding rein; The warrior’s fury let this arm sustain; Or, if to combat thy bold heart incline, Take thou the spear, the chariot’s care be mine.”

While round the prince the Greeks employ their care, The Trojans rush tumultuous to the war; Once more they glitter in refulgent arms, Once more the fields are fill’d with dire alarms. Nor had you seen the king of men appear Confused, unactive, or surprised with fear; But fond of glory, with severe delight, His beating bosom claim’d the rising fight. No longer with his warlike steeds he stay’d, Or press’d the car with polish’d brass inlaid But left Eurymedon the reins to guide; The fiery coursers snorted at his side. On foot through all the martial ranks he moves And these encourages, and those reproves. “Brave men!” he cries, (to such who boldly dare Urge their swift steeds to face the coming war), “Your ancient valour on the foes approve; Jove is with Greece, and let us trust in Jove. ’Tis not for us, but guilty Troy, to dread, Whose crimes sit heavy on her perjured head; Her sons and matrons Greece shall lead in chains, And her dead warriors strew the mournful plains.”

Then to the next the general bends his course; (His heart exults, and glories in his force); There reverend Nestor ranks his Pylian bands, And with inspiring eloquence commands; With strictest order sets his train in arms, The chiefs advises, and the soldiers warms. Alastor, Chromius, Haemon, round him wait, Bias the good, and Pelagon the great. The horse and chariots to the front assign’d, The foot (the strength of war) he ranged behind; The middle space suspected troops supply, Inclosed by both, nor left the power to fly; He gives command to “curb the fiery steed, Nor cause confusion, nor the ranks exceed: Before the rest let none too rashly ride; No strength nor skill, but just in time, be tried: The charge once made, no warrior turn the rein, But fight, or fall; a firm embodied train. He whom the fortune of the field shall cast From forth his chariot, mount the next in haste; Nor seek unpractised to direct the car, Content with javelins to provoke the war. Our great forefathers held this prudent course, Thus ruled their ardour, thus preserved their force; By laws like these immortal conquests made, And earth’s proud tyrants low in ashes laid.”

Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he whistled at last—“the squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, for the three hundredth lay.”

When he had said this, he seated himself beside Alcinous. Supper was then served, and the wine was mixed for drinking. A servant led in the favourite bard Demodocus, and set him in the midst of the company, near one of the bearing-posts supporting the cloister, that he might lean against it. Then Ulysses cut off a piece of roast pork with plenty of fat (for there was abundance left on the joint) and said to a servant, “Take this piece of pork over to Demodocus and tell him to eat it; for all the pain his lays may cause me I will salute him none the less; bards are honoured and respected throughout the world, for the muse teaches them their songs and loves them.”

And Ulysses answered, “It would be a long story Madam, were I to relate in full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven has been laid heavy upon me; but as regards your question, there is an island far away in the sea which is called ‘the Ogygian.’ Here dwells the cunning and powerful goddess Calypso, daughter of Atlas. She lives by herself far from all neighbours human or divine. Fortune, however, brought me to her hearth all desolate and alone, for Jove struck my ship with his thunderbolts, and broke it up in mid-ocean. My brave comrades were drowned every man of them, but I stuck to the keel and was carried hither and thither for the space of nine days, till at last during the darkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to the Ogygian island where the great goddess Calypso lives. She took me in and treated me with the utmost kindness; indeed she wanted to make me immortal that I might never grow old, but she could not persuade me to let her do so.

Stern Diomed with either Ajax stood, And great Ulysses, bathed in hostile blood. Embodied close, the labouring Grecian train The fiercest shock of charging hosts sustain. Unmoved and silent, the whole war they wait Serenely dreadful, and as fix’d as fate. So when the embattled clouds in dark array, Along the skies their gloomy lines display; When now the North his boisterous rage has spent, And peaceful sleeps the liquid element: The low-hung vapours, motionless and still, Rest on the summits of the shaded hill; Till the mass scatters as the winds arise, Dispersed and broken through the ruffled skies.