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Swift at the scourge the ethereal coursers fly, While the smooth chariot cuts the liquid sky. Heaven’s gates spontaneous open to the powers,[155] Heaven’s golden gates, kept by the winged Hours;[156] Commission’d in alternate watch they stand, The sun’s bright portals and the skies command, Involve in clouds the eternal gates of day, Or the dark barrier roll with ease away. The sounding hinges ring, on either side The gloomy volumes, pierced with light, divide. The chariot mounts, where deep in ambient skies, Confused, Olympus’ hundred heads arise; Where far apart the Thunderer fills his throne, O’er all the gods superior and alone. There with her snowy hand the queen restrains The fiery steeds, and thus to Jove complains:

It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was: these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse—our first point of departure—must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking.

“If, therefore, you want my father to give you an escort and to help you home, do as I bid you; you will see a beautiful grove of poplars by the road side dedicated to Minerva; it has a well in it and a meadow all round it. Here my father has a field of rich garden ground, about as far from the town as a man’s voice will carry. Sit down there and wait for a while till the rest of us can get into the town and reach my father’s house. Then, when you think we must have done this, come into the town and ask the way to the house of my father Alcinous. You will have no difficulty in finding it; any child will point it out to you, for no one else in the whole town has anything like such a fine house as he has. When you have got past the gates and through the outer court, go right across the inner court till you come to my mother. You will find her sitting by the fire and spinning her purple wool by firelight. It is a fine sight to see her as she leans back against one of the bearing-posts with her maids all ranged behind her. Close to her seat stands that of my father, on which he sits and topes like an immortal god. Never mind him, but go up to my mother, and lay your hands upon her knees if you would get home quickly. If you can gain her over, you may hope to see your own country again, no matter how distant it may be.”

At Ajax, Antiphus his javelin threw; The pointed lance with erring fury flew, And Leucus, loved by wise Ulysses, slew. He drops the corpse of Simoisius slain, And sinks a breathless carcase on the plain. This saw Ulysses, and with grief enraged, Strode where the foremost of the foes engaged; Arm’d with his spear, he meditates the wound, In act to throw; but cautious look’d around, Struck at his sight the Trojans backward drew, And trembling heard the javelin as it flew. A chief stood nigh, who from Abydos came, Old Priam’s son, Democoon was his name. The weapon entered close above his ear, Cold through his temples glides the whizzing spear;[141] With piercing shrieks the youth resigns his breath, His eye-balls darken with the shades of death; Ponderous he falls; his clanging arms resound, And his broad buckler rings against the ground.

At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. “How annoying!” she cried. “I must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take him to some absurd meeting at Willis’s Rooms, where he is going to be in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn’t have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I don’t know what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some night. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday?”

Next artful Phereclus untimely fell; Bold Merion sent him to the realms of hell. Thy father’s skill, O Phereclus! was thine, The graceful fabric and the fair design; For loved by Pallas, Pallas did impart To him the shipwright’s and the builder’s art. Beneath his hand the fleet of Paris rose, The fatal cause of all his country’s woes; But he, the mystic will of heaven unknown, Nor saw his country’s peril, nor his own. The hapless artist, while confused he fled, The spear of Merion mingled with the dead. Through his right hip, with forceful fury cast, Between the bladder and the bone it pass’d; Prone on his knees he falls with fruitless cries, And death in lasting slumber seals his eyes.