“In Aegypt thus with peace and plenty bless’d,
I lived (and happy still have lived) a guest. 
On seven bright years successive blessings wait;
The next changed all the colour of my fate. 
A false Phoenician, of insiduous mind,
Versed in vile arts, and foe to humankind,
With semblance fair invites me to his home;
I seized the proffer (ever fond to roam): 
Domestic in his faithless roof I stay’d,
Till the swift sun his annual circle made. 
To Libya then he mediates the way;
With guileful art a stranger to betray,
And sell to bondage in a foreign land: 
Much doubting, yet compell’d I quit the strand,
Through the mid seas the nimble pinnace sails,
Aloof from Crete, before the northern gales: 
But when remote her chalky cliffs we lost,
And far from ken of any other coast,
When all was wild expanse of sea and air,
Then doom’d high Jove due vengeance to prepare. 
He hung a night of horrors o’er their head
(The shaded ocean blacken’d as it spread): 
He launch’d the fiery bolt:  from pole to pole
Broad burst the lightnings, deep the thunders roll;
In giddy rounds the whirling ship is toss’d,
An all in clouds of smothering sulphur lost. 
As from a hanging rock’s tremendous height,
The sable crows with intercepted flight
Drop endlong; scarr’d, and black with sulphurous hue,
So from the deck are hurl’d the ghastly crew. 
Such end the wicked found! but Jove’s intent
Was yet to save the oppress’d and innocent. 
Placed on the mast (the last resource of life)
With winds and waves I held unequal strife: 
For nine long days the billows tilting o’er,
The tenth soft wafts me to Thesprotia’s shore. 
The monarch’s son a shipwreck’d wretch relieved,
The sire with hospitable rites received,
And in his palace like a brother placed,
With gifts of price and gorgeous garments graced
While here I sojourn’d, oft I heard the fame
How late Ulysses to the country came. 
How loved, how honour’d in this court he stay’d,
And here his whole collected treasure laid;
I saw myself the vast unnumber’d store
Of steel elaborate, and refulgent ore,
And brass high heap’d amidst the regal dome;
Immense supplies for ages yet to come! 
Meantime he voyaged to explore the will
Of Jove, on high Dodona’s holy hill,
What means might best his safe return avail,
To come in pomp, or bear a secret sail? 
Full oft has Phidon, whilst he pour’d the wine,
Attesting solemn all the powers divine,
That soon Ulysses would return, declared
The sailors waiting, and the ships prepared. 
But first the king dismiss’d me from his shores,
For fair Dulichium crown’d with fruitful stores;
To good Acastus’ friendly care consign’d: 
But other counsels pleased the sailors’ mind: 
New frauds were plotted by the faithless train,
And misery demands me once again. 
Soon as remote from shore they plough the wave,