Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. 
Yet, stay, my friends, and in your chariot take
The noblest presents that our love can make;
Meantime commit we to our women’s care
Some choice domestic viands to prepare;
The traveller, rising from the banquet gay,
Eludes the labours of the tedious way,
Then if a wider course shall rather please,
Through spacious Argos and the realms of Greece,
Atrides in his chariot shall attend;
Himself thy convoy to each royal friend. 
No prince will let Ulysses’ heir remove
Without some pledge, some monument of love: 
These will the caldron, these the tripod give;
From those the well-pair’d mules we shall receive,
Or bowl emboss’d whose golden figures live.”

To whom the youth, for prudence famed, replied: 
“O monarch, care of heaven! thy people’s pride! 
No friend in Ithaca my place supplies,
No powerful hands are there, no watchful eyes: 
My stores exposed and fenceless house demand
The speediest succour from my guardian hand;
Lest, in a search too anxious and too vain,
Of one lost joy, I lose what yet remain.”

His purpose when the generous warrior heard,
He charged the household cates to be prepared. 
Now with the dawn, from his adjoining home,
Was Boethoedes Eteoneus come;
Swift at the word he forms the rising blaze,
And o’er the coals the smoking fragments lays. 
Meantime the king, his son, and Helen went
Where the rich wardrobe breathed a costly scent;
The king selected from the glittering rows
A bowl; the prince a silver beaker chose. 
The beauteous queen revolved with careful eyes
Her various textures of unnumber’d dyes,
And chose the largest; with no vulgar art
Her own fair hands embroider’d every part;
Beneath the rest it lay divinely bright,
Like radiant Hesper o’er the gems of night,
Then with each gift they hasten’d to their guest,
And thus the king Ulysses’ heir address’d: 
“Since fix’d are thy resolves, may thundering Jove
With happiest omens thy desires approve! 
This silver bowl, whose costly margins shine
Enchased with old, this valued gift be thine;
To me this present, of Vulcanian frame,
From Sidon’s hospitable monarch came;
To thee we now consign the precious load,
The pride of kings, and labour of a god.”

Then gave the cup, while Megapenthe brought
The silver vase with living sculpture wrought. 
The beauteous queen, advancing next, display’d
The shining veil, and thus endearing said: 

“Accept, dear youth, this monument of love,
Long since, in better days, by Helen wove: 
Safe in thy mother’s care the vesture lay,
To deck thy bride and grace thy nuptial day. 
Meantime may’st thou with happiest speed regain
Thy stately palace, and thy wide domain.”