Then sheep, and goats, and bristly porkers bled,
And the proud steer was o’er the marble spread. 
While thus the copious banquet they provide,
Along the road, conversing side by side,
Proceed Ulysses and the faithful swain;
When thus Eumaeus, generous and humane: 
“To town, observant of our lord’s behest,
Now let us speed; my friend no more my guest! 
Yet like myself I wish thee here preferr’d,
Guard of the flock, or keeper of the herd,
But much to raise my master’s wrath I fear;
The wrath of princes ever is severe. 
Then heed his will, and be our journey made
While the broad beams of Phoebus are display’d,
Or ere brown evening spreads her chilly shade.” 
“Just thy advice (the prudent chief rejoin’d),
And such as suits the dictate of my mind. 
Lead on:  but help me to some staff to stay
My feeble step, since rugged is the way.” 
Across his shoulders then the scrip he flung,
Wide-patch’d, and fasten’d by a twisted thong. 
A staff Eumaeus gave.  Along the way
Cheerly they fare:  behind, the keepers stay: 
These with their watchful dogs (a constant guard)
Supply his absence, and attend the herd. 
And now his city strikes the monarch’s eyes,
Alas! how changed! a man of miseries;
Propp’d on a staff, a beggar old and bare
In rags dishonest fluttering with the air! 
Now pass’d the rugged road, they journey down
The cavern’d way descending to the town,
Where, from the rock, with liquid drops distils
A limpid fount; that spread in parting rills
Its current thence to serve the city brings;
An useful work, adorn’d by ancient kings. 
Neritus, Ithacus, Polyctor, there,
In sculptured stone immortalized their care,
In marble urns received it from above,
And shaded with a green surrounding grove;
Where silver alders, in high arches twined,
Drink the cool stream, and tremble to the wind. 
Beneath, sequester’d to the nymphs, is seen
A mossy altar, deep embower’d in green;
Where constant vows by travellers are paid,
And holy horrors solemnize the shade.

Here with his goats (not vow’d to sacred fame,
But pamper’d luxury) Melanthias came: 
Two grooms attend him.  With an envious look
He eyed the stranger, and imperious spoke: 

“The good old proverb how this pair fulfil! 
One rogue is usher to another still. 
Heaven with a secret principle endued
Mankind, to seek their own similitude. 
Where goes the swineherd with that ill-look’d guest? 
That giant-glutton, dreadful at a feast! 
Full many a post have those broad shoulders worn,
From every great man’s gate repulsed with scorn: 
To no brave prize aspired the worthless swain,
’Twas but for scraps he ask’d, and ask’d in vain. 
To beg, than work, he better understands,
Or we perhaps might take him off thy hands. 
For any office could the slave be good,
To cleanse the fold, or help the kids to food. 
If any labour those big joints could learn,
Some whey, to wash his bowels, he might earn. 
To cringe, to whine, his idle hands to spread,
Is all, by which that graceless maw is fed. 
Yet hear me! if thy impudence but dare
Approach yon wall, I prophesy thy fare: 
Dearly, full dearly, shalt thou buy thy bread
With many a footstool thundering at thy head.”