Then he, with pity touch’d:  “O royal dame! 
Your ever-anxious mind, and beauteous frame,
From the devouring rage of grief reclaim. 
I not the fondness of your soul reprove
For such a lord! who crown’d your virgin love
With the dear blessing of a fair increase;
Himself adorn’d with more than mortal grace: 
Yet while I speak the mighty woe suspend;
Truth forms my tale; to pleasing truth attend. 
The royal object of your dearest care
Breathes in no distant clime the vital air: 
In rich Thesprotia, and the nearer bound
Of Thessaly, his name I heard renown’d: 
Without retinue, to that friendly shore
Welcomed with gifts of price, a sumless store! 
His sacrilegious train, who dared to prey
On herds devoted to the god of day,
Were doom’d by Jove, and Phoebus’ just decree,
To perish in the rough Trinacrian sea. 
To better fate the blameless chief ordain’d,
A floating fragment of the wreck regain’d,
And rode the storm; till, by the billows toss’d,
He landed on the fair Phaeacian coast. 
That race who emulate the life of gods,
Receive him joyous to their bless’d abodes;
Large gifts confer, a ready sail command,
To speed his voyage to the Grecian strand. 
But your wise lord (in whose capacious soul
High schemes of power in just succession roll)
His Ithaca refused from favouring Fate,
Till copious wealth might guard his regal state. 
Phedon the fact affirm’d, whose sovereign sway
Thesprotian tribes, a duteous race, obey;
And bade the gods this added truth attest
(While pure libations crown’d the genial feast),
That anchor’d in his port the vessels stand,
To waft the hero to his natal land. 
I for Dulichium urge the watery way,
But first the Ulyssean wealth survey: 
So rich the value of a store so vast
Demands the pomp of centuries to waste! 
The darling object of your royal love
Was journey’d thence to Dodonean Jove;
By the sure precept of the sylvan shrine,
To form the conduct of his great design;
Irresolute of soul, his state to shroud
In dark disguise, or come, a king avow’d! 
Thus lives your lord; nor longer doom’d to roam;
Soon will he grace this dear paternal dome. 
By Jove, the source of good, supreme in power! 
By the bless’d genius of this friendly bower! 
I ratify my speech, before the sun
His annual longitude of heaven shall run;
When the pale empress of yon starry train
In the next month renews her faded wane,
Ulysses will assert his rightful reign.”

“What thanks! what boon! (replied the queen), are due,
When time shall prove the storied blessing true! 
My lord’s return should fate no more retard,
Envy shall sicken at thy vast reward. 
But my prophetic fears, alas! presage
The wounds of Destiny’s relentless rage. 
I long must weep, nor will Ulysses come,
With royal gifts to send you honour’d home!—­