“Inclement fate! (Telemachus replies,)
Frail is the boasted attribute of wise: 
The leader mingling with the vulgar host,
Is in the common mass of matter lost! 
But now let sleep the painful waste repair
Of sad reflection and corroding care.” 
He ceased; the menial fair that round her wait,
At Helen’s beck prepare the room of state;
Beneath an ample portico they spread
The downy fleece to form the slumberous bed;
And o’er soft palls of purple grain unfold
Rich tapestry, stiff with interwoven gold: 
Then, through the illumined dome, to balmy rest
The obsequious herald guides each princely guest;
While to his regal bower the king ascends,
And beauteous Helen on her lord attends. 
Soon as the morn, in orient purple dress’d,
Unbarr’d the portal of the roseate east,
The monarch rose; magnificent to view,
The imperial mantle o’er his vest he threw;
The glittering zone athwart his shoulders cast,
A starry falchion low-depending graced;
Clasp’d on his feet the embroidered sandals shine;
And forth he moves, majestic and divine,
Instant to young Telemachus he press’d;
And thus benevolent his speech addressed: 

“Say, royal youth, sincere of soul report
Whit cause hath led you to the Spartan court? 
Do public or domestic care constrain
This toilsome voyage o’er the surgy main?”

“O highly-flavour’d delegate of Jove! 
(Replies the prince) inflamed with filial love,
And anxious hope, to hear my parent’s doom,
A suppliant to your royal court I come: 
Our sovereign seat a lewd usurping race
With lawless riot and misrule disgrace;
To pamper’d insolence devoted fall
Prime of the flock, and choicest of the stall: 
For wild ambition wings their bold desire,
And all to mount the imperial bed aspire. 
But prostrate I implore, O king! relate
The mournful series of my father’s fate: 
Each known disaster of the man disclose,
Born by his mother to a world of woes! 
Recite them; nor in erring pity fear
To wound with storied grief the filial ear. 
If e’er Ulysses, to reclaim your right,
Avow’d his zeal in council or in fight,
If Phrygian camps the friendly toils attest,
To the sire’s merit give the son’s request.”

Deep from his inmost soul Atrides sigh’d,
And thus, indignant, to the prince replied: 
“Heavens! would a soft, inglorious, dastard train
An absent hero’s nuptial joys profane! 
So with her young, amid the woodland shades,
A timorous hind the lion’s court invades,
Leaves in the fatal lair the tender fawns,
Climbs the green cliff, or feeds the flowery lawns: 
Meantime return’d, with dire remorseless sway,
The monarch-savage rends the trembling prey. 
With equal fury, and with equal fame,
Ulysses soon shall reassert his claim. 
O Jove supreme, whom gods and men revere! 
And thou! to whom ’tis given to gild the sphere!