With power congenial join’d, propitious aid
The chief adopted by the martial maid! 
Such to our wish the warrior soon restore,
As when contending on the Lesbian shore
His prowess Philomelidies confess’d,
And loud-acclaiming Greeks the victor bless’d;
Then soon the invaders of his bed and throne
Their love presumptuous shall with life atone. 
With patient ear, O royal youth, attend
The storied labour of thy father’s friend: 
Fruitful of deeds, the copious tale is long,
But truth severe shall dictate to my tongue: 
Learn what I heard the sea-born seer relate,
Whose eye can pierce the dark recess of fate.

“Long on the Egyptian coast by calms confined,
Heaven to my fleet refused a prosperous wind;
No vows had we preferr’d, nor victims slain! 
For this the gods each favouring gale restrain
Jealous, to see their high behests obey’d;
Severe, if men the eternal rights evade. 
High o’er a gulfy sea, the Pharian isle
Fronts the deep roar of disemboguing Nile: 
Her distance from the shore, the course begun
At dawn, and ending with the setting sun,
A galley measures; when the stiffer gales
Rise on the poop, and fully stretch the sails. 
There, anchor’d vessels safe in harbour lie,
Whilst limpid springs the failing cask supply.

“And now the twentieth sun, descending, laves
His glowing axle in the western waves: 
Still with expanded sails we court in vain
Propitious winds to waft us o’er the main;
And the pale mariner at once deplores
His drooping vigour and exhausted stores. 
When lo! a bright cerulean form appears,
Proteus her sire divine.  With pity press’d,
Me sole the daughter of the deep address’d;
What time, with hunger pined, my absent mates
Roam the wide isle in search of rural cates,
Bait the barb’d steel, and from the fishy flood
Appease the afflictive fierce desire of food.”

“’Whoe’er thou art (the azure goddess cries)
Thy conduct ill-deserves the praise of wise: 
Is death thy choice, or misery thy boast,
That here inglorious, on a barren coast,
Thy brave associates droop, a meagre train,
With famine pale, and ask thy care in vain?’
“Struck with the loud reproach, I straight reply: 
’Whate’er thy title in thy native sky,
A goddess sure! for more than moral grace
Speaks thee descendant of ethereal race;
Deem not that here of choice my fleet remains;
Some heavenly power averse my stay constrains: 
O, piteous of my fate, vouchsafe to show
(For what’s sequester’d from celestial view?)
What power becalms the innavigable seas? 
What guilt provokes him, and what vows appease?’