“What will the suitors? must my servant-train
The allotted labours of the day refrain,
For them to form some exquisite repast? 
Heaven grant this festival may prove their last! 
Or, if they still must live, from me remove
The double plague of luxury and love! 
Forbear, ye sons of insolence! forbear,
In riot to consume a wretched heir. 
In the young soul illustrious thought to raise,
Were ye not tutor’d with Ulysses’ praise? 
Have not your fathers oft my lord defined,
Gentle of speech, beneficent of mind? 
Some kings with arbitrary rage devour,
Or in their tyrant-minions vest the power;
Ulysses let no partial favours fall,
The people’s parent, he protected all;
But absent now, perfidious and ingrate! 
His stores ye ravage, and usurp his state.”

He thus:  “O were the woes you speak the worst! 
They form a deed more odious and accursed;
More dreadful than your boding soul divines;
But pitying Jove avert the dire designs! 
The darling object of your royal care
Is marked to perish in a deathful snare;
Before he anchors in his native port,
From Pyle re-sailing and the Spartan court;
Horrid to speak! in ambush is decreed
The hope and heir of Ithaca to bleed!”

Sudden she sunk beneath the weighty woes,
The vital streams a chilling horror froze;
The big round tear stands trembling in her eye,
And on her tongue imperfect accents die. 
At length in tender language interwove
With sighs, she thus expressed her anxious love;
“Why rarely would my son his fate explore,
Ride the wild waves, and quit the safer shore? 
Did he with all the greatly wretched, crave
A blank oblivion, and untimely grave?”

“Tis not (replied the sage) to Medon given
To know, if some inhabitant of heaven
In his young breast the daring thought inspired
Or if, alone with filial duty fired,
The winds end waves he tempts in early bloom,
Studious to learn his absent father’s doom.”

The sage retired:  unable to control
The mighty griefs that swell her labouring soul
Rolling convulsive on the floor is seen
The piteous object of a prostrate queen. 
Words to her dumb complaint a pause supplies,
And breath, to waste in unavailing cries. 
Around their sovereign wept the menial fair,
To whom she thus address’d her deep despair: 

“Behold a wretch whom all the gods consign
To woe!  Did ever sorrows equal mine? 
Long to my joys my dearest lord is lost,
His country’s buckler, and the Grecian boast;
Now from my fond embrace, by tempests torn,
Our other column of the state is borne;
Nor took a kind adieu, nor sought consent!—­
Unkind confederates in his dire intent! 
Ill suits it with your shows of duteous zeal,
From me the purposed voyage to conceal;
Though at the solemn midnight hour he rose,
Why did you fear to trouble my repose?