TELL ME,
           O MUSE,
         of that ingenious hero
             who travelled far
                   and wide after
                 he had sacked
                       the famous town of Troy.

    Many cities did he visit,
           and many
            were the nations with
             whose manners and customs
               he was acquainted;
        moreover he suffered
               much by sea
             while trying
                  to save his own life
                and bring
                       his men safely home;
        but do
             what he might
                 he could not
                      save his men,
           for they
            perished through their own
                   sheer folly
                       in eating the cattle
                           of the Sun-god Hyperion;
        so the god
              prevented them from ever
                  reaching home.

    Tell me,
           too,
         about all these things,
           O daughter of Jove,
         from whatsoever source you
            may know them.

    So now all
         who escaped death in battle
              or by shipwreck had
             got safely home
         except Ulysses,
           and he,
         though he
            was longing
                  to return
                       to his wife and country,
           was detained
               by the goddess Calypso,
         who had
            got him
                   into a large cave
                       and wanted
                  to marry him.

    But as years went by,
           there came a time
             when the gods settled
                 that he
                    should go back to Ithaca;
        even then,
           however,
         when he
            was among his own people,
           his troubles
            were not yet over;
        nevertheless all the gods
            had now begun
                  to pity him
             except Neptune,
           who still persecuted him
             without ceasing
                and would not let him
                      get home.

    Now Neptune
        had gone
               off to the Ethiopians,
           who are
               at the world's end,
         and lie in two halves,
           the one
              looking West
                   and the other East.

    He had gone there
          to accept a hecatomb
               of sheep
             and oxen,
           and was enjoying himself
               at his festival;
        but the other gods
              met in the house
                   of Olympian Jove,
           and the sire of gods
               and men spoke first.

    At that moment
         he was thinking of Aegisthus,
           who had been killed
               by Agamemnon's son Orestes;
        so he said
               to the other gods:

    "See now,
           how men lay
               blame upon us gods for
             what is after all nothing
               but their own folly.

    Look at Aegisthus;
        he must needs
               make love
                   to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously
                       and then
              kill Agamemnon,
           though he knew it
            would be the death
                   of him;
        for I sent Mercury
              to warn him not
            to do
                   either of these things,
           inasmuch as Orestes
            would be sure
                  to take his revenge
             when he
                grew up and
                      wanted to return home.

    Mercury told him this
           in all good will
         but he would not listen,
           and now
             he has
                  paid for everything in full."

    Then Minerva said,
         "Father,
               son of Saturn,
             King of kings,
               it served Aegisthus right,
             and so it
                would any one else
                 who does as he did;
            but Aegisthus
                is neither here nor there;
            it is for Ulysses
                 that my heart bleeds,
               when I
                  think of his sufferings in
                 that lonely sea-girt island,
             far away,
               poor man,
             from all his friends.

    It is an island
          covered with forest,
           in the very middle
               of the sea,
         and a goddess lives there,
           daughter of the magician Atlas,
         who looks
              after the bottom
                   of the ocean,
           and carries the great columns
             that keep heaven
                   and earth asunder.

    This daughter of Atlas has
         got hold
               of poor unhappy Ulysses,
           and keeps
             trying by
                   every kind of blandishment
                  to make him
              forget his home,
         so that
             he is tired of life,
           and thinks of nothing but
             how he
                may once more
                      see the smoke
                           of his own chimneys.

    You,
           sir,
         take no heed of this,
           and yet
             when Ulysses was
               before Troy did