His daughter ’tis
That with fair words and gentle courtesy
Detains Ulysses. And her meaning is
For ever there to have his company.
Whilst he, alas! e’en dies for very grief.
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To see the smoke of Ithaca he wishes,
And would take that for some, though small relief.
And yet you are not mov’d. Were not Ulysses
His sacrifices on the Trojan shore
Both free and bountiful? They were, you know:
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In th’ Argive camp, I dare say, no man’s more.
Why, therefore, Father, should you hate him so?

[55] His daughter it is that keeps back that wretched, sorrowing man;
and ever with soft and wheedling words
she beguiles him that he may forget Ithaca. But Odysseus,
in his longing to see were it but the smoke leaping up
from his own land, yearns to die.
Yet thy [60] heart doth not regard it, Olympian. Did not Odysseus
beside the ships of the Argives offer thee sacrifice without stint
in the broad land of Troy? Wherefore then didst thou conceive such wrath against him, O Zeus?”