O Pelops, in the strife on Pisa’s field,
Who didst outstrip the fiery steeds that whirled
The chariot of Oenomaus, would to Heaven
That when thy severed limbs before the gods
Were at the banquet placed, thou then thy life
Amidst the blest immortal powers hadst closed,
Ere thou my father Atreus didst beget,
Whose issue by his consort Ærope
Were Agamemnon and myself, two chiefs
Of high renown. No ostentatious words
Are these; but such a numerous host, I deem,
As that which we to Ilion’s shore conveyed,
Ne’er stemmed the tide before; these troops their king
Led not by force to combat, but bore rule
O’er Grecian youths his voluntary subjects,
And among these, some heroes, now no more,
May we enumerate; others from the sea
Who ’scaped with joy, and to their homes returned,
E’en after fame had classed them with the dead.
But I, most wretched, o’er the briny waves
Of ocean wander, since I have o’erthrown
The battlements of Troy, and though I wish
Again to reach my country; by the gods
Am I esteemed unworthy of such bliss.
E’en to the Libyan deserts have I sailed,
And traversed each inhospitable scene
Of brutal outrage; still as I approach
My country, the tempestuous winds repel me,
Nor hath a prosperous breeze from Heaven yet filled
My sails, to waft me to the Spartan coast:
And now a shipwrecked, miserable man,
Reft of my friends, I on these shores am cast,
My vessel hath been shivered ’gainst the rocks
Into a thousand fragments: on the keel,
The only part which yet remains entire
Of all that fabric, scarce could I and Helen,
Whom I from Troy have borne, escape with life
Through fortunes unforeseen: but of this land
And its inhabitants, the name I know not:
For with the crowd I blushed to intermingle
Lest they my squalid garments should observe,
Through shame my wants concealing. For the man
Of an exalted station, when assailed
By adverse fortune, having never learned
How to endure calamity, is plunged
Into a state far worse than he whose woes
Have been of ancient date. But pinching need
Torments me: for I have not either food
Or raiment to protect my shivering frame,
Which may be guessed from these vile rags I wear
Cast up from my wrecked vessel: for the sea
Hath swallowed up my robes, my tissued vests,
And every ensign of my former state.
Within the dark recesses of a cave
Having concealed my wife, that guilty cause
Of all my woes, and my surviving friends
Enjoined to guard her, hither am I come.
Alone, in quest of necessary aid
For my brave comrades whom I there have left,
If by my search I haply can obtain it,
I roam; but when I viewed this house adorned
With gilded pinnacles, and gates that speak
The riches of their owner, I advanced:
For I have hopes that from this wealthy mansion
I, somewhat for my sailors, shall obtain.
But they who want the necessary comforts
Of life, although they are disposed to aid us,
Yet have not wherewithal. Ho! who comes forth
From yonder gate, my doleful tale to bear
Into the house?