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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Odysseus Reveals Himself to His Father (from Odyssey XXIV)

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

George Chapman (1559?–1634)

Odysseus Reveals Himself to His Father (from Odyssey XXIV)

ALL this haste made not his staid faith so free

To trust his words; who said: ‘If you are he,

Approve it by some sign.’ ‘This scar then see,’

Replied Ulysses, ‘given me by the boar

Slain in Parnassus; I being sent before

By yours and by my honour’d mother’s will,

To see your sire Autolycus fulfil

The gifts he vow’d at giving of my name.

I ’ll tell you, too, the trees, in goodly frame

Of this fair orchard, that I ask’d of you

Being yet a child, and follow’d for your show,

And name of every tree. You gave me then

Of fig-trees forty, apple bearers ten,

Pear-trees thirteen, and fifty ranks of vine;

Each one of which a season did confine

For his best eating. Not a grape did grow

That grew not there, and had his heavy brow

When Jove’s fair daughters, the all-ripening Hours,

Gave timely date to it.’ This charged the powers

Both of his knees and heart with such impression

Of sudden comfort, that it gave possession

Of all to trance; the signs were all so true;

And did the love that gave them so renew.

He cast his arms about his son and sunk,

The circle slipping to his feet; so shrunk

Were all his age’s forces with the fire

Of his young love rekindled. The old sire

The son took up quite lifeless. But his breath

Again respiring, and his soul from death

His body’s powers recovering, out he cried,

And said: ‘O Jupiter! I now have tried

That still there live in heaven remembering Gods

Of men that serve them; though the periods

They set on their appearances are long

In best men’s sufferings, yet as sure as strong

They are in comforts; be their strange delays

Extended never so from days to days.

Yet see the short joys or the soon-fix’d fears

Of helps withheld by them so many years:

For if the wooers now have paid the pain

Due to their impious pleasures, now again

Extreme fear takes me, lest we straight shall see

The Ithacensians here in mutiny;

Their messengers dispatch’d to win to friend

The Cephallenian cities.’