Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ILIAD: BOOK 3. MENELAUS AND ODYSSEUS, by HOMER



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THE ILIAD: BOOK 3. MENELAUS AND ODYSSEUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Then answer thus antenor sage return'd
Last Line: Found none, to wonder at his noble form.'
Subject(s): Mythology - Classical; Trojan War; Ulysses; Odysseus


THEN answer thus Antenor sage return'd:
'Princess, thou hast described him: hither once
The noble Ithacan, on thy behalf
Embassador with Menelaus, came,
And at my board I entertain'd them both.
The person and the intellect of each
I noted; and remark'd, that when they stood
Surrounded by the Senators of Troy,
Atrides by the shoulders overtopp'd
The prince of Ithaca; but when they sat,
Ulysses had the more majestic air.
In his address to our assembled chiefs,
Sweet to the ear, but brief, was the harangue
Of Menelaus, neither loosely vague,
Nor wordy, though he were the younger man.
But when Ulysses rose, his downcast eyes
He riveted so fast, his sceptre held
So still, as if a stranger to its use,
That had'st thou seen him, thou had'st thought him, sure,
Some chafed and angry idiot, passion-fixt.
Yet, when at length, the clear and mellow base
Of his deep voice brake forth, and he let fall
His chosen words like flakes of feather'd snow,
None then might match Ulysses; leisure, then,
Found none, to wonder at his noble form.'





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