and put them in a temper fit for
Elysium.--Adieu. Continue to esteem and love each other, as you did in
the other world, though you were of opposite parties, and, what is still
more wonderful, rival wits. This alone is sufficient to entitle you both
to Elysium.

DIALOGUE V.

ULYSSES--CIRCE.--IN CIRCE'S ISLAND.

_Circe_.--You will go then, Ulysses, but tell me, without reserve, what
carries you from me?

_Ulysses_.--Pardon, goddess, the weakness of human nature. My heart will
sigh for my country. It is an attachment which all my admiration of you
cannot entirely overcome.

_Circe_.--This is not all. I perceive you are afraid to declare your
whole mind. But what, Ulysses, do you fear? My terrors are gone. The
proudest goddess on earth, when she has favoured a mortal as I have
favoured you, has laid her divinity and power at his feet.

_Ulysses_.--It may be so while there still remains in her heart the
tenderness of love, or in her mind the fear of shame. But you, Circe,
are above those vulgar sensations.

_Circe_.--I understand your caution; it belongs to your character, and
therefore, to remove all diffidence from you, I swear by Styx I will do
no manner of harm, either to you or your friends, for anything which you
say, however offensive it may be to my love or my pride, but will send
you away from my island with all marks of my friendship. Tell me now,
truly, what pleasures you hope to enjoy in the barren rock of Ithaca,
which can compensate for those you leave in this paradise, exempt from
all cares and overflowing with all delights?

_Ulysses_.--The pleasures of virtue; the supreme happiness of doing good.
Here I do nothing. My mind is in a palsy; all its faculties are
benumbed. I long to return into action, that I may worthily employ those
talents which I have cultivated from the earliest days of my youth. Toils
and cares fright not me; they are the exercise of my soul; they keep it
in health and in vigour. Give me again the fields of Troy, rather than
these vacant groves. There I could reap the bright harvest of glory;
here I am hid like a coward from the eyes of mankind, and begin to appear
comtemptible in my own. The image of my former self haunts and seems to
upbraid me wheresoever I go. I meet it under the gloom of every shade;
it even intrudes itself into your presence and chides me from your arms.
O goddess, unless you have power to lay that spirit, unless you can make
me forg