'd as he is 560
In wiles, yet weary, question'd me, and said.
Oh Atreus' son, by what confed'rate God
Instructed liest thou in wait for me,
To seize and hold me? what is thy desire?
So He; to whom thus answer I return'd.
Old Seer! thou know'st; why, fraudful, should'st thou ask?
It is because I have been prison'd long
Within this isle, whence I have sought in vain
Deliv'rance, till my wonted courage fails.
Yet say (for the Immortals all things know) 570
What God detains me, and my course forbids
Hence to my country o'er the fishy Deep?
So I; when thus the old one of the waves.
But thy plain duty[16] was to have adored
Jove, first, in sacrifice, and all the Gods,
That then embarking, by propitious gales
Impell'd, thou might'st have reach'd thy country soon.
For thou art doom'd ne'er to behold again
Thy friends, thy palace, or thy native shores,
Till thou have seen once more the hallow'd flood 580
Of AEgypt, and with hecatombs adored
Devout, the deathless tenants of the skies.
Then will they speed thee whither thou desir'st.
He ended, and my heart broke at his words,
Which bade me pass again the gloomy gulph
To AEgypt; tedious course, and hard to atchieve!
Yet, though in sorrow whelm'd, I thus replied.
Old prophet! I will all thy will perform.
But tell me, and the truth simply reveal;
Have the Achaians with their ships arrived 590
All safe, whom Nestor left and I, at Troy?
Or of the Chiefs have any in their barks,
Or in their followers' arms found a dire death
Unlook'd for, since that city's siege we closed?
I spake, when answer thus the God return'd.
Atrides, why these questions? Need is none
That thou should'st all my secrets learn, which once
Reveal'd, thou would'st not long dry-eyed remain.
Of those no few have died, and many live;
But leaders, two alone, in their return 600
Have died (thou also hast had war to wage)
And one, still living, roams the boundless sea.
Ajax,[17] surrounded by his galleys, died.
Him Neptune, first, against the bulky rocks
The Gyrae drove, but saved him from the Deep;
Nor had he perish'd, hated as he was
By Pallas, but for his own impious boast
In frenzy utter'd that he wou