/lit/ - Literature

Surrealism. In it, there is no longer anything to fear! No sort of emotivity is necessary. Anyone who wants can take refuge therein, and proclaim himself a genius! . . . An admirable Jewish trick!… The empty hype of the Jewish critics!… At a single stroke above all judgment! …superior to all points of reference! …to all humanistic texts… And the more emasculated, impotent, sterile, pretentious and farcical it is, the more of a bore and a poor impostor it is, the more forceful will be its effrontery, and the more genius and fantastic success it will have…(with Jewish publicity “on command,” you understand). Admirably simple! presto!… The Renaissance splendidly paved the way, through its Judaic fanaticism and its worship of the pre-scientific, for this stinking evolution towards all things seamy. This catastrophic promotion of all the world’s castrati into the Kingdom of the Arts… As a cultural manifestation of the “boys from the Freemasonic laboratories, and as claptrap even more bound-up, more constricted than Positivism, naturalism has since the Renaissance carried forth the same gigantic stupidities, the same calamitous prejudice in favor of the ultimate power of vapidity. This trick has not fallen on a deaf Jewish ear… Sterile, conceited, destructive, swinish, and monstrously megalomaniacal, the Jews are currently accomplishing, to full capacity, and under the same standard as their conquest of the world, the degradation, the monstrous crushing, and the systematic and total annihilation of our most natural emotions as conveyed in all of our essential, instinctive arts, in music, painting, poetry, theater… “Replacing Aryan emotion with the Nigger’s tom-tom.

The ideally, truly cleaned-up Human, about whom all of the literary artists nowadays seemingly want to write, is a robot. Any Robot, let us note, can be rendered as brilliant, as shiny, as rationalized, and as streamlined, with “clean lines,” as is desired, as well as most perfectly elegant, according to the tastes of the day. The Robot is destined to become the centerpiece of the Palace of Discovery… It is he who is the end-all and be-all of so much civilizing “rationalistic” effort…admirably Naturalistic and objective (the Robot occasionally becomes intoxicated, however! the sole human trait of the Robot at this time)… Ever since the Renaissance there has been this tendency to work with everincreasing enthusiasm towards the advent of the Kingdom of the Sciences and the Social robot. The most reductionist…the most objective of languages is the journalistically [”/168] perfect one to fill in as the objective language of the Robot… We are already there… It’s no longer necessary to maintain a soul in opposition to the reality of death, in order to express oneself humanistically… And how many volumes! how many aspects! how many facets! and what a lot of publicity! …any sort of robotic jabber whatever can be a triumph! We are already there…

I don’t see anything among all these trinkets that might truly impassion us…that might revive so much as a single fly, a living fly, a fly that flies…the cause appears to me to be understood, Renaissance, naturalism, objectivism, surrealism, the perfect progression towards the Robotic. We are already there. As far as I’m concerned, everything is in admirable agreement. Baby rattles, childish games, Calvinists, “Vermouth” varnish. Baedekerisms, and an asshole. There’s no way to bring the water in this vessel to a boil. Assorted groups of mixed lanterns, croutons of sweetened textbooks, Latin-book hair curlers, “Translation” chickens in “measure” sauce with the entire box of nuanced garnish. Meaninglessness raised to the ten thousandth power. A show, a fair of eunuchs dressed-up as dildoes, with a big strong-box, a lantern, a can, a bladder, more soakings, and slices of recircumcised prepuces! There’s not one from among all of these vague motifs, these effronterous importunings, which has not been worked-over at least a hundred times and in all of its aspects, without ceremony, in vague high school recollections. All of these stories, these styles, these scenarios, these mannerisms are put into one’s head at school… Never occurring to a fellow in and of himself. They are nothing but so many alibis, so many parvenu pretexts, for the consolidation of careers, for irrational academic crazes, as ornamental knickknacks for wine cellars… Contemporary literature is a calamitous crumbling catafalque of phrases, acrostics and flubdubs, so dry, so chapped, that not even the maggots come to swarm upon it any more, a cadaver with no tomorrow, lifeless, ghostly, an oozing without color and without horror, more disheartening, more repugnant, a thousand times more disappointing than the most rank, most stark, most bloated, most oozing carrion, a literature in sum more dead that death, infinitely.

Let's receive a real education in art

Surrealism, an extension of naturalism, is art for hateful robots, an instrument of Jewish despotism, swindle and imposture… As an extension of imbecilic naturalism, and as the rod and pruning shears of the Jewish eunuchs, surrealism is the registry of our emotional disenfranchisement…the ground for our hecatomb, our communal mass grave for idolatrous Aryan cretins, duped and cuckolded on a cosmic scale… And then it’s an entirely done deal! admirably done…for mugs like us!… At surrealism’s door, long quivering with impatience, with reductionism, and with objectivism, to all of its degrees, all or nearly all of our great writers ceaselessly hone themselves down to the infinitesimal, to the loss of that “jingling bell,” to the loss of the very last bit of substance. Were they to continue to handle themselves somewhat badly, were they to apply themselves to fantasy, were they to be drawn into idealism or romanticism, there are those who would immediately and fatally so smooth them out, after so many analyses, as to put them on their way towards surrealism… That is to say those who are promoted, well positioned, and delirious with impunity, in the most astounding imposture of the age, whose aim is the stupefaction of the people and the bourgeoisie…by way of the amassing of meaningless frenzies, parasymbolic simulacra, and frenetic fraudulent wanking… All of these are jingling bells as well! …jingling bells!…not even real bells! but vile little jingling bells! for rabid little beasts!

>>5886124
Yes, I agree, and have said so myself.

>>5886095
I admit I don't know who Cimabue is, but if he's associated with Giotto - who I do know about - he's obviously bullshitting. Giotto was using the best artistic techniques of his time to paint Mary in as good a light as he possibly could. This contemporary painting of Mary purposefully has chosen to neglect techniques that would beautify her image in favour of the most subversive techniques that could uglify it. To say that the latter is inspired by the former is a lie.

>>5886036
>but the way you can tell it's a troll is that ofili's mary is obviously in the tradition of the christian art of the middle ages, drawing inspiration from cymabeu and giotto

Bullshit. That painting is blasphemous. To say it draws inspiration from cymabeu and giotto is disgraceful sophistry.

>; meanwhile the walldorf's petra is clearly imitating the naturalism and glorification of the state in ancient sculpture

It does not glorify anything, it is subversive for the sake of being subversive, just like the Mary painting. Subversion is a plebeian attitude.

To tell the truth, art itself is what is bad. Art itself is decadent. All of the decadence of contemporary art is present in Renaissance art, just waiting to be unleashed.
When Donatello sold his nude effeminate figure of David to an Italian nobleman, that was already a scandalous statement against morals and the start of an Epicureanism, "art for art's sake".
Art and literature are not essential to a noble form of life, despite what every propagandist of "culture" has said since the Renaissance. In fact, even literacy itself is not essential to a good life.

>Honest people use no rhetoric;
>Rhetoric is not honesty.
>Enlightened people are not cultured;
>Culture is not enlightenment.
>Content people are not rich;
>Riches are not contentment.

Trying to justify contemporary art is like trying to justify contemporary morals. There's nothing to justify.

>>5885991
>Aren't they precisely evidence that so-called classical artistic proportions, formulae, and methods, aren't required to create something with real beauty?

Impressionist paintings don't have real beauty. They have a vague prettiness . . . sometimes.

>>5885912
>the funny thing is both of the pieces he uses for "artistic relativism" are fucking great.

They are garbage.

Get out of bed, Tao.

>>5885577
"Ah think, thou favour'd of the powers divine!295
Think of thy father's age, and pity mine!
In me that father's reverend image trace,
Those silver hairs, that venerable face;
His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see!
In all my equal, but in misery!
Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate
Expels him helpless from his peaceful state;
Think, from some powerful foe thou seest him fly,
And beg protection with a feeble cry.
Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise;
He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes,
And, hearing, still may hope a better day
May send him thee, to chase that foe away.
No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain,
The best, the bravest, of my sons are slain!
Yet what a race! ere Greece to Ilion came,
The pledge of many a loved and loving dame:
Nineteen one mother bore—Dead, all are dead!
How oft, alas! has wretched Priam bled!
Still one was left their loss to recompense;
His father's hope, his country's last defence.
Him too thy rage has slain! beneath thy steel,
Unhappy in his country's cause he fell!

"For him through hostile camps I bent my way,
For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay;
Large gifts proportion'd to thy wrath I bear;
O hear the wretched, and the gods revere!

"Think of thy father, and this face behold!
See him in me, as helpless and as old!
Though not so wretched: there he yields to me,
The first of men in sovereign misery!
Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace
The scourge and ruin of my realm and race;
Suppliant my children's murderer to implore,
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore!"

These words soft pity in the chief inspire,
Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire.
Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay)
The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away.
Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe;
And now the mingled tides together flow:
This low on earth, that gently bending o'er;
A father one, and one a son deplore:
But great Achilles different passions rend,
And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend.
The infectious softness through the heroes ran;
One universal solemn shower began;
They bore as heroes, but they felt as man.

>>5885516
>>5885507
A thing to note about Hector's prayer concerning his son as that it goes unfulfilled, as Astyanax is thrown from the walls of Troy by the conquering Greeks after Hector's death at the hand of Achilles.

I want to post one more excerpt, and it's one of the most touching encounters in all of literature. Achilles spend the entirety of the Iliad in a rage. He spends the vast majority of it watching his fellow Greeks get slaughtered as he refuses to fight for them, knowing full well that he's the spear of the Greek's army and essential to their campaign. Eventually the situation becomes so dire that Patroclus, the friend of Achilles who remained at Achilles' side during his sulking, decides he must intervene and fight for the Greeks. He manages to get Achilles' permission to wear his armour in order to terrify the Trojans. Seeing Patroclus in Achilles' armour the Trojans are terrified and begin to flee, which allows Patroclus and his crew to slaughter many of them. Eventually they get all the way to Troy, but Hector challenges Patroclus to fight and slays him. Hector takes Achilles' armour, and eventually dies in it as Achilles kills him. After he hears of the death of Patroclus Achilles throws a fit and at last decides to enter the war in order to avenge Patroclus. He does kill Hector, and drags his corpse around the city walls with his chariot, and refuses to give the Trojans the body of their greatest hero in order to give it a proper burial. Eventually the gods decide enough is enough as Hector deserves proper funeral rites, and so Mercury guides Priam (king of Troy, father of Hector) to Achilles' camp where he begs Achilles to return the body of his son:

Unseen by these, the king his entry made:
And, prostrate now before Achilles laid,
Sudden (a venerable sight!) appears;
Embraced his knees, and bathed his hands in tears;
Those direful hands his kisses press'd, embrued
Even with the best, the dearest of his blood!

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime,
Pursued for murder, flies his native clime)
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amazed,
All gaze, all wonder: thus Achilles gazed:
Thus stood the attendants stupid with surprise:
All mute, yet seem'd to question with their eyes:
Each look'd on other, none the silence broke,
Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke:

>>5885507
"Andromache! my soul's far better part,
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?
No hostile hand can antedate my doom,
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb.
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth;
And such the hard condition of our birth:
No force can then resist, no flight can save,
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave.
No more—but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom:
Me glory summons to the martial scene,
The field of combat is the sphere for men.
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,
The first in danger as the first in fame."
Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes
His towery helmet, black with shading plumes.
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh,
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye
That stream'd at every look; then, moving slow,
Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe.
There, while her tears deplored the godlike man,
Through all her train the soft infection ran;
The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed,
And mourn the living Hector, as the dead.

****

>>5885485
Well, I don't know, maybe Homer is even better in the original; I do not know.

>>5885501
"Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates!
(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,
Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore,
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore;
As thine, Andromache! Thy griefs I dread:
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!
In Argive looms our battles to design,
And woes, of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring.
There while you groan beneath the load of life,
They cry, 'Behold the mighty Hector's wife!'
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,
Imbitters all thy woes, by naming me.
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
A thousand griefs shall waken at the name!
May I lie cold before that dreadful day,
Press'd with a load of monumental clay!
Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep."

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child,
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground;
Then kiss'd the child, and, lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods preferr'd a father's prayer:

"O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers! protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country's foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when triumphant from successful toils
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,
And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame:'
While pleased amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy."

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,
Restored the pleasing burden to her arms;
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd.
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with a smile a tender tear.
The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd,
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued:

>>5885493
"Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run?
Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son!
And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, a helpless orphan he?
For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice.
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain.
O grant me, gods, ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
And end with sorrows as they first begun.
No parent now remains my griefs to share,
No father's aid, no mother's tender care.
The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire,
Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire!
His fate compassion in the victor bred;
Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead,
His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil,
And laid him decent on the funeral pile;
Then raised a mountain where his bones were burn'd,
The mountain-nymphs the rural tomb adorn'd,
Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow
A barren shade, and in his honour grow.

"By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell;
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell;
While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed,
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled!
My mother lived to wear the victor's bands,
The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands:
Redeem'd too late, she scarce beheld again
Her pleasing empire and her native plain,
When ah! oppress'd by life-consuming woe,
She fell a victim to Diana's bow.

"Yet while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee:
Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all
Once more will perish, if my Hector fall,
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share:
Oh, prove a husband's and a father's care!
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,
Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy;
Thou, from this tower defend the important post;
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host,
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain,
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train.
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given,
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven.
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy."

The chief replied: "That post shall be my care,
Not that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd,
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground
Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame?
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to the embattled plains!
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father's glories, and my own.

>>5885469
And this is the last time Hector and his wife (Andromache) meet before they die.

It's notable that in the Iliad Homer has no bias whatsoever for the Greeks. His only bias is towards virtue/excellence, and he his just as happy to find it among the Trojans as among the Greeks.

He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain;
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had hence retired; and with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's towery height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore,
Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore.

But he who found not whom his soul desired,
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fired,
Stood in the gates, and ask'd "what way she bent
Her parting step? If to the fane she went,
Where late the mourning matrons made resort;
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court?"
"Not to the court, (replied the attendant train,)
Nor mix'd with matrons to Minerva's fane:
To Ilion's steepy tower she bent her way,
To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day.
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword;
She heard, and trembled for her absent lord:
Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly,
Fear on her cheek, and sorrow m her eye.
The nurse attended with her infant boy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy."

Hector this heard, return'd without delay;
Swift through the town he trod his former way,
Through streets of palaces, and walks of state;
And met the mourner at the Scaean gate.
With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair.
His blameless wife, Aetion's wealthy heir:
(Cilician Thebe great Aetion sway'd,
And Hippoplacus' wide extended shade:)
The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd,
His only hope hung smiling at her breast,
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn,
Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn.
To this loved infant Hector gave the name
Scamandrius, from Scamander's honour'd stream;
Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy,
From his great father, the defence of Troy.
Silent the warrior smiled, and pleased resign'd
To tender passions all his mighty mind;
His beauteous princess cast a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke;
Her bosom laboured with a boding sigh,
And the big tear stood trembling in her eye.

>>5885469
The last lines of the Iliad:

He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain,
Pour through the gates, and fell'd from Ida's crown,
Roll back the gather'd forests to the town.
These toils continue nine succeeding days,
And high in air a sylvan structure raise.
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine,
Forth to the pile was borne the man divine,
And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes,
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise.
Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn,
Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre,
And quench with wine the yet remaining fire.
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place
(With tears collected) in a golden vase;
The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd,
Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold.
Last o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread,
And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead.
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done,
Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun.)
All Troy then moves to Priam's court again,
A solemn, silent, melancholy train:
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,
And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.
Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade.

******

This is poetic genius. The expression of human passions is exemplary.

>>5885464
The wife of Hector's lament at his death:

First to the corse the weeping consort flew;
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,
"And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)
Snatch'd in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!
And I abandon'd, desolate, alone!
An only son, once comfort of our pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
Never to manly age that son shall rise,
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes:
For Ilion now (her great defender slain)
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.
Who now protects her wives with guardian care?
Who saves her infants from the rage of war?
Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er
(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:
Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shall go,
The sad companion of thy mother's woe;
Driven hence a slave before the victor's sword
Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord:
Or else some Greek whose father press'd the plain,
Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,
In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy,
And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy.297
For thy stern father never spared a foe:
Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe!
Thence many evils his sad parents bore,
His parents many, but his consort more.
Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand?
And why received not I thy last command?
Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly dear,
My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;
Which never, never could be lost in air,
Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there!"

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan,
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan.

Hector's challenge to the Greeks:

Great Hector first amidst both armies broke
The solemn silence, and their powers bespoke:

"Hear, all ye Trojan, all ye Grecian bands,
What my soul prompts, and what some god commands.
Great Jove, averse our warfare to compose,
O'erwhelms the nations with new toils and woes;
War with a fiercer tide once more returns,
Till Ilion falls, or till yon navy burns.
You then, O princes of the Greeks! appear;
'Tis Hector speaks, and calls the gods to hear:
From all your troops select the boldest knight,
And him, the boldest, Hector dares to fight.
Here if I fall, by chance of battle slain,
Be his my spoil, and his these arms remain;
But let my body, to my friends return'd,
By Trojan hands and Trojan flames be burn'd.
And if Apollo, in whose aid I trust,
Shall stretch your daring champion in the dust;
If mine the glory to despoil the foe;
On Phoebus' temple I'll his arms bestow:
The breathless carcase to your navy sent,
Greece on the shore shall raise a monument;
Which when some future mariner surveys,
Wash'd by broad Hellespont's resounding seas,
Thus shall he say, 'A valiant Greek lies there,
By Hector slain, the mighty man of war,'
The stone shall tell your vanquish'd hero's name.
And distant ages learn the victor's fame."

This fierce defiance Greece astonish'd heard,
Blush'd to refuse, and to accept it fear'd.

>>5885455
"Lo here the wound (he cries) received of yore,
The scar indented by the tusky boar,
When, by thyself, and by Anticlea sent,
To old Autolycus' realms I went.
Yet by another sign thy offspring know;
The several trees you gave me long ago,
While yet a child, these fields I loved to trace,
And trod thy footsteps with unequal pace;
To every plant in order as we came,
Well-pleased, you told its nature and its name,
Whate'er my childish fancy ask'd, bestow'd:
Twelve pear-trees, bowing with their pendent load,
And ten, that red with blushing apples glow'd;
Full fifty purple figs; and many a row
Of various vines that then began to blow,
A future vintage! when the Hours produce
Their latent buds, and Sol exalts the juice."

Smit with the signs which all his doubts explain,
His heart within him melt; his knees sustain
Their feeble weight no more: his arms alone
Support him, round the loved Ulysses thrown;
He faints, he sinks, with mighty joys oppress'd:
Ulysses clasps him to his eager breast.
Soon as returning life regains its seat,
And his breath lengthens, and his pulses beat:
"Yes, I believe (he cries) almighty Jove!
Heaven rules us yet, and gods there are above.
. . .

>>5885455
At this the father, with a father's fears
(His venerable eyes bedimm'd with tears):
"This is the land; but ah! thy gifts are lost,
For godless men, and rude possess the coast:
Sunk is the glory of this once-famed shore!
Thy ancient friend, O stranger, is no more!
Full recompense thy bounty else had borne:
For every good man yields a just return:
So civil rights demand; and who begins
The track of friendship, not pursuing, sins.
But tell me, stranger, be the truth confess'd,
What years have circled since thou saw'st that guest?
That hapless guest, alas! for ever gone!
Wretch that he was! and that I am! my son!
If ever man to misery was born,
'Twas his to suffer, and 'tis mine to mourn!
Far from his friends, and from his native reign,
He lies a prey to monsters of the main;
Or savage beasts his mangled relics tear,
Or screaming vultures scatter through the air:
Nor could his mother funeral unguents shed;
Nor wail'd his father o'er the untimely dead:
Nor his sad consort, on the mournful bier,
Seal'd his cold eyes, or dropp'd a tender tear!

"But, tell me who thou art? and what thy race?
Thy town, thy parents, and thy native place?
Or, if a merchant in pursuit of gain,
What port received thy vessel from the main?
Or comest thou single, or attend thy train?"

Then thus the son: "From Alybas I came,
My palace there; Eperitus my name
Not vulgar born: from Aphidas, the king
Of Polyphemon's royal line, I spring.
Some adverse demon from Sicania bore
Our wandering course, and drove us on your shore;
Far from the town, an unfrequented bay
Relieved our wearied vessel from the sea.
Five years have circled since these eyes pursued
Ulysses parting through the sable flood:
Prosperous he sail'd, with dexter auguries,
And all the wing'd good omens of the skies.
Well hoped we then to meet on this fair shore,
Whom Heaven, alas! decreed to meet no more."

Quick through the father's heart these accents ran;
Grief seized at once, and wrapp'd up all the man:
Deep from his soul lie sigh'd, and sorrowing spread
A cloud of ashes on his hoary head.
Trembling with agonies of strong delight
Stood the great son, heart-wounded with the sight:
He ran, he seized him with a strict embrace,
With thousand kisses wander'd o'er his face:
"I, I am he; O father, rise! behold
Thy son, with twenty winters now grown old;
Thy son, so long desired, so long detain'd,
Restored, and breathing in his native land:
These floods of sorrow, O my sire, restrain!
The vengeance is complete; the suitor train,
Stretch'd in our palace, by these hands lie slain."

Amazed, Laertes: "Give some certain sign
(If such thou art) to manifest thee mine."

>>5885439
and him meeting his father Laertes after many years

But all alone the hoary king he found;
His habit course, but warmly wrapp'd around;
His head, that bow'd with many a pensive care,
Fenced with a double cap of goatskin hair:
His buskins old, in former service torn,
But swell repair'd; and gloves against the thorn.
In this array the kingly gardener stood,
And clear'd a plant, encumber'd with its wood.

Beneath a neighbouring tree, the chief divine
Gazed o'er his sire, retracing every line,
The ruins of himself, now worn away
With age, yet still majestic in decay!
Sudden his eyes released their watery store;
The much-enduring man could bear no more.
Doubtful he stood, if instant to embrace
His aged limbs, to kiss his reverend face,
With eager transport to disclose the whole,
And pour at once the torrent of his soul.—
Not so: his judgment takes the winding way
Of question distant, and of soft essay;
More gentle methods on weak age employs:
And moves the sorrows to enhance the joys.
Then, to his sire with beating heart he moves,
And with a tender pleasantry reproves;
Who digging round the plant still hangs his bead,
Nor aught remits the work, while thus he said:

"Great is thy skill, O father! great thy toil,
Thy careful hand is stamp'd on all the soil,
Thy squadron'd vineyards well thy art declare,
The olive green, blue fig, and pendent pear;
And not one empty spot escapes thy care.
On every plant and tree thy cares are shown,
Nothing neglected, but thyself alone.
Forgive me, father, if this fault I blame;
Age so advanced, may some indulgence claim.
Not for thy sloth, I deem thy lord unkind:
Nor speaks thy form a mean or servile mind;
I read a monarch in that princely air,
The same thy aspect, if the same thy care;
Soft sleep, fair garments, and the joys of wine,
These are the rights of age, and should be thine.
Who then thy master, say? and whose the land
So dress'd and managed by thy skilful hand?
But chief, oh tell me! (what I question most)
Is this the far-famed Ithacensian coast?
For so reported the first man I view'd
(Some surly islander, of manners rude),
Nor farther conference vouchsafed to stay;
Heedless he whistled, and pursued his way.
But thou whom years have taught to understand,
Humanely hear, and answer my demand:
A friend I seek, a wise one and a brave:
Say, lives he yet, or moulders in the grave?
Time was (my fortunes then were at the best)
When at my house I lodged this foreign guest;
He said, from Ithaca's fair isle he came,
And old Laertes was his father's name.
To him, whatever to a guest is owed
I paid, and hospitable gifts bestow'd:
To him seven talents of pure ore I told,
Twelve cloaks, twelve vests, twelve tunics stiff with gold:
A bowl, that rich with polish'd silver flames,
And skill'd in female works, four lovely dames."