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Book XVII. But, as it chances when the hart hath laid Her fawns new-yean'd and sucklings yet, to rest In some resistless lion's den, she roams, Meantime, the hills, and in the grassy vales Feeds heedless, but the lion to his lair Returning soon, both her and hers destroys, So shall thy father, brave Ulysses, them. Jove! Pallas! and Apollo! oh that such As erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove With Philomelides, whom wrestling, flat He threw, when all Achaia's sons rejoiced, Ulysses, now, might mingle with his foes! Short life and bitter nuptials should be theirs, But thy enquiries neither indirect Will I evade, nor give thee false reply, But all that from the Ancient of the Deep I have received will utter, hiding nought. The God declared that he had seen thy sire In a lone island, sorrowing, and detain'd An inmate in the grotto of the nymph Calypso, wanting also means by which To reach the country of his birth again, For neither gallant barks nor friends had he To speed his passage o'er the boundless waves. So Menelaus spake, the spear-renown'd. My errand thus accomplish'd, I return'd—