TO THE ASSISTANCE OF JUPITER. "Unhappy son! (fair Thetis thus replies, While tears celestial trickle from her eyes) Why have I borne thee with a mother's throes, To Fates averse, and nursed for future woes?(65) So short a space the light of heaven to view! So short a space! and fill'd with sorrow too! O might a parent's careful wish prevail, Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail, And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun Which now, alas! too nearly threats my son. Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I'll go To great Olympus crown'd with fleecy snow. Meantime, secure within thy ships, from far Behold the field, not mingle in the war. The sire of gods and all the ethereal train, On the warm limits of the farthest main, Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace The feasts of Ćthiopia's blameless race,(66) Twelve days the powers indulge the genial rite, Returning with the twelfth revolving light. Then will I mount the brazen dome, and move The high tribunal of immortal Jove." The goddess spoke: the rolling waves unclose; Then down the steep she plunged from whence she rose, And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast, In wild resentment for the fair he lost. In Chrysa's port now sage Ulysses rode; Beneath the deck the destined victims stow'd: The sails they furl'd, they lash the mast aside, And dropp'd their anchors, and the pinnace tied. Next on the shore their hecatomb they land; Chryseis last descending on the strand. Her, thus returning from the furrow'd main, Ulysses led to Phoebus' sacred fane; Where at his solemn altar, as the maid He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said: "Hail, reverend priest! to Phoebus' awful dome A suppliant I from great Atrides come: Unransom'd, here receive the spotless fair; Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare; And may thy god who scatters darts around, Atoned by sacrifice, desist to wound."(67) At this, the sire embraced the maid again,