should dwell so mean a spirit, hurls a stool at him. The blow does not shake the strong frame of Ulysses, who moves to the doorway, lays down his wallet, and lifts his voice in solemn imprecation to the Powers on high who protect the stranger and the poor:—
Men grieve not for the wounds they take in fight,
Defending their own wealth, white sheep or kine;
But me (bear witness!) doth Antinous smite
Only because I suffer hunger's bite,
Fount to mankind of evils evermore.
Now may Antinous, ere his nuptial night,
If there be gods and furies of the poor,
Die unavenged, unwept, upon the palace-floor."
Even some amongst the young man's companions are horrified by this reckless violation of the recognised laws of charity and hospitality. One of them speaks out in strong rebuke:—
Antinous, on the wandering poor this blow.
Haply a god from heaven is in our hall,
And thou art ripe for ruin: I bid thee know,
Gods in the garb of strangers to and fro
Wander the cities, and men's ways discern;
Yea, through the wide earth in all shapes they go,
Changed, yet the same, and with their own eyes learn
How live the sacred laws—who hold them, and who spurn."
This is one of those noble passages in which the creed of the poet soars far above his mythology. The god who is the avenger of broken oaths, and the protector of the poor and the stranger, though he bears the name of Zeus or Jupiter, is a power of very different type from the Ruler of Olympus, who indulges his
