And with the setting sun on Lemnos' isle
Lighted, scarce half-alive ; there was I found,
And by the Sintian people kindly nursed" (D.)
He gives the mother-goddess further comfort—in "a double cup," which he proceeds also to hand round the whole of the august circle. They quaff their nectar with unusual zest, as they break into peals of laughter (it must be confessed, rather ungratefully) at the hobbling gait and awkward attentions of their new cup-bearer:—
"Thus they till sunset passed the festive hours;
Nor lacked the banquet aught to please the sense,
Nor sound of tuneful lyre by Phœbus touched,
Nor Muses' voice, who in alternate strains
Responsive sung; but when the sun had set
Each to his home departed, where for each
The crippled Vulcan, matchless architect,
With wondrous skill a noble house had reared."
And so, at the end of the first book of the poem, the curtain falls on the Olympian happy family.
But Jupiter has but a wakeful night. He is planning how he may best carry out his promise to Thetis. He sends a lying spirit in a dream to Agamemnon at midnight. The vision stands at the head of the king's couch, taking the shape of old Nestor. In this character it encourages him to muster all his forces to storm the city of Troy on the morrow. Now, at last, the false phantom assures him, its walls are doomed to fall; the strife in heaven is ended; Juno's counsels have prevailed, and the fate of Troy is sealed irrevocably.
Joyfully the King of Men arises from his sleep, and summons at daybreak a council of the chiefs. Already, says the poet, he storms and sacks the royal city in
