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Woods crown our mountains, and in every grove
The bounding goats and frisking heifers rove;
Soft rains and kindly dews refresh the field,
And rising springs eternal verdure yield.
E'en to those shores is Ithaca renown'd,
Where Troy's majestic ruins strew the ground."
At this, the chief with transport was possess'd;
His panting heart exulted in his breast;
Yet, well dissembling his untimely joys,
And veiling truth in plausible disguise,
Thus, with an air sincere, in fiction bold,
His ready tale the inventive hero told:
"
Oft have I heard in Crete this island's name;
For 'twas from Crete, my native soil, I came,
Self-banished thence. I sail'd before the wind,
And left my children and my friends behind.
From fierce Idomeneus' revenge I flew,
Whose son, the swift Orsilochus, I slew
(
With brutal force he seized my Trojan prey,
Due to the toils of many a bloody day).
Unseen I 'scaped, and favour'd by the night,
In a Phoenician vessel took my flight,
For Pyle or Elis bound; but tempests toss'd
And raging billows drove us on your coast.
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