watercolor
elysian fields
Book 4: Lines 631-636, 639
'Laertes' son, who makes his home in Ithaca...
I saw him once on an island, weeping live warm tears
in the nymph Calypso's house--she holds him there by force.
He has no way to voyage home to his own native land,
no trim ships in reach, no crew to ply the oars
and send him scudding over the sea's broad back.
But about your own destiny, Menelaus,no snow, no winter onslaught, never a downpour there
dear to Zeus, it's not for you to die
and meet your fate in the stallion--land of Argos,
no, the deathless ones will sweep you off to the world's end,
the Elysian Fields, where gold-haired Rhadamanthys waits,
where life glides on in immortal ease for mortal man;
but night and day the Ocean River sends up breezes,
singing winds of the West
refreshing all mankind.All this because you are Helen's husband now--
the gods count you the son-in-law of Zeus.'
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