Ulysses having slain the suitors, spares Phemius.William Hamilton (British; 1750–1801)1796Watercolor

Ulysses having slain the suitors, spares Phemius.William Hamilton (British; 1750–1801)1796WatercolorTheBritish Museum, London | © Trustees of the British MuseumUlysses brandish’d high his vengeful steel,And Damastorides that instant fell:Fast by Leocritus expiring lay,The prince’s javelin tore its bloody wayThrough all his bowels: down he tumbled prone,His batter’d front and brains besmear the stone.Now Pallas shines confess’d; aloft she spreadsThe arm of vengeance o'er their guilty heads:The dreadful aegis blazes in their eye:Amazed they see, they tremble, and they fly:Confused, distracted, through he rooms they fling:… … … … … … … … … … … … . .Phemius alone the hand of vengeance spared,Phemius the sweet, the heaven-instructed bard.Beside the gate the reverend minstrel stands;The lyre now silent trembling in his hands;Dubious to supplicate the chief, or flyTo Jove’s inviolable altar nigh,Where oft Laertes holy vows had paid,And oft Ulysses smoking victims laid.His honour’d harp with care he first set down,Between the laver and the silver throne;Then prostrate stretch’d before the dreadful man,Persuasive thus, with accent soft began:“O king! to mercy be thy soul inclined,And spare the poet’s ever-gentle kind.A deed like this thy future fame would wrong,For dear to gods and men is sacred song.Self-taught I sing; by Heaven, and Heaven alone,The genuine seeds of poesy are sown:And (what the gods bestow) the lofty layTo gods alone and godlike worth we pay.Save then the poet, and thyself reward!‘Tis thine to merit, mine is to record.That here I sung, was force, and not desire;This hand reluctant touch’d the warbling wire;And let thy son attest, nor sordid pay,Nor servile flattery, stain’d the moral lay.”(Homer, The Odyssey, trans. AlexanderPope, 1725–6) -- source link

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