Scarce felt, if, fighting for his own, his sheep
Perchance, or beeves, a man receive a blow. 565
But me Antinoüs struck for that I ask'd
Food from him merely to appease the pangs
Of hunger, source of num'rous ills to man.
If then the poor man have a God t' avenge
His wrongs, I pray to him that death may seize 570
Antinoüs, ere his nuptial hour arrive!
To whom Antinoüs answer thus return'd,
Son of Eupithes. Either seated there
Or going hence, eat, stranger, and be still;
Lest for thy insolence, by hand or foot 575
We drag thee forth, and thou be flay'd alive.
He ceased, whom all indignant heard, and thus
Ev'n his own proud companions censured him.
Antinoüs! thou didst not well to smite
The wretched vagabond. O thou art doom'd 580
For ever, if [1]there be a God in heav'n;
For, in similitude of strangers oft,
The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,
Repair to populous cities, where they mark
The outrageous and the righteous deeds of men. 585
- ↑ Eustathius, and Clarke after him, understand an aposiopesis here, as if the speaker meant to say—what if there should be? or—suppose there should be? But the sentence seems to fall in better with what follows interpreted as above, and it is a sense of the passage not unwarranted by the opinion of other commentators.
Ει δη που τις επουρανιος θεος εσι
See Schaufelbergerus.
So
