Toils

What does man gain from all his work at which he toils under the sun?

These old men heard his call and hastened to the spot. They were still vigorous, with hands hardened by the toils of husbandry, and they stoutly took the young man's part against the Methymnaeans, demanding an inquiry in accordance with the rules of justice.

O Muse, assist me and inspire my song, / the various causes and the crimes relate, / for what affronted majesty, what wrong / to injured Godhead, what offence so great / Heaven's Queen resenting, with remorseless hate, / could one renowned for piety compel / to brave such troubles, and endure the weight / of toils so many and so huge. O tell / how can in heavenly minds such fierce resentment dwell?

"And now already from the heaven's high steep / the dewy night wheels down, and sinking slow, / the stars are gently wooing us to sleep. / But, if thy longing be so great to know / the tale of Troy's last agony and woe, / the toils we suffered, though my heart doth ache, / and grief would fain the memory forego / of scenes so sad, yet, Lady, for thy sake / I will begin," and thus the sire of Troy outspake:

"O by the gods, who know the just and true, / by faith unstained – if any such there be –, / with mercy deign such miseries to view; / pity a soul that toils with evils all undue."

Then straight, for doubtful was our answer there, / he knew him taken in the foemen's toils. / Shuddering, he checks his voice, and back his foot recoils.

"One alone, / Celaeno, sings of famine foul and dread, / a nameless prodigy, a plague unknown. / What perils first to shun? what path to tread, / to win deliverance from such toils?"

"When, musing sad and pensive, thou hast found / beside an oak-fringed river, on the shore, / a huge sow thirty-farrowed, and around, / milk-white as she, her litter, mark the ground, / that spot shall see thy promised town; for there / thy toils are ended, and thy rest is crowned."

"She shall the tale repeat / of wars in Italy, thy destined seat, / what toils to shun, what dangers do despise, / and make the triumph of thy quest complete."

Father Zachary drew the necessary and obvious consequence that his patron was enveloped in the toils of Satan, and in danger of destruction, both to body and soul.