Minerva
tells Ulysses that the Royal mansion to which the garden of Alcinous is
attached is of such conspicuous grandeur and so generally known, that
any child might lead him to it;
For Phoeacia's sons
Possess not houses equalling in aught
The mansion of Alcinous, the king.
I shall give Cowper's version, because it may be less familiar to the
reader than Pope's, which is in every one's hand.
THE GARDEN OF ALCINOUS
Without the court, and to the gates adjoined
A spacious garden lay, fenced all around,
Secure, four acres measuring complete,
There grew luxuriant many a lofty tree,
Pomgranate, pear, the apple blushing bright,
The honeyed fig, and unctuous olive smooth.
Those fruits, nor winter's cold nor summer's heat
Fear ever, fail not, wither not, but hang
Perennial, while unceasing zephyr breathes
Gently on all, enlarging these, and those
Maturing genial; in an endless course.
Pears after pears to full dimensions swell,
Figs follow figs, grapes clustering grow again
Where clusters grew, and (every apple stripped)
The boughs soon tempt the gatherer as before.
There too, well rooted, and of fruit profuse,
His vineyard grows; part, wide extended, basks
In the sun's beams; the arid level glows;
In part they gather, and in part they tread
The wine-press, while, before the eye, the grapes
Here put their blossoms forth, there gather fast
Their blackness.
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