Circe transformed into swine the companions of Ulysses, and when the hero came to her palace, she sought to exercise the same enchantment on him. Protected by a magic herb, he withstood her sorceries and forced her to disenchant his followers.

'It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.

'The little rift within the lover's lute Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all.

'It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all.'

634

ENID'S SONG

TURN, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands; For man is man and master of his fate.

Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

635

ULYSSES

IT little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard and sleep, and feed, and know not me.