Rush to their mothers with unruly joy,
And echoing hills return the tender cry:
So round me press'd, exulting at my sight,
With cries and agonies of wild delight,
The weeping sailors; nor less fierce their joy
Than if return'd to Ithaca from Troy.
Ah master! ever honour'd, ever dear!
(These tender words on every side I hear)
What other joy can equal thy return?

430 Not that loved country for whose sight we mourn,
The soil that nursed us, and that gave us breath:
But ah! relate our lost companions' death.

I answer'd cheerfully. Haste, your galley moor
And bring our treasures and our arms ashore:
Those in yon hollow caverns let us lay;
Then rise and follow where I lead the way.
Your fellows live: believe your eyes, and come
To taste the joys of Circe's sacred dome.

With ready speed the joyful crew obey:
440 Alone Eurylochus persuades their stay.
Whither (he cried) ah whither will ye run?
Seek ye to meet those evils ye should shun?
Will you the terrors of the dome explore,
In swine to grovel, or in lions roar,

Or, wolf-like, howl away the midnight hour
In dreadful watch around the magic bower?
Remember Cyclops, and his bloody deed;
The leader's rashness made the soldiers bleed.
I heard incensed, and first resolved to speed
450 My flying falchion at the rebel's head.

Me wouldst thou please? for them thy cares employ, For mercy pleaded, nor could plead in vain.

But when the seasons, bllowing in their train,
Brought back the months, the days, and hours again;
As from a lethargy at once they rise,
And urge their chief with animating cries.
Is this, Ulysses, our inglorious lot?
And is the name of Ithaca forgot?
Shall never the dear land in prospect rise,
Or the loved palace glitter in our eyes?

Melting I heard; yet till the sun's decline
Prolong'd the feast, and quaff'd the rosy wine:
But when the shades came on at evening hour,
And all lay slumbering in the dusky bower;
I came a suppliant to fair Circe's bed,
The tender moment seized, and thus I said:
Be mindful, goddess! of thy promise made;
Must sad Ulysses ever be delay'd?

Around their lord my sad companions mourn,
Each breast beats homeward, anxious to return:
If but a moment parted from thy eyes,

These to the rest; but to the seer must bleed
A sable ram, the pride of all thy breed.
These solemn vows and holy offerings paid
To all the phantom nations of the dead,
560 Be next thy care the sable sheep to place
Full o'er the pit, and hellward turn their face:
But from the infernal rite thine eye withdraw,
And back to Ocean glance with reverend awe.
Sudden shall skim along the dusky glades
Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades.
Then give command the sacrifice to haste,
Let the flay'd victims in the flames be cast,
And sacred vows and mystic song applied
To grisly Pluto and his gloomy bride.

570 Wide o'er the pool thy falchion waved around
Shall drive the spectres from forbidden ground:
The sacred draught shall all the dead forbear,
Till awful from the shades arise the seer.
Let him, oraculous, the end, the way,
The turns of all thy future fate, display,
Thy pilgrimage to come, and remnant of thy day
So speaking, from the ruddy orient shone
The morn, conspicuous on her golden throne.
The goddess with a radiant tunic dress'd
580 My limbs, and o'er me cast a silken vest.
Long flowing robes, of purest white, array
The nymph, that added lustre to the day:
A tiar wreath'd her head with many a fold;
Her waist was circled with a zone of gold.
Forth issuing then, from place to place I flew;
Rouse man by man, and animate my crew.
Rise, rise, my mates! 'tis Circe gives command:
Our journey calls us; haste, and quit the land.
All rise and follow, yet depart not all,

Their tears flow round me, and my heart complies.
Go then (she cried,) ah go! yet think not I,
Not Circe, but the Fates, your wish deny.
Ah hope not yet to breathe thy native air!
Far other journey first demands thy care:
To tread the uncomfortable paths beneath,
And view the realms of darkness and of death.
There seek the Theban bard, deprived of sight;
Within, irradiate with prophetic light;
To whom Persephone, entire and whole,
Gave to retain the unseparated soul:
The rest are forms of empty ether made:
Impassive semblance, and a flitting shade.

Struck at the word, my very heart was dead:
Pensive I sate; my tears bedew'd the bed;
To hate the light and life my soul begun,
And saw that all was grief beneath the sun.
Composed at length, the gushing tears suppress'd,
And my toss'd limbs now wearied into rest,
How shall I tread (I cried) ah, Circe; say,
The dark descent, and who shall guide the way?
Can living eyes behold the realms below?
What bark to waft me, and what wind to blow?
Thy fated road (the magic power replied)
Divine Ulysses! asks no mortal guide.
Rear but the mast, the spacious sail display,
The northern winds shall wing thee on thy way.
Soon shalt thou reach old Ocean's utmost ends,
Where to the main the shelving shore descends;
The barren trees of Proserpine's black woods,
Poplars and willows trembling o'er the floods:
There fix thy vessel in the lonely bay,
And enter there the kingdoms void of day:
Where Phlegethon's loud torrents, rushing down,
Hiss in the flaming gulf of Acheron;

620

640

630

661

590 For Fate decreed one wretched man to fall.
A youth there was, Elpenor was he named,
Not much for sense, nor much for courage famed;
The youngest of our band, a vulgar soul,
Born but to banquet, and to drain the bowl.
He, hot and careless, on a turret's height
With sleep repair'd the long debauch of night:
The sudden tumult stirr'd him where he lay,
And down he hasten'd, but forgot the way;
Full headlong from the roof the sleeper fell,
And snapp'd the spinal joint and waked in hell.
The rest crowd round me with an eager look,
I met them with a sigh, and thus bespoke:
Already, friends! ye think your toils are o'er,
Your hopes already touch your native shore:
Alas! far otherwise the nymph declares,
Far other journey first demands our cares;
To tread the uncomfortable paths beneath,
The dreary realms of darkness and of death;
To seek Tiresias' awful shade below,

600

And where, slow rolling from the Stygian bed, 610 And thence our fortunes and our fates to know. Cocytus' lamentable waters spread:

Where the dark rock o'erhangs the infernal lake,
And mingling streams eternal murmurs make.
First draw thy falchion, and on every side
Trench the black earth a cubit long and wide:
To all the shades around libations pour,

And o'er the ingredients strew the hallow'd flour:
New wine and milk, with honey temper'd, bring,
And living water from the crystal spring.

670

680

My sad companions heard in deep despair:
Frantic they tore their manly growth of hair;
To earth they fell: the tears began to rain;
But tears in mortal miseries are vain.
Sadly they fared along the sea-beat shore;
Still heaved their hearts, and still their eyes ran
o'er.

The ready victims at our bark we found,
The sable ewe and ram, together bound

Then the wan shades and feeble ghosts implore, 620 For swift as thought the goddess had been there,

With promised offerings on thy native shore;
A barren cow, the stateliest of the isle,

And, heap'd with various wealth, a blazing pile:

And thence had glided, viewless as the air:
The paths of gods what mortal can survey?
Who eyes their motion? who shall trace their way?

BOOK XI.

ARGUMENT.

The Descent into Hell.

When lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts,
Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts:

Fair pensive youths, and soft enamour'd maids:
And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkled shades;

50

Clysses continues his narration. How he arrived at Ghastly with wounds the forms of warriors slain the land of the Cimmerians, and what ceremonies he Stalk'd with majestic port, a martial train: performed to invoke the dead. The manner of his These and a thousand more swarm'd o'er the ground, descent, and the apparition of the shades: his conver-And all the dire assembly shriek'd around. sation with Elpenor, and with Tiresias, who informs Astonish'd at the sight, aghast I stood, him in a prophetic manner of his fortunes to come. And a cold fear ran shivering through my blood; He meets his mother Anticlea, from whom he learns Straight I command the sacrifice to haste, the state of his family. He sees the shades of the ancient heroines, afterwards of the heroes, and conStraight the flay'd victims to the flames are cast, verses in particular with Agamemnon and Achilles. And mutter'd vows, and mystic song applied Ajax keeps at a sullen distance, and disdains to an To grisly Pluto, and his gloomy bride. swer him. He then beholds Tityus, Tantalus, Sysiphus, Hercules; till he is deterred from further curiosity by the apparition of horrid spectres, and the cries of the wicked in torments.

BOOK XI.

Now to the shores we bend, a mournful train,
Climb the tall bark, and launch into the main :
At once the mast we rear, at once unbind
The spacious sheet, and stretch it to the wind:
Then pale and pensive stand, with cares oppress'd,
And solemn horror saddens every breast.
A freshning breeze the magic power* supplied,
While the winged vessel flew along the tide;
Our oars we shipp'd: all day the swelling sails
Full from the guiding pilot catch'd the gales.
Now sunk the sun from his aërial height,
And o'er the shaded billows rush'd the night:
When lo! we reach'd old Ocean's utmost bounds,
Where rocks controul his waves with ever-during
There in a lonely land, and gloomy cells, [mounds
The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells;
The sun ne'er views the uncomfortable seats,
When radiant he advances, or retreats:
Unhappy race! whom endless night invades,
Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in shades.

The ship we moor on these obscure abodes:
Disbark the sheep, an offering to the gods;
And, hellward bending, o'er the beach descry
The doleful passage to the infernal sky.
The victims, vow'd to each Tartarean power
Eurylochus and Dermides bore.

Here open'd hell, all hell I here implored,
And from the scabbard drew the shining sword:
And trenching the black earth on every side,
A cavern form'd, a cubit long and wide.
New wine, with honey-temper'd milk, we bring,
Then living waters from the crystal spring:
O'er these was strew'd the consecrated flour,
And on the surface shone the holy store.

Now the wan shades we hail, the infernal gods,
To speed our course, and waft us o'er the floods:
So shall a barren heifer from the stall
Beneath the knife upon your altars fall;
So in our palace, at our safe return,
Rich with unnumber'd gifts the pile shall burn;
So shall a ram, the largest of the breed,
Black as these regions, to Tiresias bleed.

Thus solemn rites and holy vows we paid
To all the phantom nations of the dead.
Then died the sheep: a purple torrent flow'd,
And all the caverns smoked with streaming blood.

* Circe.

Now swift I waved my falchion o'er the blood ; Back started the pale throngs, and trembling stood. Round the black trench the gore untasted flows, Till awful from the shades Tiresias rose.

60

80

O say what angry power Elpenor led
To glide in shades, and wander with the dead?
How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoin'd,
Outfly the nimble sail, and leave the lagging wind?
The ghost replied: To hell my doom I owe,
10 Dæmous accurst, dire ministers of woe!
My feet, through wine unfaithful to their weight,
Betray'd me tumbling from a towery height;
Staggering I reel'd, and as I reel'd I fell,
Lux'd the neck-joint-my soul descends to hell.
But lend me aid, I now conjure thee lend,
By the soft tie and sacred name of friend!
By thy fond consort! by thy father's cares!
By loved Telemachus's blooming years!
For well I know that soon the heavenly powers
Will give thee back to day, and Circe's shores;
There pious on my cold remains attend,
There call to mind thy poor departed friend!
The tribute of a tear is all I crave,
And the possession of a peaceful grave.
But if, unheard, in vain compassion plead,
Revere the gods, the gods avenge the dead!
A tomb along the watery margin raise,
The tomb with manly arms and trophies grace,
To show posterity Elpenor was.

21

30 There high in air, memorial of my name,
Fix the smooth oar, and bid me live to fame.
To whom with tears: These rites, oh mournful
shade,

Due to thy ghost, shall to thy ghost be paid.

90

Still as I spoke the phantom seem'd to moan, 100
Tear follow'd tear, and groan succeeded groan.
But, as iny waving sword the blood surrounds,
The shade withdrew, and mutter'd empty sounds.
There as the wondrous visions I survey'd,
40 All pale ascends my royal mother's shade:
A queen, to Troy she saw our legions pass;
Now a thin form is all Anticlea was!
Struck at the sight I melt with filial woe,
And down my cheek the pious sorrows flow:
Yet as I shook my falchion o'er the blood,
Regardless of her son the parent stood.

When lo! the mighty Theban I behold;
To guide his steps he bore a staff of gold:

110

Awful he trod! majestic was his look!
And from his holy lips these accents broke:
Why, mortal, wanderest thou from cheerful day,
To tread the downward melancholy way?
What angry gods to these dark regions led
Thee yet alive, companion of the dead?

But sheath thy poniard, while my tongue relates 120
Heaven's steadfast purpose, and thy future fates.

130

140

They, seal'd with truth, return the sure reply;
The rest, repell'd, a train oblivious fly.
The phantom-prophet ceased, and sunk from sight
To the black palace of eternal night.

Still in the dark abodes of death I stood,
When near Anticlea moved, and drank the blood
Straight all the mother in her soul awakes,
And, owning her Ulysses, thus she speaks.
Comest thou, my son, alive, to realms beneath, 190
The dolesome realms of darkness and of death?
Comest thou alive from pure, ethereal day?
Dire is the region, dismal is the way;

Here lakes profound, there floods oppose their

fled,

Say, what distemper gave thee to the dead?
Has life's fair lamp declined by slow decays,
Or swift expired it in a sudden blaze?
Say, if my sire, good old Laërtes, lives?
If yet Telemachus, my son, survives?
Say, by his rule is my dominion awed,
Or crush'd by traitors with an iron rod?
Say, if my spouse maintains her royal trust;
Though tempted, chaste, and obstinately just?
Or if no more her absent lord she wails,
151 But the false woman o'er the wife prevails:

While yet he spoke, the prophet I obey'd,
And in the scabbard plunged the glittering blade.
Eager he quaff'd the gore, and then express'd
Dark things to come, the counsels of his breast:
Weary of light, Ulysses here explores,
A prosperous voyage to his native shores;
But know-by me unerring Fates disclose
New trains of dangers, and new scenes of woes;
I see, I see, thy bark by Neptune toss'd,
For injured Cyclops, and his eye-ball lost!
Yet to thy woes the god decree an end,
If heaven you please; and how to please attend!
Where on Trinacrian rocks the ocean roars,
Graze numerous herds along the verdant shores.
Though hunger press, yet fly the dangerous prey,
The herds are sacred to the god of day,
Who all surveys with his extensive eye
Above, below, on earth, and in the sky!
Rob not the god; and so propitious gales
Attend thy voyage, and impel thy sails:
But, if his herds ye seize, beneath the waves
I see thy friends o'erwhelm'd in liquid graves!
The direful wreck Ulysses scarce survives!
Ulysses at his country scarce arrives!
Strangers thy guides! nor there thy labours end,
New foes arise, domestic ills attend!
There foul adulterers to thy bride resort,
And lordly gluttons riot in thy court.
But vengeance hastes amain: These eyes behold
The deathful scene, princes on princes roll'd!
That done, a people far from sea explore,
Who ne'er knew salt, or heard the billow roar,
Or saw gay vessel stem the watery plain,
A painted wonder flying on the main.
Bear on thy back an oar: with strange amaze
A shepherd meeting thee, the oar surveys,
And names a van: there fix it on the plain,
To calm the god that holds the watery reign;
A threefold offering to his altar bring,
A bull, a ram, a boar; and hail the ocean king.
But, home return'd, to each ethereal power
Slay the due victim in the genial hour:
So peaceful shalt thou end thy blissful days,
And steal thyself from life by slow decays;
Unknown to pain, in age resign thy breath:
When late stern Neptune points the shaft with death:
To the dark grave retiring as to rest,
Thy people blessing, by thy people bless'd!
Unerring truths, oh man my lips relate;
This is thy life to come, and this is fate.

To whom unmoved: If this the gods prepare,
What heaven ordains, the wise with courage bear.
But say, why wander on the lonely strands,
Unmindful of her son, Anticlea stands?
Why to the ground she bends her downcast eye?
Why is she silent while her son is nigh?
The latent cause, oh sacred seer, reveal!

Nor this, replies the seer, will I conceal.

Thus I, and thus the parent shade returns:
Thee, ever thee, thy faithful consort mourns:
Whether the night descends or day prevails,
Thee she by night, and thee by day bewails.
Thee in Telemachus thy realm obeys;
In sacred groves celestial rites he pays,
And shares the banquet in superior state,
Graced with such honours as become the great.

160 Thy sire in solitude foments his care:

The court is joyless for thou art not there!
No costly carpets raise his hoary head,
No rich embroidery shines to grace his bed;
Even when keen winter freezes in the skies,
Rank'd with his slaves on earth the monarch lies:
Deep are his sighs, his visage pale, his dress
The garb of woe and habit of distress.
And when the autumn takes his annual round,
The leafy honours scattering on the ground;
170 Regardless of his years, abroad he lies,

His bed the leaves, his canopy the skies.
Thus cares on cares his painful days consume,
And bow his age with sorrow to the tomb!

For thee, my son, I wept my life away;
For thee through hell's eternal dungeons stray.
Nor came my fate by lingering pains and slow,
Nor bent the silver-shafted queen her bow;
No dire disease bereaved me of my breath;
Thou, thou, my son, wert my disease and death,

Know, to the spectres, that thy beverage taste, 180 Unkindly with my love my son conspired,

The scenes of life recur, and actions past:

For thee I lived, for absent thee expired.

210

230

240

250

Thrice in my arms I strove her shade to bind,
Thrice through my arm she slipt like empty wind,
Or dreams, the vain illusions of the mind.
Wild with despair I shed a copious tide
Of flowing tears, and thus with sighs replied:
Fliest thou, loved shade, while I thus fondly mourn!
Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn!
Is it, ye powers that smile at human harms!
Too great a bliss to weep within her arms?
Or has hell's queen an empty image sent
That wretched I might even my joys lament?
O son of woe, the pensive shade rejoin'd,
O most inured to grief of all mankind!
'Tis not the queen of hell who thee deceives;
All, all are such, when life the body leaves:
No more the substance of the man remains,
Nor bounds the blood along the purple veins :
These the funereal flames in atoms bear,
To wander with the wind in empty air:
While the impassive soul reluctant flies,
Like a vain dream to these infernal skies.
But from the dark dominions speed thy way,
And climb the steep ascent to upper day,
To thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell,
The woes, the horrors, and the laws of hell.

From the same fountain Amythaon rose,
Pleased with the din of war, and noble shout of foes.
There moved Antiopè, with haughty charms,
Who blest the Almighty Thunderer in her arms:
Hence sprung Amphion, hence brave Zethus came,
Founders of Thebes, and men of mighty name; 320
Though bold in open field, they yet surround
The town with walls, and mound inject on mound;
Here ramparts stood, there towers rose high in air,
And here through seven wide portals rush'd the war.
There with soft step the fair Alcmena trod,
Who bore Alcides to the thundering god:
260 And Megara, who charm'd the son of Jove,
And soften'd his stern soul to tender love.
Sullen and sour with discontented mien
Jocasta frown'd, the incestuous Theban queen; 330
With her own son she join'd in nuptial bands,
Though father's blood imbrued his murderous hands:
The gods and men the dire offence detest,
The gods with all their furies rend his breast:
In lofty Thebes he wore the imperial crown,
A pompous wretch! accurst upon a throne.
270 The wife self-murder'd from a beam depends,
And her foul soul to blackest hell descends:
Thence to her son the choicest plagues she brings,
And the fiends haunt him with a thousand stings. 340
And now the beauteous Chloris I descry,
A lovely shade, Amphion's youngest joy!
With gifts unnumber'd Neleus sought her arms,
Nor paid too dearly for unequall'd charms;
Great in Orchomenos, in Pylos great,
He sway'd the sceptre with imperial state.
Three gallant sons the joyful monarch told,
280 Sage Nestor, Periclimenus the bold,

Thus while she spoke, in swarms hell's empress
brings

Daughters and wives of heroes and of kings;
Thick, and more thick they gather round the blood,
Ghost throng'd on ghost (a dire assembly) stood!
Dauntless my sword I seize: the airy crew,
Swift as it flash'd along the gloom, withdrew;
Then shade to shade in mutual forms succeeds,
Her race recounts, and their illustrious deeds.
Tyro began, whom great Salmoneus bred,
The royal partner of fam'd Cretheus' bed.
For fair Enipeus, as from fruitful urns
He pours his watery store, the virgin burns:
Smooth flows the gentle stream with wanton pride,
And in soft mazes rolls a silver tide.
As on his banks the maid enamour'd roves,
The monarch of the deep beholds and loves;
In her Enipeus' form and borrow'd charms,
The amorous god descends into her arms:
A round, a spacious arch of waves he throws,
And high in air the liquid mountain rose:
Thus in surrounding floods conceal'd he proves
The pleasing transport, and completes his loves.
Then, softly sighing, he the fair address'd,
And, as he spoke, her tender hand he press'd.
Hail, happy nymph! no vulgar births are owed
To the prolific raptures of a god:

Lo! when nine times the moon renews her horn,
Two brother heroes shall from thee be born;
Thy early care the future worthies claim,
To point them to the arduous paths of fame;
But in thy breast the important truth conceal,
Nor dare the secret of a god reveal:
For know, thou Neptune view'st! and at my nod
Earth trembles, and the waves confess their god.

He added not, but mounting spurn'd the plain,
Then plunged into the chambers of the main.
Now in the time's full process forth she brings
Jove's dread vicegerents in two future kings;
O'er proud Ioclus Pelias stretch'd his reign,
And godlike Neleus ruled the Pylian plain:
Then, fruitful, to her Cretheus' royal bed
She gallant Pheres and famed Eson bred:

350

And Chromius last: but of the softer race,
One nymph alone, a miracle of grace.
Kings on their thrones for lovely Pero burn;
The sire denies, and kings rejected mourn.
To him alone the beauteous prize he yields,
Whose arm should ravish from Phylacian fields
The herds of Iphyclus, detain'd in wrong;
Wild, furious herds, unconquerably strong!
This dares a seer, but nought the seer prevails;
290 In beauty's cause illustriously he fails.
Twelve moons the foe the captive youth detains
In painful dungeons, and coercive chains;
The foe at last, from durance where he lay,
His art revering gave him back to day;
Won by prophetic knowledge, to fulfil
The steadfast purpose of the Almighty will.
With graceful port advancing now I spied
Leda the fair, the godlike Tyndar's bride:
Hence Pollux sprung, who wields with furious sway
300 The deathful gauntlet, matchless in the fray;

360

370

And Castor glorious on the embattled plain
Curbs the proud steeds, reluctant to the rein:
By turns they visit this ethereal sky,
And live alternate, and alternate die:
In hell beneath, on earth, in heaven above,
Reign the twin-gods, the favourite sons of Jove.
There Ephimedia trod the gloomy plain,
Who charm'd the monarch of the boundless main;
Hence Ephialtes, hence stern Otus sprung,

310 More fierce than giants, more than giants strong:

The earth o'erburden'd groan'd beneath their weight,
None but Orion e'er surpass'd their height: 380
The wondrous youths had scarce nine winters told,
When high in air, tremendous to behold,