"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, 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 waves, There the wide sea with all his billows raves! Or (since to dust proud Troy submits her towers) Comest thou a wanderer from the Phrygian shores? Or say, since honour call'd thee to the field, Hast thou thy Ithaca, thy bride, beheld?'
"'Source of my life,' I cried, 'from earth I fly To seek Tiresias in the nether sky, To learn my doom; for, toss'd from woe to woe, In every land Ulysses finds a foe: Nor have these eyes beheld my native shores, Since in the dust proud Troy submits her towers.
"'But, when thy soul from her sweet mansion 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 Laertes, 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, But the false woman o'er the wife prevails?'
"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 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, 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; Unkindly with my love my son conspired, For thee I lived, for absent thee expired.'
"Thrice in my arms I strove her shade to bind, Thrice through my arms she slipp'd 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 e'en 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 the 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.'
"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 thronged 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 famed 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: Around, 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 Iolcos Pelias stretch'd his reign, And godlike Neleus ruled the Pylian plain: Then, fruitful, to her Cretheus' royal bed She gallant Pheres and famed Aeson bred; From the same fountain Amythaon rose, Pleased with the din of scar; and noble shout of foes.
"There moved Antiope, with haughty charms, Who bless'd the almighty Thunderer in her arms: Hence sprung Amphion, hence brave Zethus came, Founders of Thebes, and men of mighty name; 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: 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; 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! accursed upon a throne. 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.
"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, Sage Nestor, Periclimenus the bold, And Chromius last; but of the softer race, One nymph alone, a myracle 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, 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 heart revering, give 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 the furious sway The deathful gauntlet, matchless in the fray; 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, More fierce than giants, more than giants strong; The earth o'erburden'd groan'd beneath their weight, None but Orion e'er surpassed their height: The wondrous youths had scarce nine winters told, When high in air, tremendous to behold, Nine ells aloft they rear'd their towering head, And full nine cubits broad their shoulders spread. Proud of their strength, and more than mortal size, The gods they challenge, and affect the skies: Heaved on Olympus tottering Ossa stood; On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood. Such were they youths I had they to manhood grown Almighty Jove had trembled on his throne, But ere the harvest of the beard began To bristle on the chin, and promise man, His shafts Apollo aim'd; at once they sound, And stretch the giant monsters o'er the ground.
"There mournful Phaedra with sad Procris moves, Both beauteous shades, both hapless in their loves; And near them walk'd with solemn pace and slow, Sad Adriadne, partner of their woe: The royal Minos Ariadne bred, She Theseus loved, from Crete with Theseus fled: Swift to the Dian isle the hero flies, And towards his Athens bears the lovely prize; There Bacchus with fierce rage Diana fires, The goddess aims her shaft, the nymph expires.
"There Clymene and Mera I behold, There Eriphyle weeps, who loosely sold Her lord, her honour, for the lust of gold. But should I all recount, the night would fail, Unequal to the melancholy tale: And all-composing rest my nature craves, Here in the court, or yonder on the waves; In you I trust, and in the heavenly powers, To land Ulysses on his native shores."
He ceased; but left so charming on their ear His voice, that listening still they seem'd to hear, Till, rising up, Arete silence broke, Stretch'd out her snowy hand, and thus she spoke:
"What wondrous man heaven sends us in our guest; Through all his woes the hero shines confess'd; His comely port, his ample frame express A manly air, majestic in distress. He, as my guest, is my peculiar care: You share the pleasure, then in bounty share To worth in misery a reverence pay, And with a generous hand reward his stay; For since kind heaven with wealth our realm has bless'd, Give it to heaven by aiding the distress'd."
Then sage Echeneus, whose grave reverend brow The hand of time had silvered o'er with snow, Mature in wisdom rose: "Your words (he cries) Demand obedience, for your words are wise. But let our king direct the glorious way To generous acts; our part is to obey."
"While life informs these limbs (the king replied), Well to deserve, be all my cares employed: But here this night the royal guest detain, Till the sun flames along the ethereal plain. Be it my task to send with ample stores The stranger from our hospitable shores: Tread you my steps! 'Tis mine to lead the race, The first in glory, as the first in place."
To whom the prince: "This night with joy I stay O monarch great in virtue as in sway! If thou the circling year my stay control, To raise a bounty noble as thy soul; The circling year I wait, with ampler stores And fitter pomp to hail my native shores: Then by my realms due homage would be paid; For wealthy kings are loyally obeyed!"