The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (92 page)

Our foody cattle, hide our mutual prize,

‘And then,’ said I, ‘attend me, that your eyes

In Circe’s sacred house may see each friend

Eating and drinking banquets out of end.’

They soon obey’d; all but Eurylochus,

Who needs would stay them all, and counsell’d thus:

‘O wretches! Whither will ye? Why are you

Fond of your mischiefs, and such gladness show

For Circe’s house, that will transform ye all

To swine, or wolves, or lions? Never shall

Our heads get out, if once within we be,

But stay compell’d by strong necessity.

So wrought the Cyclop, when t’ his cave our friends

This bold one led on, and brought all their ends

By his one indiscretion.’ I for this

Thought with my sword (that desperate head of his

Hewn from his neck) to gash upon the ground

His mangled body, though my blood was bound

In near alliance to him. But the rest

With humble suit contain’d me, and request,

That I would leave him with my ship alone,

And to the sacred palace lead them on.’

I led them; nor Eurylochus would stay

From their attendance on me, our late fray

Struck to his heart so. But mean time, my men,

In Circe’s house, were all, in several bain,

Studiously sweeten’d, smug’d with oil, and deck’d

With in and out weeds, and a feast secret

Serv’d in before them; at which close we found

They all were set, cheer’d, and carousing round.

When mutual sight had, and all thought on, then

Feast was forgotten, and the moan again

About the house flew, driv’n with wings of joy.

But then spake Circe: ‘Now, no more annoy.

I know myself what woes by sea and shore,

And men unjust, have plagu’d enough before

Your injur’d virtues. Here then feast as long,

And be as cheerful, till ye grow as strong

As when ye first forsook your country earth.

Ye now fare all like exiles; not a mirth

Flash’d in amongst ye but is quench’d again

With still-renew’d tears, though the beaten vein

Of your distresses should, methink, be now

Benumb with suf
f
’
rance.’ We did well allow

Her kind persuasions, and the whole year stay’d

In varied feast with her. When now array’d

The world was with the spring, and orby hours

Had gone the round again through herbs and flow’rs,

The months absolv’d in order, till the days

Had run their full race in Apollo’s rays,

My friends remember’d me of home, and said,

If ever fate would sign my pass, delay’d

It should be now no more. I heard them well,

Yet that day spent in feast, till darkness fell,

And sleep his virtues through our vapours shed,

When I ascended sacred Circe’s bed,

Implored my pass,
and her performed vow

Which now my soul urg’d, and my soldiers now

Afflicted me with tears to get them gone.

All these I told her, and she answer’d these:

‘Much skill’d Ulysses Laertiades!

Remain no more against your wills with me,

But take your free way; only this must be

Perform’d before you steer your course for home:

You must the way to Pluto overcome,

And stern Persephone, to form your pass,

By th’ aged Theban soul Tiresias,

The dark-brow’d prophet, whose soul yet can see

Clearly and firmly; grave Persephone,

Ev’n dead, gave him a mind, that he alone

Might sing truth’s solid wisdom, and not one

Prove more than shade in his comparison.’

This broke my heart; I sunk into my bed,

Mourn’d, and would never more be comforted

With light, nor life. But having now express’d

My pains enough to her in my unrest,

That so I might prepare her ruth, and get

All I held fit for an affair so great,

I said: ‘O Circe, who shall steer my course

To Pluto’s kingdom? Never ship had force

To make that voyage.’ The divine-in-voice

Said: ‘Seek no guide; raise you your mast, and hoise

Your ship’s white sails, and then sit you at peace,

The fresh North Spirit shall waft ye through the seas.

But, having past the ocean, you shall see

A little shore, that to Persephone

Puts up a consecrated wood, where grows

Tall firs, and sallows that their fruits soon loose.

Cast anchor in the gulfs, and go alone

To Pluto’s dark house, where to Acheron

Cocytus runs, and Pyriphlegethon –

Cocytus born of Styx, and where a rock

Of both the met floods bears the roaring shock.

The dark heroë, great Tiresias,

Now coming near, to gain propitious pass,

Dig of a cubit every way a pit,

And pour, to all that are deceas’d, in it

A solemn sacrifice. For which, first take

Honey and wine, and their commixtion make,

Then sweet wine neat, and thirdly water pour,

And lastly add to these the whitest flour.

Then vow to all the weak necks of the dead

Offerings a-number; and, when thou shalt tread

The Ithacensian shore, to sacrifice

A heifer never-tam’d, and most of prize,

A pile of all thy most esteemed goods

Enflaming to the dear streams of their bloods;

And, in secret rites, to Tiresias vow

A ram coal-black at all parts, that doth flow

With fat and fleece, and all thy flocks doth lead.

When the all-calling nation of the dead

Thou thus hast pray’d to, offer on the place

A ram and ewe all black, being turn’d in face

To dreadful Erebus, thyself aside

The flood’s shore walking. And then, gratified

With flocks of souls of men and dames deceas’d

Shall all thy pious rites be. Straight address’d

See then the offering that thy fellows slew,

Flay’d, and impos’d in fire; and all thy crew

Pray to the state of either deity,

Grave Pluto, and severe Persephone.

Then draw thy sword, stand firm, nor suffer one

Of all the faint shades of the dead and gone

T’ approach the blood, till thou hast heard their king,

The wise Tiresias, who thy offering

Will instantly do honour, thy home ways,

And all the measure of them by the seas,

Amply unfolding.’ This the goddess told;

And then the Morning in her throne of gold

Survey’d the vast world; by whose orient light

The nymph adorn’d me with attires as bright,

Her own hands putting on both shirt and weed,

Robes fine and curious, and upon my head

An ornament that glitter’d like a flame,

Girt me in gold; and forth betimes I came

Amongst my soldiers, rous
’
d them all from sleep,

And bad them now no more observance keep

Of ease and feast, but straight a-shipboard fall,

For now the goddess had inform’d me all.

Their noble spirits agreed; nor yet so clear

Could I bring all off, but Elpenor there

His heedless life left. He was youngest man

Of all my company, and one that won

Least fame for arms, as little for his brain;

Who (too much steep’d in wine, and so made fain

To get refreshing by the cool of sleep,

Apart his fellows, plung’d in vapours deep,

And they as high in tumult of their way)

Suddenly wak’d and (quite out of the stay

A sober mind had given him) would descend

A huge long ladder, forward, and on end

Fell from the very roof, full pitching on

The dearest joint his head was placed upon,

Which quite dissolv’d, let loose his soul to hell.

I to the rest, and Circe’s means did tell

Of our return, as crossing clean the hope

I gave them first, and said: ‘You think the scope

Of our endeavours now is straight for home.

No, Circe otherwise design’d, whose doom

Enjoin’d us first to greet the dreadful house

Of austere Pluto and his glorious spouse,

To take the counsel of Tiresias,

The reverend Theban, to direct our pass.’

This brake their hearts, and grief made tear their hair.

But grief was never good at great affair;

It would have way yet. We went woeful on

To ship and shore, where was arriv’d as soon

Circe unseen, a black ewe and a ram

Binding for sacrifice, and, as she came,

Vanish’d again unwitness’d by our eyes;

Which griev’d not us, nor check’d our sacrifice,

For who would see god, loath to let us see,

This way or that bent? Still his ways are free.

The end of the tenth book

Book 11

The Argument

Ulysses’ way to Hell appears,

Where he the grave Tiresias hears;

Enquires his own and others’ fates;

His mother sees, and th’ after states

In which were held by sad decease

Heroës, and Heroësses,

A number that at Troy wag
’
d war,

As Ajax that was still at jar

With Ithacus, for th’ arms he lost,

And with the great Achilles’ ghost.

Another Argument

Lamba

Ulysses here

Invokes the dead.

The lives appear

Hereafter led.

Book 11

A
rr
i
v’d now at our ship, we launch’d, and set

Our mast up, put forth sail, and in did get

Our late-got cattle. Up our sails, we went,

My wayward fellows mourning now th’ event.

A good companion yet, a foreright wind,

Circe (the excellent utterer of her mind)

Supplied our murmuring consorts with, that was

Both speed and guide to our adventurous pass.

All day our sails stood to the winds, and made

Our voyage prosp’rous. Sun then set, and shade

All ways obscuring, on the bounds we fell

Of deep Oceanus, where people dwell

Whom a perpetual cloud obscures outright,

To whom the cheerful sun lends never light –

Nor when he mounts the star-sustaining heav’n,

Nor when he stoops earth, and sets up the ev’n –

But night holds fix’d wings, feather’d all with banes,

Above those most unblest Cimmerians.

Here drew we up our ship, our sheep withdrew,

And walk’d the shore till we attain’d the view

Of that sad region Circe had foreshow’d.

And then the sacred offerings to be vow’d

Eurylochus and Persimedes bore;

When I my sword drew, and earth’s womb did gore

Till I a pit digg’d of a cubit round,

Which with the liquid sacrifice we crown’d,

First honey mix’d with wine, then sweet wine neat,

Then water pour’d in, last the flour of wheat.

Much I importuned then the weak-neck’d dead,

And vow’d, when I the barren soil should tread

Of cliffy Ithaca, amidst my hall

To kill a heifer, my clear best of all,

And give in of
f
’
ring, on a pile compos’d

Of all the choice goods my whole house enclos’d;

And to Tiresias himself, alone,

A sheep coal-black, and the selectest one

Of all my flocks. When to the pow’rs beneath,

The sacred nation that survive with death,

My pray’rs and vows had done devotions fit,

I took the of
f
’
rings, and upon the pit

Bereft their lives. Out gush’d the sable blood,

And round about me fled out of the flood

The souls of the deceas’d. There cluster’d then

Youths and their wives, much-suffering aged men,

Soft tender virgins that but new came there

By timeless death, and green their sorrows were.

There men at arms, with armours all embrew’d,

Wounded with lances, and with falchions hew’d,

In numbers, up and down the ditch, did stalk,

And threw unmeasur’d cries about their walk,

So horrid that a bloodless fear surpris’d

My daunted spirits. Straight then I advis’d

My friends to flay the slaughter’d sacrifice,

Put them in fire, and to the deities,

Stern Pluto and Persephone, apply

Exciteful prayers. Then drew I from my thigh

My well-edg’d sword, stept in, and firmly stood

Betwixt the prease of shadows and the blood,

And would not suffer any one to dip

Within our of
f
’
ring his unsolid lip,

Before Tiresias that did all control.

The first that press’d in was Elpenor’s soul,

His body in the broad-way’d earth as yet

Unmourn’d, unburied by us, since we swet

With other urgent labours. Yet his smart

I wept to see, and ru’d it from my heart,

Enquiring how he could before me be

That came by ship? He, mourning, answer’d me:

‘In Circe’s house, the spite some spirit did bear,

And the unspeakable good liquor there,

Hath been my bane; for, being to descend

A ladder much in height, I did not tend

My way well down, but forwards made a proof

To tread the rounds, and from the very roof

Fell on my neck, and brake it; and this made

My soul thus visit this infernal shade.

And here, by them that next thyself are dear,

Thy wife and father, that a little one

Gave food to thee, and by thy only son

At home behind thee left, Telemachus,

Do not depart by stealth, and leave me thus,

Unmourn’d, unburied, lest neglected I

Bring on thyself th’ incensed deity.

I know that, sail’d from hence, thy ship must touch

On th’ isle Aeaea; where vouchsafe thus much,

Good king, that, landed, thou wilt instantly

Bestow on me thy royal memory

To this grace, that my body, arms and all,

May rest consum’d in fiery funeral;

And on the foamy shore a sepulchre

Erect to me, that after times may hear

Of one so hapless. Let me these implore,

And fix upon my sepulchre the oar

With which alive I shook the aged seas,

And had of friends the dear societies.’

I told the wretched soul I would fulfill

And execute to th’ utmost point his will;

And, all the time we sadly talk’d, I still

My sword above the blood held when aside

The idol of my friend still amplified

His plaint, as up and down the shades he err’d.

Then my deceased mother’s soul appear’d,

Fair daughter of Autolycus the great,

Grave Anticlaea, whom, when forth I set

For sacred Ilion, I had left alive.

Her sight much moved me, and to tears did drive

My note of her decease; and yet not she

(Though in my ruth she held the highest degree)

Would I admit to touch the sacred blood,

Till from Tiresias I had understood

What Circe told me. At the length did land

Theban Tiresias’ soul, and in his hand

Sustain’d a golden sceptre, knew me well,

And said: ‘O man unhappy, why to hell

Admitt’st thou dark arrival, and the light

The sun gives leav’st, to have the horrid sight

Of this black region, and the shadows here?

Now sheathe thy sharp sword, and the pit forbear,

That I the blood may taste, and then relate

The truth of those acts that affect thy fate.’

I sheath’d my sword, and left the pit, till he,

The black blood tasting, thus instructed me:

‘Renown’d Ulysses! All unask’d I know

That all the cause of thy arrival now

Is to enquire thy wish’d retreat for home;

Which hardly god will let thee overcome,

Since Neptune still will his opposure try,

With all his laid-up anger, for the eye

His lov’d son lost to thee. And yet through all

Thy suf
f
’
ring course (which must be capital),

If both thine own affections, and thy friends’,

Thou wilt contain, when thy access ascends

The three-fork’d island, having ’scaped the seas,

Where ye shall find fed on the flow’ry leas

Fat flocks and oxen, which the Sun doth own,

To whom are all things as well heard as shown,

And never dare one head of those to slay,

But hold unharmful on your wished way,

Though through enough affliction, yet secure

Your fates shall land ye; but presage says sure,

If once ye spoil them, spoil to all thy friends,

Spoil to thy fleet, and if the justice ends

Short of thyself, it shall be long before,

And that length forc’d out with inflictions store,

When, losing all thy fellows, in a sail

Of foreign built (when most thy fates prevail

In thy deliv’rance) thus th’ event shall sort:

Thou shalt find shipwrack raging in thy port,

Proud men, thy goods consuming and thy wife

Urging with gifts, give charge upon thy life.

But all these wrongs revenge shall end to thee,

And force or cunning set with slaughter free

Thy house of all thy spoilers. Yet again

Thou shalt a voyage make, and come to men

That know no sea, nor ships, nor oars that are

Wings to a ship, nor mix with any fare

Salt’s savoury vapour. Where thou first shalt land,

This clear-giv’n sign shall let thee understand,

That there those men remain: assume ashore

Up to thy royal shoulder a ship oar,

With which, when thou shalt meet one on the way

That will in country admiration say,

‘What dost thou with that wan upon thy neck?’

There fix that wan thy oar, and that shore deck

With sacred rites to Neptune; slaughter there

A ram, a bull, and (who for strength doth bear

The name of husband to a herd) a boar.

And, coming home, upon thy natural shore

Give pious hecatombs to all the gods,

Degrees observ’d. And then the periods

Of all thy labours in the peace shall end

Of easy death; which shall the less extend

His passion to thee, that thy foe, the sea,

Shall not enforce it, but death’s victory

Shall chance in only-earnest-pray-vow’d age,

Obtain’d at home, quite emptied of his rage,

Thy subjects round about thee rich and blest.

And here hath Truth summ’d up thy vital rest.’

I answer’d him: ‘We will suppose all these

Decreed in deity; let it likewise please

Tiresias to resolve me, why so near

The blood and me my mother’s soul doth bear,

And yet nor word nor look vouchsafe her son?

Doth she not know me?’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘nor none

Of all these spirits, but myself alone,

Knows anything till he shall taste the blood.

But whomsoever you shall do that good,

He will the truth of all you wish unfold;

Who you envy it to will all withhold.’

Thus said the kingly soul, and made retreat

Amidst the inner parts of Pluto’s seat,

When he had spoke thus by divine instinct.

Still I stood firm, till to the blood’s precinct

My mother came, and drunk; and then she knew

I was her son, had passion to renew

Her natural plaints, which thus she did pursue:

‘How is it, O my son, that you alive

This deadly-darksome region underdive?

’Twixt which and earth so many mighty seas

And horrid currents interpose their prease,

Oceanus in chie
f
? Which none (unless

More help’d than you) on foot now can transgress.

A well-built ship he needs that ventures there.

Com’st thou from Troy but now, enforc’d to err

All this time with thy soldiers? Nor hast seen,

Ere this long day, thy country and thy queen?’

I answer’d, that a necessary end

To this infernal state made me contend,

That from the wise Tiresias’ Theban soul

I might an oracle involv’d unroll;

For I came nothing near Achaia yet,

Nor on our lov’d earth happy foot had set,

But, mishaps suf
f
’
ring, err’d from coast to coast,

Ever since first the mighty Grecian host

Divine Atrides led to Ilion,

And I his follower to set war upon

The rapeful Trojans; and so pray’d she would

The fate of that ungentle death unfold,

That forc’d her thither; if some long disease,

Or that the spleen of her that arrows please,

Diana, envious of most eminent dames,

Had made her th’ object of her deadly aims?

My father’s state and son’s I sought, if they

Kept still my goods, or they became the prey

Of any other, holding me no more

In power of safe return? Or if my store

My wife had kept, together with her son?

If she her first mind held, or had been won

By some chief Grecian from my love and bed?

All this she answer’d, that affliction fed

On her blood still at home, and that to grief

She all the days and darkness of her life

In tears had consecrate. That none possess
’
d

My famous kingdom’s throne, but th’ interest

My son had in it still he held in peace,

A court kept like a prince, and his increase

Spent in his subjects’ good, administ’ring laws

With justice, and the general applause

A king should merit, and all call’d him king.

My father kept the upland, labouring,

And shunn’d the city, used no sumptuous beds,

Wonder’d-at furnitures, nor wealthy weeds,

But in the winter strew’d about the fire

Lay with his slaves in ashes, his attire

Like to a beggar’s; when the summer came,

And autumn all fruits ripen’d with his flame,

Where grape-charg’d vines made shadows most abound,

His couch with fall’n leaves made upon the ground,

And here lay he, his sorrow’s fruitful state

Increasing as he faded for my fate;

And now the part of age that irksome is

Lay sadly on him. And that life of his

She led, and perish’d in, not slaughter’d by

The dame that darts lov’d, and her archery,

Nor by disease invaded, vast and foul,

That wastes the body, and sends out the soul

With shame and horror; only in her moan,

For me and my life, she consum’d her own.

She thus; when I had great desire to prove

My arms the circle where her soul did move.

Thrice prov
’
d I, thrice she vanish’d like a sleep,

Or fleeting shadow, which struck much more deep

The wounds my woes made, and made ask her why

She would my love to her embraces fly,

And not vouchsafe that ev’n in hell we might

Pay pious Nature her unalter’d right,

And give vexation here her cruel fill?

‘Should not the queen here, to augment the ill

Of every suf
f
’
rance, which her office is,

Enforce thy idol to afford me this?’

‘O son,’ she answer’d, ‘of the race of men

The most unhappy, our most equal queen