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 Persephoné, apply
Exciteful pray’rs. 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 anyone to dip
Within our off’ring his unsolid lip,
Before Tiresias that did all controul.
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 rued 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’ incenséd Deity.
I know that, sail’d from hence, thy ship must touch
On th’ isle Ææa; 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 2
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 deceaséd mother’s soul appear’d,
Fair daughter of Autolycus the great,
Grave Anticlea, whom, when forth I set
For sacred Ilion, I had left alive.
Her sight much mov’d me, and to tears did drive
My note of her decease; and yet not she
(Though in my ruth she held the high’st 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 suff’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 ‘scap’d 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 wishéd 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
The 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 3
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 county 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, 4
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 m
yself 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 chief? 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 suff’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 sons I sought, if they
Kept still my goods? Or they became the prey
Of any other, holding me no more
In pow’r 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 possest
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, us’d 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 ev’ry suff’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
Will mock no solid arms with empty shade,
Nor suffer empty shades again t’ invade
Flesh, bones, and nerves; nor will defraud the fire
Of his last dues, that, soon as spirits expire
And leave the white bone, are his native right,
When, like a dream, the soul assumes her flight.
The light then of the living with most haste,
O son, contend to. This thy little taste
Of this state is enough; and all this life
Will make a tale fit to be told thy wife.’
This speech we had; when now repair’d to me
More female spirits, by Persephoné
Driv’n on before her. All th’ heroës’ wives,
And daughters, that led there their second lives,
About the black blood throng’d. Of whom yet more
My mind impell’d me to inquire, before
I let them all together taste the gore,
For then would all have been dispers’d, and gone
Thick as they came. I, therefore, one by one
Let taste the pit, my sword drawn from my thigh,
And stand betwixt them made, when, sev’rally,
All told their stocks. The first, that quench’d her fire,
Was Tyro, issued of a noble sire.
She said she sprung from pure Salmoneus’ bed,
And Cretheus, son of Æolus, did wed;
Yet the divine flood Enipëus lov’d,
Who much the most fair stream of all floods mov’d.
Near whose streams Tyro walking, Neptune came,
Like Enipëus, and enjoy’d the dame.
Like to a hill, the blue and snaky flood
Above th’ immortal and the mortal stood,
And hid them both, as both together lay,
Just where his current falls into the sea.
Her virgin waist dissolv’d, she slumber’d then;
But when the God had done the work of men,
Her fair hand gently wringing, thus he said:
‘Woman! rejoice in our combinéd bed,
For when the year hath run his circle round
(Because the Gods’ loves must in fruit abound)
My love shall make, to cheer thy teeming moans,
Thy one dear burden bear two famous sons;
Love well, and bring them up. Go home, and see
That, though of more joy yet I shall be free,
Thou dost not tell, to glorify thy birth;
Thy love is Neptune, shaker of the earth.’
This said, he plung’d into the sea; and she,
Begot with
child by him, the light let see
Great Pelias, and Neleus, that became
In Jove’s great ministry of mighty fame.
Pelias in broad Iolcus held his throne,
Wealthy in cattle; th’ other royal son
Rul’d sandy Pylos. To these issue more
This queen of women to her husband bore,
Æson, and Pheres, and Amythaon
That for his fight on horseback stoop’d to none.
Next her, I saw admir’d Antiope,
Asopus’ daughter, who (as much as she
Boasted attraction of great Neptune’s love)
Boasted to slumber in the arms of Jove,
And two sons likewise at one burden bore
To that her all-controlling paramour,
Amphion, and fair Zethus; that first laid
Great Thebes’ foundations, and strong walls convey’d
About her turrets, that seven ports enclos’d,
For though the Thebans much in strength repos’d,
Yet had not they the strength to hold their own,
Without the added aids of wood and stone.
Alcmena next I saw, that famous wife
Was to Amphitryo, and honour’d life
Gave to the lion-hearted Hercules,
That was of Jove’s embrace the great increase.
I saw, besides, proud Creon’s daughter there,
Bright Megara, that nuptial yoke did wear
With Jove’s great son, who never field did try
But bore to him the flow’r of victory.
The mother then of Œdipus I saw,
Fair Epicasta, that, beyond all law,
Her own son married, ignorant of kind.
And he, as darkly taken in his mind,
His mother wedded, and his father slew.
Whose blind act Heav’n expos’d at length to view,
And he in all-lov’d Thebes the supreme state
With much moan manag’d, for the heavy fate
The Gods laid on him. She made violent flight
To Pluto’s dark house from the loathéd light,
Beneath a steep beam strangled with a cord,
And left her son, in life, pains as abhorr’d
As all the Furies pour’d on her in hell.
Then saw I Chloris, that did so excell
In answering beauties, that each part had all.
Great Neleus married her, when gifts not small
Had won her favour, term’d by name of dow’r.
She was of all Amphion’s seed the flow’r;
Amphion, call’d Iasides, that then
Rul’d strongly Myniæan Orchomen,
And now his daughter rul’d the Pylian throne,
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 132