by Homer
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
Arriv’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 off’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 off’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 off’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 relat
e
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 ’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 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 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 i
n, 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 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 Persephone
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 altogether 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, severally,
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 Aeolus, did wed,
Yet the divine flood Enipeus lov’d,
Who much the most fair stream of all floods mov’d.
Near whose streams Tyro walking, Neptune came,