by Homer
To see and mourn for her deceased son;
Which stay’d the fears that all to flight had won.
And round about thee stood th’ old sea-god’s seeds
Wretchedly mourning, their immortal weeds
Spreading upon thee. All the sacred Nine
Of deathless Muses paid thee dues divine,
By varied turns their heavenly voices venting,
All in deep passion for thy death consenting.
And then of all our army not an eye
You could have seen undrown’d in misery,
The moving muse so ruled in every mind –
Full seventeen days and nights our tears confin’d
To celebration of thy mourned end;
Both men and gods did in thy moan contend.
The eighteenth day we spent about thy heap
Of dying fire. Black oxen, fattest sheep
We slew past number. Then the precious spoil,
Thy corse, we took up, which with floods of oil
And pleasant honey we embalm’d; and then
Wrapp’d thee in those robes that the gods did rain;
In which we gave thee to the hallow’d flame.
To which a number of heroical name,
All arm’d, came rushing in in desperate plight,
As press’d to sacrifice their vital right
To thy dead ruins while so bright they burn’d.
Both foot and horse brake in, and fought and mourn’d
In infinite tumult. But when all the night
The rich flame lasted, and that wasted quite
Thy body was with the enamour’d fire,
We came in early morn, and an entire
Collection made of every ivory bone,
Which wash’d in wine, and giv’n fit unction,
A two-ear’d bowl of gold thy mother gave,
By Bacchus giv’n her, and did form receive
From Vulcan’s famous hand, which, O renown’d
Great Thetis’ son, with thy fair bones we crown’d,
Mix’d with the bones of Menoetiades
And brave Antilochus; who, in decease
Of thy Patroclus, was thy favour’s dear.
About thee then a matchless sepulchre
The sacred host of the Achaians rais’d
Upon the Hellespont, where most it seiz’d,
For height and conspicuity, the eyes
Of living men and their posterities.
Thy mother then obtain’d the gods’ consent
To institute an honour’d game, that spent
The best approvement of our Grecian fames.
In whose praise I must say that many games
About heroës’ sepulchres mine eyes
Have seen perform’d, but these bore off the prize
With miracles to me from all before.
In which thy silver-footed mother bore
The institution’s name, but thy deserts,
Being great with heav’n, caus’d all the eminent parts.
And thus, through all the worst effects of fate
Achilles’ fame ev’n death shall propagate.
While any one shall lend the light an eye,
Divine Aeacides shall never die.
But wherein can these comforts be conceiv’d
As rights to me, when, having quite achiev’d
An end with safety, and with conquest, too,
Of so unmatch’d a war, what none could do
Of all our enemies there, at home a friend
And wife have given me inglorious end?’
While these thus spake, the Argus-killing spy
Brought near Ulysses’ noble victory
To their renew’d discourse, in all the ends
The wooers suffer’d, and show’d those his friends.
Whom now amaze invaded with the view,
And made give back; yet Agamemnon knew
Melanthius’ heir, much-fam’d Amphimedon,
Who had in Ithaca guest-favours shown
To great Atrides; who first spake, and said:
‘Amphimedon! What suff’rance hath been laid
On your alive parts that hath made you make
This land of darkness the retreat you take,
So all together, all being like in years,
Nor would a man have choos’d, of all the peers
A city honours, men to make a part
More strong for any object? Hath your smart
Been felt from Neptune, being at sea – his wrath
The winds and waves exciting to your scathe?
Or have offensive men impos’d this fate,
Your oxen driving, or your flock’s estate?
Or for your city fighting and your wives,
Have deaths untimely seiz’d your best-tim’d lives?
Inform me truly. I was once your guest,
When I and Menelaus had profess’d
First arms for Ilion, and were come ashore
On Ithaca, with purpose to implore
Ulysses’ aid, that city-rasing man,
In wreak of the adulterous Phrygian.
Retain not you the time? A whole month’s date
We spent at sea, in hope to instigate
In our arrival old Laertes’ son,
Whom hardly yet to our design we won.’
The soul made answer: ‘Worthiest king of men,
I well remember every passage then
You now reduce to thought, and will relate
The truth in whole form of our timeless fate:
‘We woo’d the wife of that long-absent king,
Who (though her second marriage were a thing
Of most hate to her) she would yet deny
At no part our affections, nor comply
With any in performance, but decreed,
In her delays, the cruel fates we feed.
Her craft was this: she undertook to weave
A funeral garment destin’d to receive
The corse of old Laertes – being a task
Of infinite labour, and which time would ask.
In midst of whose attempt she caus’d our stay
With this attraction: “Youths, that come in way
Of honour’d nuptials to me, though my lord
Abide amongst the dead, yet cease to board
My choice for present nuptials, and sustain,
Lest what is past me of this web be vain,
Till all receive perfection. ’Tis a weed
Dispos’d to wrap in at his funeral need
The old Laertes; who, possessing much,
Would, in his want of rites as fitting, touch
My honour highly with each vulgar dame.”
Thus spake she, and persuaded; and her frame
All day she labour’d, her day’s work not small,
But every night-time she unwrought it all,
Three years continuing this imperfect task;
But when the fourth year came her sleights could mask
In no more covert, since her trusted maid
Her whole deceit to our true note betray’d.
With which surpris’d, she could no more protract
Her work’s perfection, but gave end exact
To what remain’d, wash’d up, and set thereon
A gloss so bright that like the sun and moon
The whole work show’d together. And when now
Of mere necessity her honour’d vow
She must make good to us, ill fortune brought
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br /> Ulysses home, who yet gave none one thought
Of his arrival, but far off at field
Liv’d with his herdsman, nor his trust would yield
Note of his person, but liv’d there as guest,
Ragg’d as a beggar in that life profess’d.
At length Telemachus left Pylos’ sand,
And with a ship fetch’d soon his native land,
When yet not home he went, but laid his way
Up to his herdsman where his father lay,
And where both laid our deaths. To town then bore
The swine-herd and his king, the swain before.
Telemachus in other ways bestow’d
His course home first, t’ associate us that woo’d.
The swain the king led after, who came on
Ragged and wretched, and still lean’d upon
A borrow’d staff. At length he reach’d his home,
Where (on the sudden and so wretched come)
Nor we nor much our elders once did dream
Of his return there, but did wrongs extreme
Of words and blows to him; all which he bore
With that old patience he had learn’d before.
But when the mind of Jove had rais’d his own,
His son and he fetch’d all their armour down,
Fast lock’d the doors, and, to prepare their use,
He will’d his wife, for first mean, to produce
His bow to us to draw; of which no one
Could stir the string. Himself yet set upon
The deadly strength it held, drew all with ease,
Shot through the steels, and then began to seize
Our armless bosoms, striking first the breast
Of King Antinous, and then the rest
In heaps turn’d over; hopeful of his end
Because some god, he knew, stood firm his friend.
Nor prov’d it worse with him, but all in flood
The pavement straight blush’d with our vital blood.
And thus our souls came here, our bodies laid
Neglected in his roofs, no word convey’d
To any friend to take us home and give
Our wounds fit balming, nor let such as live
Entomb our deaths, and for our fortunes shed
Those tears and dead-rites that renown the dead.’
Atrides’ ghost gave answer: ‘O bless’d son
Of old Laertes, thou at length hast won
With mighty virtue thy unmatched wife.
How good a knowledge, how untouch’d a life,
Hath wise Penelope! How well she laid
Her husband’s rights up, whom she lov’d a maid!
For which her virtues shall extend applause
Beyond the circles frail mortality draws,
The deathless in this vale of death comprising
Her praise in numbers into infinites rising.
The daughter Tyndarus begat begot
No such chaste thoughts, but cut the virgin knot
That knit her spouse and her with murderous swords.
For which posterities shall put hateful words
To notes of her that all her sex defam’d,
And for her ill shall ev’n the good be blam’d.’
To this effect these these digressions made
In hell, earth’s dark and ever-hiding shade.
Ulysses and his son, now past the town,
Soon reach’d the field elaborately grown
By old Laertes’ labour when, with cares
For his lost son, he left all court affairs,
And took to this rude upland, which with toil
He made a sweet and habitable soil.
Where stood a house to him, about which ran,
In turnings thick and labyrinthian,
Poor hovels, where his necessary men
That did those works (of pleasure to him then)
Might sit, and eat, and sleep. In his own house
An old Sicilian dame lived, studious
To serve his sour age with her cheerful pains.
Then said Ulysses to his son and swains:
‘Go you to town, and for your dinner kill
The best swine ye can choose; myself will still
Stay with my father, and assay his eye
If my acknowledg’d truth it can descry,
Or that my long time’s travel doth so change
My sight to him that I appear as strange.’
Thus gave he arms to them, and home they hied.
Ulysses to the fruitful field applied
His present place; nor found he Dolius there,
His sons, or any servant, anywhere
In all that spacious ground; all gone from thence
Were dragging bushes to repair a fence,
Old Dolius leading all. Ulysses found
His father far above in that fair ground,
Employ’d in proining of a plant, his weeds
All torn and tatter’d, fit for homely deeds,
But not for him. Upon his legs he wore
Patch’d boots to guard him from the bramble’s gore;
His hands had thorn-proof hedging mittens on;
His head a goat-skin casque; through all which shone
His heart giv’n over to abjectest moan.
Him when Ulysses saw consum’d with age,
And all the ensigns on him that the rage
Of grief presented, he brake out in tears;
And, taking stand then where a tree of pears
Shot high his forehead over him, his mind
Had much contention, if to yield to kind,
Make straight way to his father, kiss, embrace,
Tell his return, and put on all the face
And fashion of his instant-told return;
Or stay th’ impulsion, and the long day burn
Of his quite loss giv’n in his father’s fear
A little longer, trying first his cheer
With some free dalliance, th’ earnest being so near.
This course his choice preferr’d, and forth he went –
His father then his aged shoulders bent
Beneath what years had stoop’d, about a tree
Busily digging: ‘O, old man,’ said he,
‘You want no skill to dress and deck your ground,
For all your plants doth order’d distance bound.
No apple, pear or olive, fig or vine,
Nor any plot or quarter you confine
To grass or flow’rs stands empty of your care,
Which shows exact in each peculiar;
And yet (which let not move you) you bestow
No care upon yourself, though to this show
Of outward irksomeness to what you are
You labour with an inward froward care,
Which is your age, that should wear all without
More neat and cherishing. I make no doubt
That any sloth you use procures your lord
To let an old man go so much abhorr’d
In all his weeds; nor shines there in your look
A fashion and a goodliness so took
With abject qualities to merit this
Nasty entreaty. Your resemblance is
A very king’s, and shines through this retreat.
You look like one that having wash’d and eat
Should sleep securely, lying sweet and neat.
It is the ground of age, when cares abuse it,
To know
life’s end, and, as ’tis sweet, so use it.
But utter truth, and tell what lord is he
That rates your labour and your liberty?
Whose orchard is it that you husband thus?
Or quit me this doubt, for if Ithacus
This kingdom claims for his, the man I found
At first arrival here is hardly sound
Of brain or civil, not enduring stay
To tell nor hear me my inquiry out
Of that my friend, if still he bore about
His life and being, or were div’d to death,
And in the house of him that harboureth
The souls of men. For once he liv’d my guest;
My land and house retaining interest
In his abode there; where there sojourn’d none
As guest from any foreign region
Of more price with me. He deriv’d his race
From Ithaca, and said his father was
Laertes, surnamed Arcesiades.
I had him home, and all the offices
Perform’d to him that fitted any friend,
Whose proof I did to wealthy gifts extend:
Seven talents gold; a bowl all silver, set
With pots of flow’rs; twelve robes that had no pleat;
Twelve cloaks, or mantles, of delicious dye;
Twelve inner weeds; twelve suits of tapestry.
I gave him likewise women skill’d in use
Of loom and needle, freeing him to choose
Four the most fair.’ His father, weeping, said:
‘Stranger! The earth to which you are convey’d
Is Ithaca, by such rude men possess’d,
Unjust and insolent, as first address’d
To your encounter; but the gifts you gave
Were giv’n, alas, to the ungrateful grave.
If with his people, where you now arrive,
Your fate had been to find your friend alive,
You should have found like guest-rites from his hand,
Like gifts, and kind pass to your wished land.
But how long since receiv’d you for your guest
Your friend, my son, who was th’ unhappiest
Of all men breathing, if he were at all?
O born when fates and ill-aspects let fall
A cruel influence for him! Far away
From friends and country destined to allay
The sea-bred appetites, or left ashore,
To be by fowls and upland monsters tore,
His life’s kind authors nor his wealthy wife
Bemoaning, as behov’d, his parted life,
Nor closing, as in honour’s course it lies
To all men dead, in bed his dying eyes.