Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)

by Homer

  Their bodies’ strength should languish- which anon

  By no uncertain tokens may be told-

  Forthwith the sick change hue; grim leanness mars

  Their visage; then from out the cells they bear

  Forms reft of light, and lead the mournful pomp;

  Or foot to foot about the porch they hang,

  Or within closed doors loiter, listless all

  From famine, and benumbed with shrivelling cold.

  Then is a deep note heard, a long-drawn hum,

  As when the chill South through the forests sighs,

  As when the troubled ocean hoarsely booms

  With back-swung billow, as ravening tide of fire

  Surges, shut fast within the furnace-walls.

  Then do I bid burn scented galbanum,

  And, honey-streams through reeden troughs instilled,

  Challenge and cheer their flagging appetite

  To taste the well-known food; and it shall boot

  To mix therewith the savour bruised from gall,

  And rose-leaves dried, or must to thickness boiled

  By a fierce fire, or juice of raisin-grapes

  From Psithian vine, and with its bitter smell

  Centaury, and the famed Cecropian thyme.

  There is a meadow-flower by country folk

  Hight star-wort; ’tis a plant not far to seek;

  For from one sod an ample growth it rears,

  Itself all golden, but girt with plenteous leaves,

  Where glory of purple shines through violet gloom.

  With chaplets woven hereof full oft are decked

  Heaven’s altars: harsh its taste upon the tongue;

  Shepherds in vales smooth-shorn of nibbling flocks

  By Mella’s winding waters gather it.

  The roots of this, well seethed in fragrant wine,

  Set in brimmed baskets at their doors for food.

  But if one’s whole stock fail him at a stroke,

  Nor hath he whence to breed the race anew,

  ’Tis time the wondrous secret to disclose

  Taught by the swain of Arcady, even how

  The blood of slaughtered bullocks oft has borne

  Bees from corruption. I will trace me back

  To its prime source the story’s tangled thread,

  And thence unravel. For where thy happy folk,

  Canopus, city of Pellaean fame,

  Dwell by the Nile’s lagoon-like overflow,

  And high o’er furrows they have called their own

  Skim in their painted wherries; where, hard by,

  The quivered Persian presses, and that flood

  Which from the swart-skinned Aethiop bears him down,

  Swift-parted into sevenfold branching mouths

  With black mud fattens and makes Aegypt green,

  That whole domain its welfare’s hope secure

  Rests on this art alone. And first is chosen

  A strait recess, cramped closer to this end,

  Which next with narrow roof of tiles atop

  ‘Twixt prisoning walls they pinch, and add hereto

  From the four winds four slanting window-slits.

  Then seek they from the herd a steer, whose horns

  With two years’ growth are curling, and stop fast,

  Plunge madly as he may, the panting mouth

  And nostrils twain, and done with blows to death,

  Batter his flesh to pulp i’ the hide yet whole,

  And shut the doors, and leave him there to lie.

  But ‘neath his ribs they scatter broken boughs,

  With thyme and fresh-pulled cassias: this is done

  When first the west winds bid the waters flow,

  Ere flush the meadows with new tints, and ere

  The twittering swallow buildeth from the beams.

  Meanwhile the juice within his softened bones

  Heats and ferments, and things of wondrous birth,

  Footless at first, anon with feet and wings,

  Swarm there and buzz, a marvel to behold;

  And more and more the fleeting breeze they take,

  Till, like a shower that pours from summer-clouds,

  Forth burst they, or like shafts from quivering string

  When Parthia’s flying hosts provoke the fray.

  Say what was he, what God, that fashioned forth

  This art for us, O Muses? of man’s skill

  Whence came the new adventure? From thy vale,

  Peneian Tempe, turning, bee-bereft,

  So runs the tale, by famine and disease,

  Mournful the shepherd Aristaeus stood

  Fast by the haunted river-head, and thus

  With many a plaint to her that bare him cried:

  “Mother, Cyrene, mother, who hast thy home

  Beneath this whirling flood, if he thou sayest,

  Apollo, lord of Thymbra, be my sire,

  Sprung from the Gods’ high line, why barest thou me

  With fortune’s ban for birthright? Where is now

  Thy love to me-ward banished from thy breast?

  O! wherefore didst thou bid me hope for heaven?

  Lo! even the crown of this poor mortal life,

  Which all my skilful care by field and fold,

  No art neglected, scarce had fashioned forth,

  Even this falls from me, yet thou call’st me son.

  Nay, then, arise! With thine own hands pluck up

  My fruit-plantations: on the homestead fling

  Pitiless fire; make havoc of my crops;

  Burn the young plants, and wield the stubborn axe

  Against my vines, if there hath taken the

  Such loathing of my greatness.” But that cry,

  Even from her chamber in the river-deeps,

  His mother heard: around her spun the nymphs

  Milesian wool stained through with hyaline dye,

  Drymo, Xantho, Ligea, Phyllodoce,

  Their glossy locks o’er snowy shoulders shed,

  Cydippe and Lycorias yellow-haired,

  A maiden one, one newly learned even then

  To bear Lucina’s birth-pang. Clio, too,

  And Beroe, sisters, ocean-children both,

  Both zoned with gold and girt with dappled fell,

  Ephyre and Opis, and from Asian meads

  Deiopea, and, bow at length laid by,

  Fleet-footed Arethusa. But in their midst

  Fair Clymene was telling o’er the tale

  Of Vulcan’s idle vigilance and the stealth

  Of Mars’ sweet rapine, and from Chaos old

  Counted the jostling love-joys of the Gods.

  Charmed by whose lay, the while their woolly tasks

  With spindles down they drew, yet once again

  Smote on his mother’s ears the mournful plaint

  Of Aristaeus; on their glassy thrones

  Amazement held them all; but Arethuse

  Before the rest put forth her auburn head,

  Peering above the wave-top, and from far

  Exclaimed, “Cyrene, sister, not for naught

  Scared by a groan so deep, behold! ’tis he,

  Even Aristaeus, thy heart’s fondest care,

  Here by the brink of the Peneian sire

  Stands woebegone and weeping, and by name

  Cries out upon thee for thy cruelty.”

  To whom, strange terror knocking at her heart,

  “Bring, bring him to our sight,” the mother cried;

  “His feet may tread the threshold even of Gods.”

  So saying, she bids the flood yawn wide and yield

  A pathway for his footsteps; but the wave

  Arched mountain-wise closed round him, and within

  Its mighty bosom welcomed, and let speed

  To the deep river-bed. And now, with eyes

  Of wonder gazing on his mother’s hall

  And watery kingdom and cave-prisoned pools

  And echo
ing groves, he went, and, stunned by that

  Stupendous whirl of waters, separate saw

  All streams beneath the mighty earth that glide,

  Phasis and Lycus, and that fountain-head

  Whence first the deep Enipeus leaps to light,

  Whence father Tiber, and whence Anio’s flood,

  And Hypanis that roars amid his rocks,

  And Mysian Caicus, and, bull-browed

  ‘Twixt either gilded horn, Eridanus,

  Than whom none other through the laughing plains

  More furious pours into the purple sea.

  Soon as the chamber’s hanging roof of stone

  Was gained, and now Cyrene from her son

  Had heard his idle weeping, in due course

  Clear water for his hands the sisters bring,

  With napkins of shorn pile, while others heap

  The board with dainties, and set on afresh

  The brimming goblets; with Panchaian fires

  Upleap the altars; then the mother spake,

  “Take beakers of Maconian wine,” she said,

  “Pour we to Ocean.” Ocean, sire of all,

  She worships, and the sister-nymphs who guard

  The hundred forests and the hundred streams;

  Thrice Vesta’s fire with nectar clear she dashed,

  Thrice to the roof-top shot the flame and shone:

  Armed with which omen she essayed to speak:

  “In Neptune’s gulf Carpathian dwells a seer,

  Caerulean Proteus, he who metes the main

  With fish-drawn chariot of two-footed steeds;

  Now visits he his native home once more,

  Pallene and the Emathian ports; to him

  We nymphs do reverence, ay, and Nereus old;

  For all things knows the seer, both those which are

  And have been, or which time hath yet to bring;

  So willed it Neptune, whose portentous flocks,

  And loathly sea-calves ‘neath the surge he feeds.

  Him first, my son, behoves thee seize and bind

  That he may all the cause of sickness show,

  And grant a prosperous end. For save by force

  No rede will he vouchsafe, nor shalt thou bend

  His soul by praying; whom once made captive, ply

  With rigorous force and fetters; against these

  His wiles will break and spend themselves in vain.

  I, when the sun has lit his noontide fires,

  When the blades thirst, and cattle love the shade,

  Myself will guide thee to the old man’s haunt,

  Whither he hies him weary from the waves,

  That thou mayst safelier steal upon his sleep.

  But when thou hast gripped him fast with hand and gyve,

  Then divers forms and bestial semblances

  Shall mock thy grasp; for sudden he will change

  To bristly boar, fell tigress, dragon scaled,

  And tawny-tufted lioness, or send forth

  A crackling sound of fire, and so shake of

  The fetters, or in showery drops anon

  Dissolve and vanish. But the more he shifts

  His endless transformations, thou, my son,

  More straitlier clench the clinging bands, until

  His body’s shape return to that thou sawest,

  When with closed eyelids first he sank to sleep.”

  So saying, an odour of ambrosial dew

  She sheds around, and all his frame therewith

  Steeps throughly; forth from his trim-combed locks

  Breathed effluence sweet, and a lithe vigour leapt

  Into his limbs. There is a cavern vast

  Scooped in the mountain-side, where wave on wave

  By the wind’s stress is driven, and breaks far up

  Its inmost creeks- safe anchorage from of old

  For tempest-taken mariners: therewithin,

  Behind a rock’s huge barrier, Proteus hides.

  Here in close covert out of the sun’s eye

  The youth she places, and herself the while

  Swathed in a shadowy mist stands far aloof.

  And now the ravening dog-star that burns up

  The thirsty Indians blazed in heaven; his course

  The fiery sun had half devoured: the blades

  Were parched, and the void streams with droughty jaws

  Baked to their mud-beds by the scorching ray,

  When Proteus seeking his accustomed cave

  Strode from the billows: round him frolicking

  The watery folk that people the waste sea

  Sprinkled the bitter brine-dew far and wide.

  Along the shore in scattered groups to feed

  The sea-calves stretch them: while the seer himself,

  Like herdsman on the hills when evening bids

  The steers from pasture to their stall repair,

  And the lambs’ bleating whets the listening wolves,

  Sits midmost on the rock and tells his tale.

  But Aristaeus, the foe within his clutch,

  Scarce suffering him compose his aged limbs,

  With a great cry leapt on him, and ere he rose

  Forestalled him with the fetters; he nathless,

  All unforgetful of his ancient craft,

  Transforms himself to every wondrous thing,

  Fire and a fearful beast, and flowing stream.

  But when no trickery found a path for flight,

  Baffled at length, to his own shape returned,

  With human lips he spake, “Who bade thee, then,

  So reckless in youth’s hardihood, affront

  Our portals? or what wouldst thou hence?”- But he,

  “Proteus, thou knowest, of thine own heart thou knowest;

  For thee there is no cheating, but cease thou

  To practise upon me: at heaven’s behest

  I for my fainting fortunes hither come

  An oracle to ask thee.” There he ceased.

  Whereat the seer, by stubborn force constrained,

  Shot forth the grey light of his gleaming eyes

  Upon him, and with fiercely gnashing teeth

  Unlocks his lips to spell the fates of heaven:

  “Doubt not ’tis wrath divine that plagues thee thus,

  Nor light the debt thou payest; ’tis Orpheus’ self,

  Orpheus unhappy by no fault of his,

  So fates prevent not, fans thy penal fires,

  Yet madly raging for his ravished bride.

  She in her haste to shun thy hot pursuit

  Along the stream, saw not the coming death,

  Where at her feet kept ward upon the bank

  In the tall grass a monstrous water-snake.

  But with their cries the Dryad-band her peers

  Filled up the mountains to their proudest peaks:

  Wailed for her fate the heights of Rhodope,

  And tall Pangaea, and, beloved of Mars,

  The land that bowed to Rhesus, Thrace no less

  With Hebrus’ stream; and Orithyia wept,

  Daughter of Acte old. But Orpheus’ self,

  Soothing his love-pain with the hollow shell,

  Thee his sweet wife on the lone shore alone,

  Thee when day dawned and when it died he sang.

  Nay to the jaws of Taenarus too he came,

  Of Dis the infernal palace, and the grove

  Grim with a horror of great darkness- came,

  Entered, and faced the Manes and the King

  Of terrors, the stone heart no prayer can tame.

  Then from the deepest deeps of Erebus,

  Wrung by his minstrelsy, the hollow shades

  Came trooping, ghostly semblances of forms

  Lost to the light, as birds by myriads hie

  To greenwood boughs for cover, when twilight-hour

  Or storms of winter chase them from the hills;

  Matrons and men, and great heroic frames

 
; Done with life’s service, boys, unwedded girls,

  Youths placed on pyre before their fathers’ eyes.

  Round them, with black slime choked and hideous weed,

  Cocytus winds; there lies the unlovely swamp

  Of dull dead water, and, to pen them fast,

  Styx with her ninefold barrier poured between.

  Nay, even the deep Tartarean Halls of death

  Stood lost in wonderment, and the Eumenides,

  Their brows with livid locks of serpents twined;

  Even Cerberus held his triple jaws agape,

  And, the wind hushed, Ixion’s wheel stood still.

  And now with homeward footstep he had passed

  All perils scathless, and, at length restored,

  Eurydice to realms of upper air

  Had well-nigh won, behind him following-

  So Proserpine had ruled it- when his heart

  A sudden mad desire surprised and seized-

  Meet fault to be forgiven, might Hell forgive.

  For at the very threshold of the day,

  Heedless, alas! and vanquished of resolve,

  He stopped, turned, looked upon Eurydice

  His own once more. But even with the look,

  Poured out was all his labour, broken the bond

  Of that fell tyrant, and a crash was heard

  Three times like thunder in the meres of hell.

  ‘Orpheus! what ruin hath thy frenzy wrought

  On me, alas! and thee? Lo! once again

  The unpitying fates recall me, and dark sleep

  Closes my swimming eyes. And now farewell:

  Girt with enormous night I am borne away,

  Outstretching toward thee, thine, alas! no more,

  These helpless hands.’ She spake, and suddenly,

  Like smoke dissolving into empty air,

  Passed and was sundered from his sight; nor him

  Clutching vain shadows, yearning sore to speak,

  Thenceforth beheld she, nor no second time

  Hell’s boatman brooks he pass the watery bar.

  What should he do? fly whither, twice bereaved?

  Move with what tears the Manes, with what voice

  The Powers of darkness? She indeed even now

  Death-cold was floating on the Stygian barge!

  For seven whole months unceasingly, men say,

  Beneath a skyey crag, by thy lone wave,

  Strymon, he wept, and in the caverns chill

  Unrolled his story, melting tigers’ hearts,

  And leading with his lay the oaks along.

  As in the poplar-shade a nightingale

  Mourns her lost young, which some relentless swain,

  Spying, from the nest has torn unfledged, but she

  Wails the long night, and perched upon a spray

  With sad insistence pipes her dolorous strain,

  Till all the region with her wrongs o’erflows.