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

by Homer

Th’ audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew:

  He wav’d a torch aloft, and, madly vain,

  Sought godlike worship from a servile train.

  Ambitious fool! with horny hoofs to pass

  O’er hollow arches of resounding brass,

  To rival thunder in its rapid course,

  And imitate inimitable force!

  But he, the King of Heav’n, obscure on high,

  Bar’d his red arm, and, launching from the sky

  His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,

  Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook.

  There Tityus was to see, who took his birth

  From heav’n, his nursing from the foodful earth.

  Here his gigantic limbs, with large embrace,

  Infold nine acres of infernal space.

  A rav’nous vulture, in his open’d side,

  Her crooked beak and cruel talons tried;

  Still for the growing liver digg’d his breast;

  The growing liver still supplied the feast;

  Still are his entrails fruitful to their pains:

  Th’ immortal hunger lasts, th’ immortal food remains.

  Ixion and Perithous I could name,

  And more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame.

  High o’er their heads a mold’ring rock is plac’d,

  That promises a fall, and shakes at ev’ry blast.

  They lie below, on golden beds display’d;

  And genial feasts with regal pomp are made.

  The Queen of Furies by their sides is set,

  And snatches from their mouths th’ untasted meat,

  Which if they touch, her hissing snakes she rears,

  Tossing her torch, and thund’ring in their ears.

  Then they, who brothers’ better claim disown,

  Expel their parents, and usurp the throne;

  Defraud their clients, and, to lucre sold,

  Sit brooding on unprofitable gold;

  Who dare not give, and ev’n refuse to lend

  To their poor kindred, or a wanting friend.

  Vast is the throng of these; nor less the train

  Of lustful youths, for foul adult’ry slain:

  Hosts of deserters, who their honor sold,

  And basely broke their faith for bribes of gold.

  All these within the dungeon’s depth remain,

  Despairing pardon, and expecting pain.

  Ask not what pains; nor farther seek to know

  Their process, or the forms of law below.

  Some roll a weighty stone; some, laid along,

  And bound with burning wires, on spokes of wheels are hung

  Unhappy Theseus, doom’d for ever there,

  Is fix’d by fate on his eternal chair;

  And wretched Phlegyas warns the world with cries

  (Could warning make the world more just or wise):

  ‘Learn righteousness, and dread th’ avenging deities.’

  To tyrants others have their country sold,

  Imposing foreign lords, for foreign gold;

  Some have old laws repeal’d, new statutes made,

  Not as the people pleas’d, but as they paid;

  With incest some their daughters’ bed profan’d:

  All dar’d the worst of ills, and, what they dar’d, attain’d.

  Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,

  And throats of brass, inspir’d with iron lungs,

  I could not half those horrid crimes repeat,

  Nor half the punishments those crimes have met.

  But let us haste our voyage to pursue:

  The walls of Pluto’s palace are in view;

  The gate, and iron arch above it, stands

  On anvils labor’d by the Cyclops’ hands.

  Before our farther way the Fates allow,

  Here must we fix on high the golden bough.”

  She said: and thro’ the gloomy shades they pass’d,

  And chose the middle path. Arriv’d at last,

  The prince with living water sprinkled o’er

  His limbs and body; then approach’d the door,

  Possess’d the porch, and on the front above

  He fix’d the fatal bough requir’d by Pluto’s love.

  These holy rites perform’d, they took their way

  Where long extended plains of pleasure lay:

  The verdant fields with those of heav’n may vie,

  With ether vested, and a purple sky;

  The blissful seats of happy souls below.

  Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know;

  Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,

  And on the green contend the wrestler’s prize.

  Some in heroic verse divinely sing;

  Others in artful measures led the ring.

  The Thracian bard, surrounded by the rest,

  There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest;

  His flying fingers, and harmonious quill,

  Strikes sev’n distinguish’d notes, and sev’n at once they fill.

  Here found they Teucer’s old heroic race,

  Born better times and happier years to grace.

  Assaracus and Ilus here enjoy

  Perpetual fame, with him who founded Troy.

  The chief beheld their chariots from afar,

  Their shining arms, and coursers train’d to war:

  Their lances fix’d in earth, their steeds around,

  Free from their harness, graze the flow’ry ground.

  The love of horses which they had, alive,

  And care of chariots, after death survive.

  Some cheerful souls were feasting on the plain;

  Some did the song, and some the choir maintain,

  Beneath a laurel shade, where mighty Po

  Mounts up to woods above, and hides his head below.

  Here patriots live, who, for their country’s good,

  In fighting fields, were prodigal of blood:

  Priests of unblemish’d lives here make abode,

  And poets worthy their inspiring god;

  And searching wits, of more mechanic parts,

  Who grac’d their age with new-invented arts:

  Those who to worth their bounty did extend,

  And those who knew that bounty to commend.

  The heads of these with holy fillets bound,

  And all their temples were with garlands crown’d.

  To these the Sibyl thus her speech address’d,

  And first to him surrounded by the rest

  (Tow’ring his height, and ample was his breast):

  “Say, happy souls, divine Musaeus, say,

  Where lives Anchises, and where lies our way

  To find the hero, for whose only sake

  We sought the dark abodes, and cross’d the bitter lake?”

  To this the sacred poet thus replied:

  “In no fix’d place the happy souls reside.

  In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,

  By crystal streams, that murmur thro’ the meads:

  But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;

  The path conducts you to your journey’s end.”

  This said, he led them up the mountain’s brow,

  And shews them all the shining fields below.

  They wind the hill, and thro’ the blissful meadows go.

  But old Anchises, in a flow’ry vale,

  Review’d his muster’d race, and took the tale:

  Those happy spirits, which, ordain’d by fate,

  For future beings and new bodies wait-

  With studious thought observ’d th’ illustrious throng,

  In nature’s order as they pass’d along:

  Their names, their fates, their conduct, and their care,

  In peaceful senates and successful war.

  He, when Aeneas on the plain appears,

  Meets him with open arms, and falling tears.

  “Welcome,” he said, “t
he gods’ undoubted race!

  O long expected to my dear embrace!

  Once more ‘t is giv’n me to behold your face!

  The love and pious duty which you pay

  Have pass’d the perils of so hard a way.

  ‘T is true, computing times, I now believ’d

  The happy day approach’d; nor are my hopes deceiv’d.

  What length of lands, what oceans have you pass’d;

  What storms sustain’d, and on what shores been cast?

  How have I fear’d your fate! but fear’d it most,

  When love assail’d you, on the Libyan coast.”

  To this, the filial duty thus replies:

  “Your sacred ghost before my sleeping eyes

  Appear’d, and often urg’d this painful enterprise.

  After long tossing on the Tyrrhene sea,

  My navy rides at anchor in the bay.

  But reach your hand, O parent shade, nor shun

  The dear embraces of your longing son!”

  He said; and falling tears his face bedew:

  Then thrice around his neck his arms he threw;

  And thrice the flitting shadow slipp’d away,

  Like winds, or empty dreams that fly the day.

  Now, in a secret vale, the Trojan sees

  A sep’rate grove, thro’ which a gentle breeze

  Plays with a passing breath, and whispers thro’ the trees;

  And, just before the confines of the wood,

  The gliding Lethe leads her silent flood.

  About the boughs an airy nation flew,

  Thick as the humming bees, that hunt the golden dew;

  In summer’s heat on tops of lilies feed,

  And creep within their bells, to suck the balmy seed:

  The winged army roams the fields around;

  The rivers and the rocks remurmur to the sound.

  Aeneas wond’ring stood, then ask’d the cause

  Which to the stream the crowding people draws.

  Then thus the sire: “The souls that throng the flood

  Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow’d:

  In Lethe’s lake they long oblivion taste,

  Of future life secure, forgetful of the past.

  Long has my soul desir’d this time and place,

  To set before your sight your glorious race,

  That this presaging joy may fire your mind

  To seek the shores by destiny design’d.”-

  “O father, can it be, that souls sublime

  Return to visit our terrestrial clime,

  And that the gen’rous mind, releas’d by death,

  Can covet lazy limbs and mortal breath?”

  Anchises then, in order, thus begun

  To clear those wonders to his godlike son:

  “Know, first, that heav’n, and earth’s compacted frame,

  And flowing waters, and the starry flame,

  And both the radiant lights, one common soul

  Inspires and feeds, and animates the whole.

  This active mind, infus’d thro’ all the space,

  Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.

  Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,

  And birds of air, and monsters of the main.

  Th’ ethereal vigor is in all the same,

  And every soul is fill’d with equal flame;

  As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay

  Of mortal members, subject to decay,

  Blunt not the beams of heav’n and edge of day.

  From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,

  Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,

  And grief, and joy; nor can the groveling mind,

  In the dark dungeon of the limbs confin’d,

  Assert the native skies, or own its heav’nly kind:

  Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;

  But long-contracted filth ev’n in the soul remains.

  The relics of inveterate vice they wear,

  And spots of sin obscene in ev’ry face appear.

  For this are various penances enjoin’d;

  And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,

  Some plung’d in waters, others purg’d in fires,

  Till all the dregs are drain’d, and all the rust expires.

  All have their manes, and those manes bear:

  The few, so cleans’d, to these abodes repair,

  And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.

  Then are they happy, when by length of time

  The scurf is worn away of each committed crime;

  No speck is left of their habitual stains,

  But the pure ether of the soul remains.

  But, when a thousand rolling years are past,

  (So long their punishments and penance last,)

  Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,

  Compell’d to drink the deep Lethaean flood,

  In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares

  Of their past labors, and their irksome years,

  That, unrememb’ring of its former pain,

  The soul may suffer mortal flesh again.”

  Thus having said, the father spirit leads

  The priestess and his son thro’ swarms of shades,

  And takes a rising ground, from thence to see

  The long procession of his progeny.

  “Survey,” pursued the sire, “this airy throng,

  As, offer’d to thy view, they pass along.

  These are th’ Italian names, which fate will join

  With ours, and graff upon the Trojan line.

  Observe the youth who first appears in sight,

  And holds the nearest station to the light,

  Already seems to snuff the vital air,

  And leans just forward, on a shining spear:

  Silvius is he, thy last-begotten race,

  But first in order sent, to fill thy place;

  An Alban name, but mix’d with Dardan blood,

  Born in the covert of a shady wood:

  Him fair Lavinia, thy surviving wife,

  Shall breed in groves, to lead a solitary life.

  In Alba he shall fix his royal seat,

  And, born a king, a race of kings beget.

  Then Procas, honor of the Trojan name,

  Capys, and Numitor, of endless fame.

  A second Silvius after these appears;

  Silvius Aeneas, for thy name he bears;

  For arms and justice equally renown’d,

  Who, late restor’d, in Alba shall be crown’d.

  How great they look! how vig’rously they wield

  Their weighty lances, and sustain the shield!

  But they, who crown’d with oaken wreaths appear,

  Shall Gabian walls and strong Fidena rear;

  Nomentum, Bola, with Pometia, found;

  And raise Collatian tow’rs on rocky ground.

  All these shall then be towns of mighty fame,

  Tho’ now they lie obscure, and lands without a name.

  See Romulus the great, born to restore

  The crown that once his injur’d grandsire wore.

  This prince a priestess of your blood shall bear,

  And like his sire in arms he shall appear.

  Two rising crests, his royal head adorn;

  Born from a god, himself to godhead born:

  His sire already signs him for the skies,

  And marks the seat amidst the deities.

  Auspicious chief! thy race, in times to come,

  Shall spread the conquests of imperial Rome-

  Rome, whose ascending tow’rs shall heav’n invade,

  Involving earth and ocean in her shade;

  High as the Mother of the Gods in place,

  And proud, like her, of an immortal race.

  Then, when in pomp she makes the Phrygian round,

  With golden turrets on her temples crown’d;

  A hund
red gods her sweeping train supply;

  Her offspring all, and all command the sky.

  “Now fix your sight, and stand intent, to see

  Your Roman race, and Julian progeny.

  The mighty Caesar waits his vital hour,

  Impatient for the world, and grasps his promis’d pow’r.

  But next behold the youth of form divine,

  Ceasar himself, exalted in his line;

  Augustus, promis’d oft, and long foretold,

  Sent to the realm that Saturn rul’d of old;

  Born to restore a better age of gold.

  Afric and India shall his pow’r obey;

  He shall extend his propagated sway

  Beyond the solar year, without the starry way,

  Where Atlas turns the rolling heav’ns around,

  And his broad shoulders with their lights are crown’d.

  At his foreseen approach, already quake

  The Caspian kingdoms and Maeotian lake:

  Their seers behold the tempest from afar,

  And threat’ning oracles denounce the war.

  Nile hears him knocking at his sev’nfold gates,

  And seeks his hidden spring, and fears his nephew’s fates.

  Nor Hercules more lands or labors knew,

  Not tho’ the brazen-footed hind he slew,

  Freed Erymanthus from the foaming boar,

  And dipp’d his arrows in Lernaean gore;

  Nor Bacchus, turning from his Indian war,

  By tigers drawn triumphant in his car,

  From Nisus’ top descending on the plains,

  With curling vines around his purple reins.

  And doubt we yet thro’ dangers to pursue

  The paths of honor, and a crown in view?

  But what’s the man, who from afar appears?

  His head with olive crown’d, his hand a censer bears,

  His hoary beard and holy vestments bring

  His lost idea back: I know the Roman king.

  He shall to peaceful Rome new laws ordain,

  Call’d from his mean abode a scepter to sustain.

  Him Tullus next in dignity succeeds,

  An active prince, and prone to martial deeds.

  He shall his troops for fighting fields prepare,

  Disus’d to toils, and triumphs of the war.

  By dint of sword his crown he shall increase,

  And scour his armor from the rust of peace.

  Whom Ancus follows, with a fawning air,

  But vain within, and proudly popular.

  Next view the Tarquin kings, th’ avenging sword

  Of Brutus, justly drawn, and Rome restor’d.

  He first renews the rods and ax severe,

  And gives the consuls royal robes to wear.

  His sons, who seek the tyrant to sustain,