'Ulysses, taught by labours to be wise,
Let this short memory of grief suffice.
To me are known the various woes ye bore,
In storms by sea, in perils on the shore;
Forget whatever was in Fortune's power,
And share the pleasures of this genial hour.
Such be your minds as ere ye left your coast,
Or learn'd to sorrow for a country lost.
Exiles and wanderers now, where'er ye go
Too faithful memory renews your wo:
The cause removed, habitual griefs remain,
And the soul saddens by the use of pain.'
"Her kind entreaty moved the general breast; Tired with long toil, we willing sunk to rest. We plied the banquet, and the bowl we crown'd, Till the full circle of the year came round. But when the seasons, following in their train, Brought back the months, the days, and hours
As from a lethargy at once they rise,
And urge their chief with animating cries:
"Is this, Ulysses, our inglorious lot?
And is the name of Ithaca forgot?
Shall never the dear land in prospect rise,
Or the loved palace glitter in our eyes?'
"Melting I heard; yet till the sun's decline
Prolong'd the feast and quaff'd the rosy wine:
But when the shades came on at evening hour,
And all lay slumbering in the dusky bower,
I came a suppliant to fair Circe's bed,
The tender moment seiz'd, and thus I said:
'Be mindful, goddess, of thy promise made;
Must sad Ulysses ever be delay'd?
Around their lord my sad companions mourn,
Each breast beats homeward, anxious to return :
If but a moment parted from thy eyes,
Their tears flow round me, and my heart complies.' "Go then,' she cried, 'ah go! yet think, not I, Not Circe, but the fates, your wish deny.
Ah hope not yet to breathe thy native air!
Far other journey first demands thy care;
To tread the uncomfortable paths beneath,
And view the realms of darkness and of death.
There seek the Theban bard, deprived of sight;
Within, irradiate with prophetic light;
To whom Persephone, entire and whole,
Gave to retain the unseparated soul;
The rest are forms, of empty ether made ;
Impassive semblance, and a flitting shade.'
Struck at the word, my very heart was dead; Pensive I sat; my tears bedew'd the bed; To hate the light and life my soul begun, And saw that all was grief beneath the sun. Composed at length, the gushing tears suppress'd, And my toss'd limbs now wearied into rest, 'How shall I tread,' I cried, 'ah Circe! say, The dark descent, and who shall guide the way? 595 Can living eyes behold the realms below?
What bark to waft me, and what wind to blow?'
"Thy fated road,' the magic power replied,
'Divine Ulysses! asks no mortal guide.
Rear but the mast, the spacious sail display,
The northern winds shall wing thee on thy way.
Soon shalt thou reach old ocean's utmost ends,
Where to the main the shelving shore descends;
The barren trees of Proserpine's black woods,
Poplars and willows trembling o'er the floods: 605
There fix thy vessel in the lonely bay,
And enter there the kingdoms void of day :
Where Phlegethon's loud torrents, rushing down, Hiss in the flaming gulf of Acheron;
And where, slow rolling from the Stygian bed, 610
Cocytus' lamentable waters spread:
Where the dark rock o'erhangs the infernal lake,
And mingling streams eternal murmurs make.
First draw thy falchion, and on every side
Trench the black earth a cubit long and wide: 615
To all the shades around libations pour,
And o'er the ingredients strew the hallow'd flour :
New wine and milk, with honey temper'd, bring;
And living water from the crystal spring.
Then the wan shades and feeble ghosts implore, 620
With promised offerings on thy native shore;
A barren cow, the stateliest of the isle,
And, heap'd with various wealth, a blazing pile :
These to the rest; but to the seer must bleed
A sable ram, the pride of all thy breed.
These solemn vows and holy offerings paid
To all the phantom nations of the dead;
Be next thy care the sable sheep to place
Full o'er the pit, and hellward turn their face:
But from the infernal rite thine eye withdraw,
And back to ocean glance with reverend awe.
Sudden shall skim along the dusky glades
Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades.
Then give command the sacrifice to haste,
Let the flay'd victims in the flame be cast,
And sacred vows and mystic song applied
To grisly Pluto and his gloomy bride.
Wide o'er the pool thy falchion waved around
Shall drive the spectres from forbidden ground:
The sacred draught shall all the dead forbear,
Till awful from the shades arise the seer.
Let him, oraculous, the end, the way,
The turns of all thy future fate display,
Thy pilgrimage to come, and remnant of thy day.' "So speaking, from the ruddy orient shone
The morn, conspicuous on her golden throne.
The goddess with a radiant tunic dress'd
My limbs, and o'er me cast a silken vest.
Long flowing robes, of purest white, array
The nymph, that added lustre to the day:
A tiar wreath'd her head with many a fold;
Her waist was circled with a zone of gold.
Forth issuing then, from place to place I flew ;
Rouse man by man, and animate my crew.
'Rise, rise, my mates! 'tis Circe gives command: Our journey calls us; haste, and quit the land.' 656 All rise and follow, yet depart not all,
For fate decreed one wretched man to fall.
“A youth there was, Elpenor was he named,
Not much for sense, nor much for courage famed :
The youngest of our band, a vulgar soul,
Born but to banquet, and to drain the bowl.
He, hot and careless, on a turret's height
With sleep repair'd the long debauch of night:
The sudden tumult stirr'd him where he lay,
And down he hasten'd, but forgot the way;
Full endlong from the roof the sleeper fell,
And snapp'd the spinal joint, and waked in hell.
"The rest crowd round me with an eager look;
I met them with a sigh, and thus bespoke :
'Already, friends! ye think your toils are o'er,
Your hopes already touch your native shore :
Alas! far otherwise the nymph declares,
Far other journey first demands our cares;
To tread the uncomfortable paths beneath,
The dreary realms of darkness and of death;
To seek Tiresias' awful shade below,
And thence our fortunes and our fates to know.'
"My sad companions heard in deep despair;
Frantic they tore their manly growth of hair;
To earth they fell: the tears began to rain;
But tears in mortal miseries are vain.
Sadly they fared along the seabeat shore;
Still heaved their hearts, and still their eyes ran
The ready victims at our bark we found,
The sable ewe and ram togther bound.
For swift as thought the goddess had been there,
And thence had glided, viewless as the air:
The paths of gods what mortal can survey?
Who eyes their motion! who shall trace their way?
ULYSSES Continues his narration-How he arrived at the land of the Cimmerians, and what ceremonies he performed to invoke the dead-The manner of his descent, and the apparition of the shades: his conversation with Elpenor, and with Tiresias, who informs him in a prophetic manner of his fortunes to come-He meets his mother Anticlea, from whom he learns the state of his family-He sees the shades of the ancient heroines, afterward of the heroes, and converses in particular with Agamemnon and Achilles -Ajax keeps at a sullen distance, and disdains to answer him-He then beholds Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, Hercules; till he deterred from further curiosity by the apparition of horrid spectres, and the cries of the wicked in torments.
"Now to the shores we bend, a mournful train,
Climb the tall bark, and launch into the main:
At once the mast we rear, at once unbind
The spacious sheet, and stretch it to the wind:
Then pale and pensive stand, with cares oppress'd,
And solemn horror saddens every breast.
A freshening breeze the magic power supplied,
While the wing'd vessel flew along the tide;
Our oars we shipp'd: all day the swelling sails
Full from the guiding pilot catch'd the gales.
"Now sunk the sun from his aerial height, And o'er the shaded billows rush'd the night: When, lo! we reach'd old ocean's utmost bounds, Where rocks control his waves with ever-during mounds.
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