No More Learning

(From the " Epistles " : Pope's translation).
Sat, lovely youth, that doth my heart command, Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand ?
Must then her name the wretched writer prove,
To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love ?
Ask not the cause that I new members choose, The lute neglected, and the Lyric Muse.
Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow, And tuned my heart to elegies of woe.
I burn, I burn, as when through ripened corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne. Phaon to Etna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Etna's fires I No more my soul a charm in music finds,
Music has charms alone for peaceful minds :
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please,
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.
No more the Lesbian dames my passion move, Once the dear objects of my guilty love;
All other loves are lost in only thine,
Ah, youth ungrateful to a flame like mine !
Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise, Those heavenly looks, and dear deluding eyes ?
The harp and bow would you like Phoebus bear,
A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear;
you v. —23
POEMS OF OVID.
Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare :
Yet Phoebus loved, and Bacchus felt the flame,
One Daphne warmed, and one the Cretan dame ; Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me,
Than e'en those gods contend in charms with thee. . . Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame
Inspired young Perseus with a generous flame ; Turtles and doves of different hues unite,
And glossy jet is paired with shining white.
If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign,
But such as merit, such as equal thine,
By none, alas ! by none thou canst be moved :
Phaon alone by Phaon must be loved !
Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ ;
Once in her arms you centered all your joy :
No time the dear remembrance can remove,
For, oh ! how vast a memory has love !
My music, then you could not ever hear,
And all my words were music to your ear.
You stopped with kisses my enchanting tongue,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
In all I pleased, but most in what was best ;
And the last joy was dearer than the rest.
Then with each word, each glance, each motion fired, You still enjoyed, and yet you still desired,
Till all dissolving in the trance we lay,
And in tumultuous raptures died away. . . .
O scarce a youth, yet scarce a tender boy I
O useful time for lovers to employ !
Pride of thy age and glory of thy race,
Come to these arms, and melt in this embrace ! The vows you never will return, receive ;
And take at least the love you will not give.
See, while I write, my words are lost in tears !
The less my sense, the more my love appears.
Sure 'twas not much to bid one kind adieu ;
(At least to feign was never hard to you ! )
" Farewell, my Lesbian love," you might have said ; Or coldly thus, " Farewell, oh Lesbian maid ! "
No tear did you, no parting kiss receive,
Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve.
No lover's gift your Sappho could confer,
And wrongs and woes were all you left with her.
POEMS OF OVID.
No charge I gave you, and no charge could give,
But this, " Be mindful of your loves, and live. "
Now by the Nine, those powers adored by me,
And Love, the god that ever waits on thee,
When first I heard (from whom I hardly knew)
That you were fled, and all my joys with you,
Like some sad statue, speechless, pale I stood,
Grief chilled my breast, and stopped my freezing blood No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow,
Fixed in a stupid lethargy of woe :
But when its way the impetuous passion found, I rend my tresses, and my breast I wound ;
I rave, then weep ;
I curse, and then complain ; Now swell to rage, now melt in tears again ; Not fiercer pangs distract the mournful dame
Whose firstborn infant feeds the funeral flame. . . . Stung with my love, and furious with despair,
All torn my garments, and my bosom bare,
My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim :
Such inconsistent things are love and shame ! 'Tis thou art all my care and my delight,
My daily longing, and my dream by night.
O night, more pleasing than the brightest day, When fancy gives what absence takes away, And dressed in all its visionary charms, Restores my fair deserter to my arms ! . . . But when with day, the sweet delusions fly, And all things wake to life and joy, but I ;
As if once more forsaken, I complain,
And close my eyes to dream of you again.
Laodamia to Protesilaus.
(Translated by Miss E. Garland. )
Ah ! Trojan women (happier far than we), Fain in your lot would I partaker be !
If ye must mourn o'er some dead hero's bier, And all the dangers of the war are near,
With you at least the fair and youthful bride May arm her husband, in becoming pride ;
Lift the fierce helmet to his gallant brow,
And, with a trembling hand, his sword bestow : With fingers all unused the weapon brace,
And gaze with fondest love upon his face !
POEMS OF OVID.
How sweet to both this office she will make — How many a kiss receive — how many take! When all equipped she leads him from the door, Her fond commands how oft repeating o'er : —
" Return victorious, and thine arms enshrine — Return, beloved, to these arms of mine ! "
Nor shall these fond commands be all in vain, Her hero-husband will return again.
Amid the battle's din and clashing swords
He still will listen to her parting words ;
And, if more prudent, still, ah ! not less brave, One thought for her and for his home will save.
The Ring.
(Translated by A. A. Brodribb. )
Sign of my too presumptuous flame, To fairest Celia haste, nor linger,
And may she gladly breathe my name, And gayly put thee on her finger !
Suit her as I myself, that she
May fondle thee with murmured blessing;
Caressed by Celia ! Who could be Unenvious of such sweet caressing ?
Had I Medea's magic art,
Or Proteus' power of transformation,
Then would I blithely play thy part, The happiest trinket in creation !
Oh ! on her bosom I would fall,
Her finger guiding all too lightly ;
Or else be magically small, Fearing to be discarded nightly.
And I her ruby lips would kiss
(What mortal's fortune could be better ? )
As oft allowed to seal my bliss As she desires to seal a letter.
Now go, these are delusions bright Of idle Fancy's idlest scheming ;
Tell her to read the token right —
Tell her how sweet is true love's dreaming.
POEMS OF OVID.
Elegy on Tibullus.
(Translated by Professor J. P. Nichol. )
If bright Aurora mourned for Memnon's fate, Or the fair Thetis wept Achilles slain,
And the sad sorrows that on mortals wait Can ever move celestial hearts with pain —
Come, doleful Elegy ! too just a name ! Unbind thy tresses fair, in loose attire, For he, thy bard, the herald of thy fame,
Tibullus, burns upon the funeral pyre.
Ah, lifeless corse ! Lo ! Venus' boy draws near With upturned quiver and with shattered bow;
His torch extinguished, see him toward the bier With drooping wings disconsolately go.
He smites his heaving breast with cruel blow,
Those straggling locks, his neck all streaming round,
Receive the tears that fastly trickling flow, While sobs convulsive from his lips resound.
In guise like this, lulus, when of yore
His dear ^Eneas died, he sorrowing went ;
Now Venus wails as when the raging boar The tender thigh of her Adonis rent.
We bards are named the gods' peculiar care ; Nay, some declare that poets are divine ;
Yet forward death no holy thing can spare, 'Round all his dismal arms he dares entwine.
Did Orpheus' mother aid, or Linus' sire ? That one subdued fierce lions by his song
Availed not ; and, they say, with plaintive lyre
The god mourned Linus, woods and glades among.
Maeonides, from whose perennial lay
Flow the rich fonts of the Pierian wave
To wet the lips of bards, one dismal day
Sent down to Orcus and the gloomy grave —
Him, too, Avernus holds in drear employ ; Only his songs escape the greedy pile ;
POEMS OF OVID.
His work remains — the mighty wars of Troy, And the slow web, unwove by nightly guile.
Live a pure life ; —yet death remains thy doom : Be pious ; — ere from sacred shrines you rise,
Death drags you heedless to the hollow tomb ! Confide in song — lo ! there Tibullus lies.
Scarce of so great a soul, thus lowly laid, Enough remains to fill this little urn ; O holy bard ! were not the flames afraid
That hallowed corse thus ruthlessly to burn ?
These might devour the heavenly halls that shine With gold —they dare a villany so deep :
She turned who holds the Erycinian shrine,
And there are some who say she turned to weep.
Yet did the base soil of a stranger land
Not hold him nameless ; as the spirit fled
His mother closed his eyes with gentle hand, And paid the last sad tribute to the dead.
Here, with thy wretched mother's woe to wait, Thy sister came with loose dishevelled hair ;
Nemesis kisses thee, and thy earlier mate —
They watched the pyre when all had left it bare.
Departing, Delia faltered, " Thou wert true,
The Fates were cheerful then, when I was thine :
The other, " Say, what hast thou here to do ? " Dying, he clasped his failing hand in mine.
Ah, yet, if any part of us remains
But name and shadow, Albius is not dead ;
And thou, Catullus, in Elysian plains, With Calvus see the ivy crown his head.
Thou, Gallus, prodigal of life and blood, If false the charge of amity betrayed,
And aught remains across the Stygian flood, Shalt meet him yonder with thy happy shade.
Refined Tibullus ! thou art joined to those Living in calm communion with the blest ;
In peaceful urn thy quiet bones repose — May earth lie lightly where thy ashes rest !
THE STORY OF ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA. 359
Acis and Galatea.
(From the " Metamorphoses " : Dryden's translation. )
Acis, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn, From Faunus and the nymph Symethis born, Was both his parents' pleasure ; but to me Was all that love could make a lover be.
The gods our minds in mutual bands did join : I was his only joy, and he was mine.
Now sixteen summers the sweet youth had seen; And doubtful down began to shade his chin: When Polyphemus first disturbed our joy,
I loved the boy.
Ask not which passion in my soul was higher,
And loved me fiercely as
My last aversion, or my first desire :
Nor this the greater was, nor that the less ;
Both were alike, for both were in excess.
Thee, Venus, thee both heaven and earth obey ; Immense thy power, and boundless is thy sway. The Cyclops, who defied th' ethereal throne,
And thought no thunder louder than his own,
The terror of the woods, and wilder far
Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests are,
Th' inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts
On mangled members of his butchered guests,
Yet felt the force of love, and fierce desire,
And burned for me with unrelenting fire :
Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care,
Assumed the softness of a lover's air:
And combed, with teeth of rakes, his rugged hair. Now with a crooked scythe his beard he sleeks, And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks : Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try
His simagres, and rolls his glaring eye.
His cruelty and thirst of blood are lost,
And ships securely sail along the coast.
The prophet Telemus (arrived by chance Where ^Etna's summits to the seas advance, Who marked the tracks of every bird that flew, And sure presages from their flying drew) Foretold the Cyclops, that Ulysses' hand
In his broad eye should thrust a flaming brand. The giant, with a scornful grin, replied,
"Vain augur, thou hast falsely prophesied; Already Love his flaming brand has tossed ; Looking on two fair eyes, my sight I lost. "
360 THE STORY OF ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA.
Thus, warned in vain, with stalking pace he strode, And stamped the margin of the briny flood
With heavy steps ; and, weary, sought again
The cool retirement of his gloomy den.
A promontory, sharpening by degrees,
Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas :
On either side, below, the water flows :
This airy walk the giant lover chose;
Here on the midst he sat; his flocks, unled, Their shepherd followed, and securely fed.
A pine so burly, and of length so vast,
That sailing ships required it for a mast,
He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide :
But laid it by, his whistle while he tried.
A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth,
Scarce made a pipe proportioned to his mouth : Which when he gave it wind, the rocks around, And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound.
I heard the ruffian shepherd rudely blow, Where, in a hollow cave, I sat below;
On Acis' bosom I my head reclined :
And"still preserve the poem in my mind.
0 lovely Galatea, whiter far
Than falling snows, and rising lilies are;
More flowery than the meads; as crystal bright: Erect as alders, and of equal height :
More wanton than a kid; more sleek thy skin
Than orient shells, that on the shores are seen :
Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade; Pleasing as winter suns, or summer shade :
More grateful to the sight than goodly plains;
And softer to the touch than down of swans,
Or curds new turned; and sweeter to the taste
Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste :
More clear than ice, or running streams, that stray Through garden plots, but, ah ! more swift than they.
" Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke
Than bullocks, unreclaimed to bear the yoke : And far more stubborn than the knotted oak : Like sliding streams, impossible to hold;
Like them fallacious; like their fountains, cold: More warping than the willow, to decline
My warm embrace; more brittle than the vine; Immovable, and fixed in thy disdain;
Rough as these rocks, and of a harder grain :
THE STORY OF ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA. 361
More violent than is the rising flood ;
And the praised peacock is not half so proud : Fierce as the fire, and sharp as thistles are ; And more outrageous than a mother bear : Deaf as the billows to the vows I make ;
And more revengeful than a trodden snake : In swiftness fleeter than the flying hind,
Or driven tempests, or the driving wind.
All other faults with patience I can bear;
But swiftness is the vice I only fear.
" Yet, if you knew me well, you would not shun My love, but to my wished embraces run :
Would languish in your turn, and court my stay; And" much repent of your unwise delay.
My palace, in the living rock, is made
By nature's hand; a spacious pleasing shade; Which neither heat can pierce, nor cold invade. My garden filled with fruits you may behold, And grapes in clusters, imitating gold;
Some blushing bunches of a purple hue :
And these, and those, are all reserved for you. Red strawberries in shades expecting stand Proud to be gathered by so white a hand; Autumnal cornels latter fruit provide,
And plums, to tempt you, turn their glossy side : Not those of common kinds ; but such alone,
As in Phaeacian orchards might have grown :
Nor chestnuts shall be wanting to your food,
Nor garden fruits, nor wildings of the wood ;
The laden boughs for you alone shall bear;
And yours shall be the product of the year.
"The flocks, you see, are all my own; beside The rest that woods and winding valleys hide ; And those that folded in the caves abide.
Ask not the numbers of my growing store ;
Who knows how many, knows he has no more. Nor will I praise my cattle; trust not me,
But judge yourself, and pass your own decree : Behold their swelling dugs; the sweepy weight Of ewes, that sink beneath the milky freight;
In the warm folds their tender lambkins lie ; Apart from kids, that call with human cry.
New milk in nut-brown bowls is duly served
For daily drink; the rest for cheese reserved. Nor are these household dainties all my store :
362 THE STORY OF ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA.
The fields and forests will afford us more ;
The deer, the hare, the goat, the savage boar : All sorts of venison; and of birds the best;
A pair of turtles taken from the nest.
I walked the mountains, and two cubs I found, Whose dam had left 'em on the naked ground; So like, that no distinction could be seen;
So pretty, they were presents for a queen;
And so they shall; I took them both away; And"keep, to be companions of your play.
Oh raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face above The waves; nor scorn my presents, and my love. Come, Galatea, come, and view my face;
I late beheld it in the watery glass,
And found it lovelier than I feared it was.
Survey my towering stature, and my size;
Not Jove, the Jove you dream, that rules the skies, Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread:
My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head)
Hang o'er my manly face; and dangling down,
As with a shady grove, my shoulders crown.
Nor think, because my limbs and body bear
A thick-set underwood of bristling hair,
My shape deformed : what fouler sight can be
Than the bald branches of a leafless tree?
Foul is the steed without a flowing mane,
And birds, without their feathers, and their train. Wool decks the sheep; and man receives a grace From bushy limbs, and from a bearded face.
My forehead with a single eye is filled,
Round as a ball, and ample as a shield.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun,
Is nature's eye ; and she's content with one.
Add, that my father sways your seas, and I,
Like you, am of the watery family.
I make you his, in making you my own ;
You I adore, and kneel to you alone :
Jove, with his fabled thunder, I despise,
And only fear the lightning of your eyes.
Frown not, fair nymph ; yet I could bear to be Disdained, if others were disdained with me.
But to repulse the Cyclops, and prefer
The love of Acis, heavens !
But let the stripling please himself; nay more, Please you, though that's the thing I most abhor;
Icannot bear.
THE STORY OF ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA. 363
The boy shall find, if e'er we cope in fight,
These giant limbs endued with giant might.
His living bowels from his belly torn,
And scattered limbs, shall on the flood be borne, Thy flood, ungrateful nymph; and fate shall find That way for thee and Acis to be joined,
I burn with love, and thy disdain Augments at once my passion and my pain. Translated Mtna, flames within my heart, And thou, inhuman, wilt not ease my smart. "
For, oh!
Lamenting thus in vain, he rose, and strode With furious paces to the neighboring wood : Restless his feet, distracted was his walk;
Mad were his motions, and confused his talk. Mad as the vanquished bull, when forced to yield His lovely mistress, and forsake the field.
Thus far unseen I saw : when, fatal chance His looks directing, with a sudden glance,
Acis and I were to his sight betrayed;
Where, naught suspecting, we securely played. From his wide mouth a bellowing cry he cast;
I
A roar so loud made . SCtna to rebound;
And all the Cyclops labored in the sound.
Affrighted with his monstrous voice, I fled,
And in the neighboring ocean plunged my head. Poor Acis turned his back, and, "Help," he said, "Help, Galatea! help, my parent gods, "
And take me dying to your deep abodes !
The Cyclops followed; but he sent before
A rib, which from the living rock he tore :
Though but an angle reached him of the stone,
The mighty fragment was enough alone
To crush all Acis; 'twas too late to save,
But what the Fates allowed to give, I gave :
That Acis to his lineage should return,
And roll, among the river gods, his urn.
Straight issued from the stone a stream of blood; Which lost the purple, mingling with the flood. Then like a troubled torrent it appeared;
The torrent too, in little space, was cleared.
The stone was cleft, and through the yawning chink New reeds arose, on the new river's brink.
The rock, from out its hollow womb, disclosed
A sound like water in its course opposed:
"I see,
see! but this shall be your last. "
364
-ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
When (wondrous to behold) full in the flood
Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood.
Horns from his temples : and either horn
Thick wreaths of reeds (his native growth) adorn. Were not his stature taller than before,
His bulk augmented, and his beauty more, His color blue, for Acis he might pass : And Acis changed into a stream he was. But mine no more, he rolls along the plains With rapid motion, and his name retains.
ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
By VIRGIL.
(Translated by Sir Charles Bowen. )
[Publius Viboilius Maro, the great Roman epic poet, was born near Mantua, b. c. 70, and finely educated. Stripped of his estate in Augustus' con fiscations, he regained it, like Horace, through Maecenas' influence ; became the friend of both, and also of Augustus, with whom he was traveling when he died, b. c. 19. His works are the "Eclogues" or "Bucolics" (only part of them pastorals, however), modeled on Theocritus' idyls; the "Georgics," a poetical treatise on practical agriculture which made farming the fashionable " fad " for a time ; and the "^Eneid," an epic on the adventures of iEueas, the mythical founder of Rome, — imitative of Homer's form and style. ]
[Sir Charles Synge Christopheb Bowen : An English judge and trans lator ; born at Gloucestershire, England, in 1835 ; died April 9, 1894. He was educated at Rugby, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took three of the great university prizes. Called to the bar in 1861, he became judge of the Queen's Bench in 1879, and lord justice in the Court of Appeal in 1882. His literary reputation rests upon a translation into English verse of Virgil's "Eclogues" and the first six books of the "JJneid. "]
Weeping he spake, then gave to his flying vessels the rein, Gliding at last on the wind to Eubœan Cumae's plain.
Seaward the bows are pointed ; an anchor's hook to the land Fastens the ships, and the sterns in a long line border the strand. Troy's young warriors leap with exultant hearts from the bark Forth upon Italy's soil. Some look for the fiery spark
Hid in the secret veins of the flint ; some scour the profound Forest, and wild beast's cover, and show where waters abound. While the devout ^Eneas a temple seeks on the height, Phœbus's mountain throne, and a cavern vast as the night, Where in mysterious darkness the terrible Sibyl lies,
Maiden upon whose spirit the Delian seer of the skies
Breathes his immortal thought, and the knowledge of doom untold. Soon they arrive at Diana's grove and her palace of gold.
. ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES. 365
Flying, as legends tell, from the thraldom of Minos the king, Daedalus, trusting the heavens, set forth on adventurous wing, Sailed for the ice-bound north by a way unimagined and strange ; Airily poising at last upon this Chalcidian range,
Here first touching the land, to Apollo hallowed his light
Oarage of wings ; and a temple colossal built on the site.
Graved on the doors is the death of Androgeos ; yonder in turn Attica's land, condemned each year in atonement to yield
Seven of her children ; the lots are drawn, still standing the urn ; Rising from midmost ocean beyond them, Crete is revealed.
Here is the gloomy romance of the bull, and Pasiphae's blind Fantasy. Here the twiformed Minotaur, two bodies combined, Record of lawless love ; there, marvelous labor, were shaped Palace and winding mazes, from whence no feet had escaped, Had not Daedalus pitied the lorn princess and her love,
And of himself unentangled the woven trick of the grove,
Guiding her savior's steps with a thread. Thee, too, he had wrought, Icarus, into the picture, had grief not baffled the thought.
Twice he essayed upon gold to engrave thine agony, twice
Faltered the hands of the father, and fell. Each noble device
Long their eyes had perused, but Achates now is in sight ;
With him the priestess comes, dread servant of Phoebus and Night, Daughter of Glaucus the seer. To the Trojan monarch she cries :
" 'Tis not an hour, JSneas, for feasting yonder thine eyes.
Better to slaughter from herds unyoked seven oxen and seven
Ewes of the yester year, as a choice oblation to Heaven. "
Then, as the ministers hasten the rites ordained to prepare,
Into the depth of the temple she bids Troy's children repair.
There is a cavern hewn in the mountain's enormous side,
Reached by a hundred gates, and a hundred passages wide.
Thence roll voices a hundred, the seer's revelations divine.
When by the doors they stood : " 'Tis the hour to inquire of the shrine," Cried the illumined maiden : " The God ! lo, here is the God ! " Even as she spake, while still on the threshold only she trod, Sudden her countenance altered, her cheek grew pale as in death, Loose and disordered her fair hair flew, heart panted for breath, Bosom with madness heaved. More lofty than woman's her frame, More than mortal her voice, as the presence of Deity came
Nearer upon her. " And art thou slow to petition the shrine,
Troy's JSneas a laggard at prayer ? — naught else will incline
This charmed temple," she cries, " its colossal doors to unclose. " Then stands silent. The veteran bones of the Teucrians froze, Chilled with terror, and prayer from the heart of the monarch arose : " Phœbus ! compassionate ever to Troy in the hour of her woe,
366 -ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
Who against haughty Achilles of old didst prosper the bow Bent by the Dardan Paris, beneath thine auspices led
Many a sea I have traveled around great continents spread, Far as Massylian tribes and the quicksands lining their plain. Italy's vanishing regions, behold, thy people attain !
Here may the evil fate of the Trojans leave us at last !
Spare, for 'tis mercy's hour, this remnant of Pergama's race,
Gods and goddesses all, whose jealous eyes in the past
Looked upon Ilion's glories ! From thee I implore one grace, Prophet of Heaven, dark seer of the future. Grant us the debt, Long by the destinies owed us — a kingdom promised of yore — Foot upon Latium's borders at length may Teucrians set,
Bearing their household gods by the tempests tossed evermore !
I, their votary grateful, in Phœbus' and Trivia's praise
Hewn from the solid marble a glorious fane will raise,
Call by Apollo's name his festival. Also for thee
Shall in our future kingdom a shrine imperial be.
There shall thine own dark sayings, the mystic fates of our line, Gracious seer, be installed, and a priesthood chosen be thine.
Only intrust not to leaves thy prophecy, maiden divine,
Lest in disorder, the light winds' sport, they be driven on the air ; Chant thyself the prediction. " His lips here ended from prayer.
Still untamed of Apollo, to stature terrible grown,
Raves the prophetic maid in her cavern, fain to dethrone
This great God who inspires her — the more with bit doth he school Fiery mouth and rebellious bosom and mold her to rule.
Wide on a sudden the hundred enormous mouths of her lair
Fly, of themselves unclosing, and answer floats on the air :
" Thou who hast ended at last with the dangers dread of the sea, Greater on land still wait thee. Lavinium's kingdom afar
Teucria's children shall find — of that ancient terror be free —
Yet shall repent to have found it. I see grim visions of war,
Tiber foaming with blood. Once more shall a Simois flow,
Xanthus be there once more, and the tents of a Dorian foe.
Yonder in Latium rises a second Achilles, and born,
Even as the first, of a goddess ; and neither at night nor at morn Ever shall Juno leave thee, the Trojans' enemy sworn,
While thou pleadest for succor, besieging in misery sore
Each far people and city around Ausonia's shore !
So shall a bride from the stranger again thy nation destroy,
Once more foreign espousals a great woe bring upon Troy.
Yield not thou to disasters, confront them boldly, and more
Boldly — as destiny lets thee — and first from a town of the Greek, Marvel to say, shall be shown thee the way salvation to seek. "
ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES. 367
So from her awful shrine the Cumaean Sibyl intones
Fate's revelation dread, till the cavern echoes her groans,
Robing her truths in gloom. So shakes, as she fumes in unrest, Phoebus his bridle reins, while plunging the spur in her breast. After her madness ceased and her lips of frenzy were still,
Thus JSneas replied: "No vision, lady, of ill
Comes unimagined now to the exile here at thy door ;
Each has he counted and traversed already in spirit before.
One sole grace I entreat — since these be the gates, it is said,
Sacred to Death and the twilight lake by the Acheron fed —
Leave to revisit the face of the sire I have loved so well ;
Teach me the way thyself, and unlock yon portals of hell.
This was the sire I bore on my shoulders forth from the flame, Brought through a thousand arrows, that vexed our flight as we came, Safe from the ranks of the foeman. He shared my journey with me ; Weak as he was, braved ocean, the threats of sky and of sea ;
More than the common strength or the common fate of the old.
'Tis at his bidding, his earnest prayer long since, I am fain
Thus in petition to seek thy gate. With compassion behold
Father and son, blest maid, for untold thy power, nor in vain
Over the groves of Avernus hath Hecate set thee to reign.
Grace was to Orpheus granted, his bride from the shadows to bring, Strong in the power of his lyre and its sounding Thracian string. Still in his turn dies Pollux, a brother's life to redeem,
Travels and ever retravels the journey. Why of the great
Theseus tell thee, or why of Alcides mighty relate ?
My race, even as theirs, is descended from Jove the supreme. "
So evermore he repeated, and still to the altar he clung.
She in reply : " Great Hero, of heaven's high lineage sprung,
Son of Anchises of Troy, the descent to Avernus is light ;
Death's dark gates stand open, alike through the day and the night. But to retrace thy steps and emerge to the sunlight above,
This is the toil and the trouble. A few, whom Jupiter's love
Favors, or whose bright valor has raised them thence to the skies, Born of the gods, have succeeded. On this side wilderness lies, Black Cocytus around it his twilight waters entwines.
Still, if such thy desire, and if thus thy spirit inclines
Twice to adventure the Stygian lake, twice look on the dark
Tartarus, and it delights thee on quest so wild to embark,
Learn what first to perform. On a tree no sun that receives
Hides one branch all golden — its yielding stem and its leaves — Sacred esteemed to the queen of the shadows. Forests of night Cover sloping valleys inclose around from the light. Subterranean gloom and its mysteries only may be
Reached by the mortal who gathers the golden growth of the tree.
it,
it
368 AENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
This for her tribute chosen the lovely Proserpina needs
Aye to be brought her. The one bough broken, another succeeds, Also of gold, and the spray bears leaf of a metal as bright.
Deep in the forest explore, and if once thou find it aright,
Pluck it ; the branch will follow, of its own grace and design, Should thy destiny call thee ; or else no labor of thine
Ever will move it, nor ever thy hatchet conquer its might.
Yea, and the corpse of a friend, although thou know'st not," she saith, " Lies upon shore unburied, and taints thy vessels with death,
While thou tarriest here at the gate thy future to know.
Carry him home to his rest, in the grave his body bestow ;
Death's black cattle provide for the altar ; give to the shades
This first lustral oblation, and so on the Stygian glades,
Even on realms where never the feet of the living come,
Thou shalt finally look. " Then, closing her lips, she was dumb.
Sadly, with downcast eyes, ^Eneas turns to depart,
Leaving the cave ; on the issues dark foretold by her words Pondering much in his bosom. Achates, trusty of heart,
Paces beside him, plunged in a musing deep as his lord's. — Many the troubled thoughts that in ranging talk they pursue
Who is the dead companion the priestess spake of, and who Yonder unburied lies ? And advancing thither, they find
High on the beach Misenus, to death untimely consigned, ^Eolus-born Misenus, than whom no trumpeter bright
Blew more bravely for battle, or fired with music the fight ; Comrade of Hector great, who at Hector's side to the war Marched, by his soldier's spear and his trumpet known from afar. After triumphant Achilles his master slew with the sword,
Troy's ^Eneas he followed, a no less glorious lord.
Now while over the deep he was sounding his clarion sweet,
In wild folly defying the Ocean Gods to compete,
Envious Triton, lo ! — if the legend merit belief —
Drowned him, before he was ware, in the foaming waves of a reef. All now, gathered around him, uplift their voices in grief, Foremost the faithful chieftain. Anon to their tasks they hie ; Speed, though weeping sorely, the Sibyl's mission, and vie Building the funeral altar with giant trees to the sky.
Into the forest primeval, the beasts' dark cover, they go;
Pine trees fall with a crash and the holm oaks ring to the blow. Ash-hewn timbers and fissile oaks with the wedges are rent ; Massive ash trees roll from the mountains down the descent. Foremost strides ^Eneas, as ever, guiding the way,
Cheering his men, and equipped with a forester's ax as they.
. ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
369
Long in his own sad thoughts he is plunged — then raising his eyes Over the measureless forest, uplifts his prayer to the skies.
" O that in this great thicket the golden branch of the tree
Might be revealed ! For in all she related yonder of thee
Ever, alas ! Misenus, the prophetess spake too true. "
Lo! at the words twain doves came down through the heavenly blue, And at his side on the green turf lighted. The hero of Troy
Knows the celestial birds of his mother, and cries with joy :
" Guide us, if ever a way be, and cleaving swiftly the skies,
Wing for the grove where in shadow a golden branch overlies
One all-favored spot. Nor do thou in an hour that is dark,
Mother, desert thy son ! " So saying, he pauses to mark
What be the omens, and whither the birds go. They in their flight, Soaring, and lighting to feed, keep still in the Teucrians' sight. When they have come to the valley of baleful Avernus, the pair, Shooting aloft, float up through a bright and radiant air ;
Both on a tree they have chosen at length their pinions fold
Through whose branches of green is a wavering glimmer of gold.
As in the winter forest a mistletoe often ye see
Bearing a foliage young, no growth of its own oak tree,
Circling the rounded boles with a leafage of yellowing bloom ;
Such was the branching gold, as it shone through the holm oak's
gloom,
So in the light wind rustled the foil. iEneas with bold Ardor assails breaks from the tree the reluctant gold; Then to the Sibyl's palace in triumph carries home.
Weeping for dead Misenus the Trojan host on the shore Now to his thankless ashes the funeral offerings bore.
Rich with the resinous pine and in oak-hewn timbers cased Rises giant pyre, in its sides dark foliage laced
Planted in front stand branches of cypress, gifts to the grave Over hang for adornment the gleaming arms of the brave. Some heat fountain water, the bubbling caldron prepare Clay-cold limbs then wash and anoint. Wails sound on the air. Dirge at an end, the departed placed on the funeral bed
O'er him they fling bright raiment, the wonted attire of the dead. Others shoulder the ponderous bier, sad service of death
Some in ancestral fashion the lighted torches beneath
Hold with averted eyes. High blaze on the burning pyre
Incense, funeral viands, and oil outpoured on the fire.
After the ashes have fallen and flames are leaping no more, Wine on the smouldering relics and cinders thirsty they pour. Next in vessel of brass Corynaeus gathers the bones,
Thrice bears pure spring water around Troy's sorrowing sons,
vol. v. — 24
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it a
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;
it
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370 AENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
Sprinkles it o'er them in dew, from the bough of an olive in bloom, Gives lustration to all, then bids farewell to the tomb.
But the devout Mueas a vast grave builds on the shore,
Places upon it the warrior's arms, his trumpet and oar,
Close to the sky-capped hill that from hence Misenus is hight, Keeping through endless ages his glorious memory bright.
Finished the task, to accomplish the Sibyl's behest they sped.
There was a cavern deep, — with a yawning throat and a dread, — Shingly and rough, by a somber lake and a forest of night
Sheltered from all approach. No bird wings safely her flight
Over its face, — from the gorges exhales such poisonous breath, Rising aloft to the skies in a vapor laden with death.
Here four sable oxen the priestess ranges in line ;
Empties on every forehead a brimming beaker of wine ;
Casts on the altar fire, as the first fruits due to the dead,
Hair from between both horns of the victim, plucked from its head ; Loudly on Hecate calls, o'er heaven and the shadows supreme. Others handle the knife, and receive, as it trickles, the stream
Warm from the throat in a bowl. . flCneas with falchion bright
Slays himself one lamb of a sable fleece to the fell
Mother and queen of the Furies, and great Earth, sister of Night, Killing a barren heifer to thee, thou mistress of Hell.
Next for the Stygian monarch a twilight altar he lays ;
Flings on the flames whole bodies of bulls unquartered to blaze, Pours rich oil from above upon entrails burning and bright.
When, at the earliest beam of the sun, and the dawn of the light, Under his feet earth mutters, the mountain forests around
Seem to be trembling, and hell dogs bay from the shadow profound, Night's dark goddess approaching". "
" Avaunt, ye unhallowed, avaunt ! Away from a grove that is Hecate's haunt. Make for the pathway, thou, and unsheath thy sword; thou hast
need, "
Now, ^Eneas, of all thy spirit and valor indeed !
When she had spoken, she plunged in her madness into the cave; Not less swiftly he follows, with feet unswerving and brave.
Gods ! whose realm is the spirit world, mute shadows of might, Chaos, and Phlegethon thou, broad kingdoms of silence and night, Leave vouchsafe me to tell the tradition, grace to exhume
Things in the deep earth hidden and drowned in the hollows of gloom.
So unseen in the darkness they went by night on the road Down the unpeopled kingdom of Death, and his ghostly abode,
Thunders the priestess.
. ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES. 371
As men journey in woods when a doubtful moon has bestowed Little of light, when Jove has concealed in shadow the heaven, When from the world by somber Night Day's colors are driven.
Facing the porch itself, in the jaws of the gate of the dead,
Grief, and Remorse the Avenger, have built their terrible bed. There dwells pale-cheeked Sickness, and Old Age sorrowful-eyed, Fear, and the temptress Famine, and Hideous Want at her side, Grim and tremendous shapes. There Death with Labor is joined, Sleep, half-brother of Death, and the Joys unclean of the mind. Murderous Battle is camped on the threshold. Fronting the door The iron cells of the Furies, and frenzied Strife, evermore Wreathing her serpent tresses with garlands dabbled in gore.
Thick with gloom, an enormous elm in the midst of the way
Spreads its time-worn branches and limbs : false Dreams, we are told, Make their abode thereunder, and nestle to every spray.
Many and various monsters, withal, wild things to behold,
Lie in the gateway stabled — the awful Centaurs of old;
Scyllas with forms half-human ; and there with his hundred hands Dwells Briareus ; and the shapeless Hydra of Lerna's lands, Horribly yelling; in flaming mail the Chimaera arrayed;
Gorgons and Harpies, and one three-bodied and terrible Shade.
Clasping his sword, ^Eneas in sudden panic of fear
Points its blade at the legion ; and had not the Heaven-taught seer Warned him the phantoms are thin apparitions, clothed in a vain Semblance of form, but in substance a fluttering bodiless train, Idly his weapon had slashed the advancing shadows in twain.
Here is the path to the river of Acheron, ever by mud
Clouded, forever seething with wild, insatiate flood
Downward, and into Cocytus disgorging its endless sands.
Sentinel over its waters an awful ferryman stands,
Charon, grisly and rugged ; a growth of centuries lies
Hoary and rough on his chin ; as a flaming furnace his eyes. Hung in a loop from his shoulders a foul scarf round him he ties; Now with his pole impelling the boat, now trimming the sail, Urging his steel-gray bark with its burden of corpses pale,
Aged in years, but a god's old age is unwithered and hale.
Down to the bank of the river the streaming shadows repair, Mothers, and men, and the lifeless bodies of those who were Generous heroes, boys that are beardless, maidens unwed, Youths to the death pile carried before their fathers were dead.
372 ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
Many as forest leaves that in autumn's earliest frost
Flutter and fall, or as birds that in bevies flock to the coast Over the sea's deep hollows, when winter, chilly and frore, Drives them across far waters to land on a sunnier shore. Yonder they stood, each praying for earliest passage, and each Eagerly straining his hands in desire of the opposite beach. Such as he lists to the vessel the boatman gloomy receives, Far from the sands of the river the rest he chases and leaves.
Moved at the wild uproar, Mneas, with riveted eyes :
" Why thus crowd to the water the shadows, priestess ? " he cries ; " What do the spirits desire ? And why go some from the shore Sadly away, while others are ferried the dark stream o'er ? "
Briefly the aged priestess again made answer and spake :
" Son of Anchises, sprung most surely from gods upon high, Yon is the deep Cocytus marsh, and the Stygian lake.
Even the Immortals fear to attest its presence and lie !
These are a multitude helpless, of spirits lacking a grave ; Charon the ferryman ; yonder the buried, crossing the wave. Over the awful banks and the hoarse-voiced torrents of doom None may be taken before their bones find rest in a tomb. Hundreds of years they wander, and flit round river and shore, Then to the lake they long for are free to return once more. "
Silent the hero gazed and his footstep halted, his mind
Filled with his own sad thoughts and compassion of doom unkind. Yonder he notes, in affliction, deprived of the dues of the dead, Near Leucaspis, Orontes who Lycia's vessels had led.
Over the wind-tossed waters from Troy as together they drave, One wild storm overtook them, engulfing vessels and brave. Yonder, behold, Palinurus the pilot gloomily went,
Who, while sailing from Libya's shores, on the planets intent,
Fell but of late from the stern, and was lost in a watery waste. Hardly he knows him at first, as in shadow sadly he paced ;
Then at the last breaks silence and cries : " What God can it be Robbed us of thee, Palinurus, and drowned thee deep in the sea ? Answer me thou ! For Apollo I ne'er found false till to-day ;
Only in this one thing hath his prophecy led us astray.
Safe with life from the deep to Italian shores, we were told,
Thou shouldst come at the last I Is it thus that his promises hold ?
" Son of Anchises," he answers, " Apollo's tripod and shrine Have not lied ; no god overwhelmed me thus in the brine.
True to my trust I was holding the helm, stood ruling the course,
. ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES. 373
When by sad misadventure I wrenched it loose, and perforce Trailed it behind in my fall. By the cruel waters I swear
Fear of mine own life truly I knew not, felt but a care
Lest thy bark, of her rudder bereft, and her helmsman lost, Might be unequal to combat the wild seas round her that tossed. Three long nights of the winter, across great waters and wide, Violent south winds swept me ; at fourth day's dawn I descried Italy's coast, as I rose on the crest of a wave of the sea.
Stroke by stroke I was swimming ashore, seemed nearly to be
Safe from the billows ; and weighted by dripping garments I clave, Clutching my hands, to the face of a cliff that towered on the wave, When wild people assailed me, a treasure-trove to their mind.
Now are the waves my masters ;
O ! by the pleasant sun, by the joyous light of the skies,
By thy sire, and lulus, the rising hope of thine eyes,
Save me from these great sorrows, my hero ! Over me pour
Earth, as in truth thou canst, and return to the Velian shore.
Else, if a heavenly mother hath shown thee yonder a way, —
Since some god's own presence, methinks, doth guide thee, who here Seekest to cross these streams and the Stygian marshes drear, — Give thy hand to thy servant, and take him with thee" to-day,
So that in quiet places his wearied head he may lay I
Thus, sad phantom, he cried ; thus answered the seer of the shrine : " Whence, Palinurus, comes this ill-omened longing of thine ?
Thou cast eyes, unburied, on Stygian waves, the severe
Stream of the Furies, approach unbidden the banks of the mere ! Cease thy dream that the Fates by prayer may be ever appeased,
Yet keep this in remembrance, that so thy lot may be eased : — Many a neighboring people from cities far and unknown,
Taught by prodigies dire of the skies, thy bones shall atone,
Building thy tomb, and remitting their gifts each year to thy ghost ; So Palinurus' name shall forever cleave to the coast. "
I toss on the beach in the wind.
Thus his affliction she soothes. For a little season his sad
Spirit has comfort ; he thinks on his namesake land and is glad. Thence they advance on the journey and now draw near to the flood. Soon as the boatman saw them, from where on the water he stood, Move through the silent forest and bend their steps to the beach,
Ere they arrive he accosts them, and first breaks silence in speech :
" Stranger, approaching in arms our river, whoever thou art,
Speak on the spot thine errand, and hold thee further apart.
This is the kingdom of shadows, of sleep and the slumberous dark ; Bodies of living men are forbidden the Stygian bark.
Not of mine own good will was Alcides over the wave
Yonder, or Theseus taken, nor yet Pirithous brave,
374 ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES.
Though from gods they descended, and matchless warriors were ; One from the monarch's presence to chains sought boldly to bear Hell's unslumbering warder, and trailed him trembling away. Two from her bridal chamber conspired Death's queen to convey. "
Briefly again makes answer the great Amphrysian seer : •
" Here no cunning awaits thee as theirs was, far be the fear. Violence none our weapons prepare ; Hell's warder may still Bay in his cavern forever, affrighting the phantoms chill; Hell's chaste mistress keep to her kinsman's halls if she will. Troy's ^Eneas, a son most loving, a warrior brave,
Goes in the quest of his sire to the deepest gloom of the grave.
If thou art all unmoved at the sight of a love so true " —
Here she displays him the bough in her garment hidden from view — " Know this branch. " In his bosom the tempest of anger abates. Further he saith not. Feasting his eyes on the wand of the Fates, Mighty oblation, unseen for unnumbered summers before,
Charon advances his dark-blue bows, and approaches the shore ; Summons the rest of the spirits in row on the benches who sate Place to resign for the comers, his gangway clears, and on board Takes Mneas. The cobbled boat groans under his weight.
Water in streams from the marshes through every fissure is poured. Priestess and hero safely across Death's river are passed,
Land upon mud unsightly, and pale marsh sedges, at last.
Here huge Cerberus bays with his triple jaws through the land, Crouched at enormous length in his cavern facing the strand. Soon as the Sibyl noted his hair now bristling with snakes, Morsels she flings him of meal, and of honeyed opiate cakes. Maddened with fury of famine his three great throats unclose ; Fiercely he snatches the viand, his monstrous limbs in repose Loosens, and, prostrate laid, sprawls measureless over his den. While the custodian sleeps, ^Eneas the entrance takes,
Speeds from the bank of a stream no traveler crosses again.
Voices they heard, and an infinite wailing, as onward they bore, Spirits of infants sobbing at Death's immediate door,
Whom, at a mother's bosom, and strangers to life's sweet breath, Fate's dark day took from us, and drowned in untimeliest death. Near them are those who, falsely accused, died guiltless, although Not without trial, or verdict given, do they enter below ;
Here, with his urn, sits Minos the judge, convenes from within Silent ghosts to the council, and learns each life and its sin.
Near them inhabit the sorrowing souls, whose innocent hands Wrought on themselves their ruin, and strewed their lives on the
sands,
-ENEAS' JOURNEY TO HADES. 375
Hating the glorious sunlight. Alas ! how willingly they
Now would endure keen want, hard toil, in the regions of day !