Our foody cattle, hide our mutual prize,
‘And then,’ said I, ‘attend me, that your eyes
In Circe’s sacred house may see each friend
Eating and drinking banquets out of end.’
They soon obey’d; all but Eurylochus,
Who needs would stay them all, and counsell’d thus:
‘O wretches! Whither will ye? Why are you
Fond of your mischiefs, and such gladness show
For Circe’s house, that will transform ye all
To swine, or wolves, or lions? Never shall
Our heads get out, if once within we be,
But stay compell’d by strong necessity.
So wrought the Cyclop, when t’ his cave our friends
This bold one led on, and brought all their ends
By his one indiscretion.’ I for this
Thought with my sword (that desperate head of his
Hewn from his neck) to gash upon the ground
His mangled body, though my blood was bound
In near alliance to him. But the rest
With humble suit contain’d me, and request,
That I would leave him with my ship alone,
And to the sacred palace lead them on.’
I led them; nor Eurylochus would stay
From their attendance on me, our late fray
Struck to his heart so. But mean time, my men,
In Circe’s house, were all, in several bain,
Studiously sweeten’d, smug’d with oil, and deck’d
With in and out weeds, and a feast secret
Serv’d in before them; at which close we found
They all were set, cheer’d, and carousing round.
When mutual sight had, and all thought on, then
Feast was forgotten, and the moan again
About the house flew, driv’n with wings of joy.
But then spake Circe: ‘Now, no more annoy.
I know myself what woes by sea and shore,
And men unjust, have plagu’d enough before
Your injur’d virtues. Here then feast as long,
And be as cheerful, till ye grow as strong
As when ye first forsook your country earth.
Ye now fare all like exiles; not a mirth
Flash’d in amongst ye but is quench’d again
With still-renew’d tears, though the beaten vein
Of your distresses should, methink, be now
Benumb with suf
f
’
rance.’ We did well allow
Her kind persuasions, and the whole year stay’d
In varied feast with her. When now array’d
The world was with the spring, and orby hours
Had gone the round again through herbs and flow’rs,
The months absolv’d in order, till the days
Had run their full race in Apollo’s rays,
My friends remember’d me of home, and said,
If ever fate would sign my pass, delay’d
It should be now no more. I heard them well,
Yet that day spent in feast, till darkness fell,
And sleep his virtues through our vapours shed,
When I ascended sacred Circe’s bed,
Implored my pass,
and her performed vow
Which now my soul urg’d, and my soldiers now
Afflicted me with tears to get them gone.
All these I told her, and she answer’d these:
‘Much skill’d Ulysses Laertiades!
Remain no more against your wills with me,
But take your free way; only this must be
Perform’d before you steer your course for home:
You must the way to Pluto overcome,
And stern Persephone, to form your pass,
By th’ aged Theban soul Tiresias,
The dark-brow’d prophet, whose soul yet can see
Clearly and firmly; grave Persephone,
Ev’n dead, gave him a mind, that he alone
Might sing truth’s solid wisdom, and not one
Prove more than shade in his comparison.’
This broke my heart; I sunk into my bed,
Mourn’d, and would never more be comforted
With light, nor life. But having now express’d
My pains enough to her in my unrest,
That so I might prepare her ruth, and get
All I held fit for an affair so great,
I said: ‘O Circe, who shall steer my course
To Pluto’s kingdom? Never ship had force
To make that voyage.’ The divine-in-voice
Said: ‘Seek no guide; raise you your mast, and hoise
Your ship’s white sails, and then sit you at peace,
The fresh North Spirit shall waft ye through the seas.
But, having past the ocean, you shall see
A little shore, that to Persephone
Puts up a consecrated wood, where grows
Tall firs, and sallows that their fruits soon loose.
Cast anchor in the gulfs, and go alone
To Pluto’s dark house, where to Acheron
Cocytus runs, and Pyriphlegethon –
Cocytus born of Styx, and where a rock
Of both the met floods bears the roaring shock.
The dark heroë, great Tiresias,
Now coming near, to gain propitious pass,
Dig of a cubit every way a pit,
And pour, to all that are deceas’d, in it
A solemn sacrifice. For which, first take
Honey and wine, and their commixtion make,
Then sweet wine neat, and thirdly water pour,
And lastly add to these the whitest flour.
Then vow to all the weak necks of the dead
Offerings a-number; and, when thou shalt tread
The Ithacensian shore, to sacrifice
A heifer never-tam’d, and most of prize,
A pile of all thy most esteemed goods
Enflaming to the dear streams of their bloods;
And, in secret rites, to Tiresias vow
A ram coal-black at all parts, that doth flow
With fat and fleece, and all thy flocks doth lead.
When the all-calling nation of the dead
Thou thus hast pray’d to, offer on the place
A ram and ewe all black, being turn’d in face
To dreadful Erebus, thyself aside
The flood’s shore walking. And then, gratified
With flocks of souls of men and dames deceas’d
Shall all thy pious rites be. Straight address’d
See then the offering that thy fellows slew,
Flay’d, and impos’d in fire; and all thy crew
Pray to the state of either deity,
Grave Pluto, and severe Persephone.
Then draw thy sword, stand firm, nor suffer one
Of all the faint shades of the dead and gone
T’ approach the blood, till thou hast heard their king,
The wise Tiresias, who thy offering
Will instantly do honour, thy home ways,
And all the measure of them by the seas,
Amply unfolding.’ This the goddess told;
And then the Morning in her throne of gold
Survey’d the vast world; by whose orient light
The nymph adorn’d me with attires as bright,
Her own hands putting on both shirt and weed,
Robes fine and curious, and upon my head
An ornament that glitter’d like a flame,
Girt me in gold; and forth betimes I came
Amongst my soldiers, rous
’
d them all from sleep,
And bad them now no more observance keep
Of ease and feast, but straight a-shipboard fall,
For now the goddess had inform’d me all.
Their noble spirits agreed; nor yet so clear
Could I bring all off, but Elpenor there
His heedless life left. He was youngest man
Of all my company, and one that won
Least fame for arms, as little for his brain;
Who (too much steep’d in wine, and so made fain
To get refreshing by the cool of sleep,
Apart his fellows, plung’d in vapours deep,
And they as high in tumult of their way)
Suddenly wak’d and (quite out of the stay
A sober mind had given him) would descend
A huge long ladder, forward, and on end
Fell from the very roof, full pitching on
The dearest joint his head was placed upon,
Which quite dissolv’d, let loose his soul to hell.
I to the rest, and Circe’s means did tell
Of our return, as crossing clean the hope
I gave them first, and said: ‘You think the scope
Of our endeavours now is straight for home.
No, Circe otherwise design’d, whose doom
Enjoin’d us first to greet the dreadful house
Of austere Pluto and his glorious spouse,
To take the counsel of Tiresias,
The reverend Theban, to direct our pass.’
This brake their hearts, and grief made tear their hair.
But grief was never good at great affair;
It would have way yet. We went woeful on
To ship and shore, where was arriv’d as soon
Circe unseen, a black ewe and a ram
Binding for sacrifice, and, as she came,
Vanish’d again unwitness’d by our eyes;
Which griev’d not us, nor check’d our sacrifice,
For who would see god, loath to let us see,
This way or that bent? Still his ways are free.
The end of the tenth book
Book 11
The Argument
Ulysses’ way to Hell appears,
Where he the grave Tiresias hears;
Enquires his own and others’ fates;
His mother sees, and th’ after states
In which were held by sad decease
Heroës, and Heroësses,
A number that at Troy wag
’
d war,
As Ajax that was still at jar
With Ithacus, for th’ arms he lost,
And with the great Achilles’ ghost.
Another Argument
Lamba
Ulysses here
Invokes the dead.
The lives appear
Hereafter led.
Book 11
A
rr
i
v’d now at our ship, we launch’d, and set
Our mast up, put forth sail, and in did get
Our late-got cattle. Up our sails, we went,
My wayward fellows mourning now th’ event.
A good companion yet, a foreright wind,
Circe (the excellent utterer of her mind)
Supplied our murmuring consorts with, that was
Both speed and guide to our adventurous pass.
All day our sails stood to the winds, and made
Our voyage prosp’rous. Sun then set, and shade
All ways obscuring, on the bounds we fell
Of deep Oceanus, where people dwell
Whom a perpetual cloud obscures outright,
To whom the cheerful sun lends never light –
Nor when he mounts the star-sustaining heav’n,
Nor when he stoops earth, and sets up the ev’n –
But night holds fix’d wings, feather’d all with banes,
Above those most unblest Cimmerians.
Here drew we up our ship, our sheep withdrew,
And walk’d the shore till we attain’d the view
Of that sad region Circe had foreshow’d.
And then the sacred offerings to be vow’d
Eurylochus and Persimedes bore;
When I my sword drew, and earth’s womb did gore
Till I a pit digg’d of a cubit round,
Which with the liquid sacrifice we crown’d,
First honey mix’d with wine, then sweet wine neat,
Then water pour’d in, last the flour of wheat.
Much I importuned then the weak-neck’d dead,
And vow’d, when I the barren soil should tread
Of cliffy Ithaca, amidst my hall
To kill a heifer, my clear best of all,
And give in of
f
’
ring, on a pile compos’d
Of all the choice goods my whole house enclos’d;
And to Tiresias himself, alone,
A sheep coal-black, and the selectest one
Of all my flocks. When to the pow’rs beneath,
The sacred nation that survive with death,
My pray’rs and vows had done devotions fit,
I took the of
f
’
rings, and upon the pit
Bereft their lives. Out gush’d the sable blood,
And round about me fled out of the flood
The souls of the deceas’d. There cluster’d then
Youths and their wives, much-suffering aged men,
Soft tender virgins that but new came there
By timeless death, and green their sorrows were.
There men at arms, with armours all embrew’d,
Wounded with lances, and with falchions hew’d,
In numbers, up and down the ditch, did stalk,
And threw unmeasur’d cries about their walk,
So horrid that a bloodless fear surpris’d
My daunted spirits. Straight then I advis’d
My friends to flay the slaughter’d sacrifice,
Put them in fire, and to the deities,
Stern Pluto and Persephone, apply
Exciteful prayers. Then drew I from my thigh
My well-edg’d sword, stept in, and firmly stood
Betwixt the prease of shadows and the blood,
And would not suffer any one to dip
Within our of
f
’
ring his unsolid lip,
Before Tiresias that did all control.
The first that press’d in was Elpenor’s soul,
His body in the broad-way’d earth as yet
Unmourn’d, unburied by us, since we swet
With other urgent labours. Yet his smart
I wept to see, and ru’d it from my heart,
Enquiring how he could before me be
That came by ship? He, mourning, answer’d me:
‘In Circe’s house, the spite some spirit did bear,
And the unspeakable good liquor there,
Hath been my bane; for, being to descend
A ladder much in height, I did not tend
My way well down, but forwards made a proof
To tread the rounds, and from the very roof
Fell on my neck, and brake it; and this made
My soul thus visit this infernal shade.
And here, by them that next thyself are dear,
Thy wife and father, that a little one
Gave food to thee, and by thy only son
At home behind thee left, Telemachus,
Do not depart by stealth, and leave me thus,
Unmourn’d, unburied, lest neglected I
Bring on thyself th’ incensed deity.
I know that, sail’d from hence, thy ship must touch
On th’ isle Aeaea; where vouchsafe thus much,
Good king, that, landed, thou wilt instantly
Bestow on me thy royal memory
To this grace, that my body, arms and all,
May rest consum’d in fiery funeral;
And on the foamy shore a sepulchre
Erect to me, that after times may hear
Of one so hapless. Let me these implore,
And fix upon my sepulchre the oar
With which alive I shook the aged seas,
And had of friends the dear societies.’
I told the wretched soul I would fulfill
And execute to th’ utmost point his will;
And, all the time we sadly talk’d, I still
My sword above the blood held when aside
The idol of my friend still amplified
His plaint, as up and down the shades he err’d.
Then my deceased mother’s soul appear’d,
Fair daughter of Autolycus the great,
Grave Anticlaea, whom, when forth I set
For sacred Ilion, I had left alive.
Her sight much moved me, and to tears did drive
My note of her decease; and yet not she
(Though in my ruth she held the highest degree)
Would I admit to touch the sacred blood,
Till from Tiresias I had understood
What Circe told me. At the length did land
Theban Tiresias’ soul, and in his hand
Sustain’d a golden sceptre, knew me well,
And said: ‘O man unhappy, why to hell
Admitt’st thou dark arrival, and the light
The sun gives leav’st, to have the horrid sight
Of this black region, and the shadows here?
Now sheathe thy sharp sword, and the pit forbear,
That I the blood may taste, and then relate
The truth of those acts that affect thy fate.’
I sheath’d my sword, and left the pit, till he,
The black blood tasting, thus instructed me:
‘Renown’d Ulysses! All unask’d I know
That all the cause of thy arrival now
Is to enquire thy wish’d retreat for home;
Which hardly god will let thee overcome,
Since Neptune still will his opposure try,
With all his laid-up anger, for the eye
His lov’d son lost to thee. And yet through all
Thy suf
f
’
ring course (which must be capital),
If both thine own affections, and thy friends’,
Thou wilt contain, when thy access ascends
The three-fork’d island, having ’scaped the seas,
Where ye shall find fed on the flow’ry leas
Fat flocks and oxen, which the Sun doth own,
To whom are all things as well heard as shown,
And never dare one head of those to slay,
But hold unharmful on your wished way,
Though through enough affliction, yet secure
Your fates shall land ye; but presage says sure,
If once ye spoil them, spoil to all thy friends,
Spoil to thy fleet, and if the justice ends
Short of thyself, it shall be long before,
And that length forc’d out with inflictions store,
When, losing all thy fellows, in a sail
Of foreign built (when most thy fates prevail
In thy deliv’rance) thus th’ event shall sort:
Thou shalt find shipwrack raging in thy port,
Proud men, thy goods consuming and thy wife
Urging with gifts, give charge upon thy life.
But all these wrongs revenge shall end to thee,
And force or cunning set with slaughter free
Thy house of all thy spoilers. Yet again
Thou shalt a voyage make, and come to men
That know no sea, nor ships, nor oars that are
Wings to a ship, nor mix with any fare
Salt’s savoury vapour. Where thou first shalt land,
This clear-giv’n sign shall let thee understand,
That there those men remain: assume ashore
Up to thy royal shoulder a ship oar,
With which, when thou shalt meet one on the way
That will in country admiration say,
‘What dost thou with that wan upon thy neck?’
There fix that wan thy oar, and that shore deck
With sacred rites to Neptune; slaughter there
A ram, a bull, and (who for strength doth bear
The name of husband to a herd) a boar.
And, coming home, upon thy natural shore
Give pious hecatombs to all the gods,
Degrees observ’d. And then the periods
Of all thy labours in the peace shall end
Of easy death; which shall the less extend
His passion to thee, that thy foe, the sea,
Shall not enforce it, but death’s victory
Shall chance in only-earnest-pray-vow’d age,
Obtain’d at home, quite emptied of his rage,
Thy subjects round about thee rich and blest.
And here hath Truth summ’d up thy vital rest.’
I answer’d him: ‘We will suppose all these
Decreed in deity; let it likewise please
Tiresias to resolve me, why so near
The blood and me my mother’s soul doth bear,
And yet nor word nor look vouchsafe her son?
Doth she not know me?’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘nor none
Of all these spirits, but myself alone,
Knows anything till he shall taste the blood.
But whomsoever you shall do that good,
He will the truth of all you wish unfold;
Who you envy it to will all withhold.’
Thus said the kingly soul, and made retreat
Amidst the inner parts of Pluto’s seat,
When he had spoke thus by divine instinct.
Still I stood firm, till to the blood’s precinct
My mother came, and drunk; and then she knew
I was her son, had passion to renew
Her natural plaints, which thus she did pursue:
‘How is it, O my son, that you alive
This deadly-darksome region underdive?
’Twixt which and earth so many mighty seas
And horrid currents interpose their prease,
Oceanus in chie
f
? Which none (unless
More help’d than you) on foot now can transgress.
A well-built ship he needs that ventures there.
Com’st thou from Troy but now, enforc’d to err
All this time with thy soldiers? Nor hast seen,
Ere this long day, thy country and thy queen?’
I answer’d, that a necessary end
To this infernal state made me contend,
That from the wise Tiresias’ Theban soul
I might an oracle involv’d unroll;
For I came nothing near Achaia yet,
Nor on our lov’d earth happy foot had set,
But, mishaps suf
f
’
ring, err’d from coast to coast,
Ever since first the mighty Grecian host
Divine Atrides led to Ilion,
And I his follower to set war upon
The rapeful Trojans; and so pray’d she would
The fate of that ungentle death unfold,
That forc’d her thither; if some long disease,
Or that the spleen of her that arrows please,
Diana, envious of most eminent dames,
Had made her th’ object of her deadly aims?
My father’s state and son’s I sought, if they
Kept still my goods, or they became the prey
Of any other, holding me no more
In power of safe return? Or if my store
My wife had kept, together with her son?
If she her first mind held, or had been won
By some chief Grecian from my love and bed?
All this she answer’d, that affliction fed
On her blood still at home, and that to grief
She all the days and darkness of her life
In tears had consecrate. That none possess
’
d
My famous kingdom’s throne, but th’ interest
My son had in it still he held in peace,
A court kept like a prince, and his increase
Spent in his subjects’ good, administ’ring laws
With justice, and the general applause
A king should merit, and all call’d him king.
My father kept the upland, labouring,
And shunn’d the city, used no sumptuous beds,
Wonder’d-at furnitures, nor wealthy weeds,
But in the winter strew’d about the fire
Lay with his slaves in ashes, his attire
Like to a beggar’s; when the summer came,
And autumn all fruits ripen’d with his flame,
Where grape-charg’d vines made shadows most abound,
His couch with fall’n leaves made upon the ground,
And here lay he, his sorrow’s fruitful state
Increasing as he faded for my fate;
And now the part of age that irksome is
Lay sadly on him. And that life of his
She led, and perish’d in, not slaughter’d by
The dame that darts lov’d, and her archery,
Nor by disease invaded, vast and foul,
That wastes the body, and sends out the soul
With shame and horror; only in her moan,
For me and my life, she consum’d her own.
She thus; when I had great desire to prove
My arms the circle where her soul did move.
Thrice prov
’
d I, thrice she vanish’d like a sleep,
Or fleeting shadow, which struck much more deep
The wounds my woes made, and made ask her why
She would my love to her embraces fly,
And not vouchsafe that ev’n in hell we might
Pay pious Nature her unalter’d right,
And give vexation here her cruel fill?
‘Should not the queen here, to augment the ill
Of every suf
f
’
rance, which her office is,
Enforce thy idol to afford me this?’
‘O son,’ she answer’d, ‘of the race of men
The most unhappy, our most equal queen