To see how strew’d about our cups and cates,
As tables set with feast so we with fates,
All gash’d and slain lay, all the floor embru’d
With blood and brain. But that which most I ru’d,
Flew from the heavy voice that Priam’s seed,
Cassandra, breath’d, whom she that wit doth feed
With baneful crafts, false Clytemnestra, slew,
Close sitting by me; up my hands I threw
From earth to heav’n, and tumbling on my sword
Gave wretched life up; when the most abhorr’d,
By all her sex’s shame, forsook the room,
Nor deign’d, though then so near this heavy home,
To shut my lips, or close my broken eyes.
Nothing so heap’d is with impieties
As such a woman that would kill her spouse
That married her a maid, when to my house
I brought her, hoping of her love in heart,
To children, maids, and slaves. But she (in th’ art
Of only mischief hearty) not alone
Cast on herself this foul aspersion,
But loving dames, hereafter, to their lords
Will bear, for good deeds, her bad thoughts and words.’
‘Alas,’ said I, ‘that Jove should hate the lives
Of Atreus’ seed so highly for their wives!
For Menelaus’ wife a number fell,
For dangerous absence thine sent thee to hell.’
‘For this,’ he answer’d, ‘be not thou more kind
Than wise to thy wife. Never all thy mind
Let words express to her. Of all she knows,
Curbs for the worst still in thyself repose.
But thou by thy wife’s wiles shalt lose no blood,
Exceeding wise she is, and wise in good.
Icarius’ daughter, chaste Penelope,
We left a young bride, when for battle we
Forsook the nuptial peace, and at her breast
Her first child sucking, who by this hour, blest
Sits in the number of surviving men.
And his bliss she hath, that she can contain,
And her bliss thou hast, that she is so wise.
For, by her wisdom, thy returned eyes
Shall see thy son, and he shall greet his sire
With fitting welcomes; when in my retire,
My wife denies mine eyes my son’s dear sight,
And, as from me, will take from him the light,
Before she adds one just delight to life,
Or her false wit one truth that fits a wife.
For her sake therefore let my harms advise,
That though thy wife be ne’er so chaste and wise,
Yet come not home to her in open view,
With any ship or any personal show,
But take close shore disguis’d, nor let her know,
For ’tis no world to trust a woman now.
But what says fame? Doth my son yet survive,
In Orchomen, or Pylos? Or doth live
In Sparta with his uncle? Yet I see
Divine Orestes is not here with me.’
I answer’d, asking: ‘Why doth Atreus’ son
Enquire of me, who yet arriv
’
d where none
Could give to these news any certain wings?
And ’tis absurd to tell uncertain things.’
Such sad speech pass’d us; and as thus we stood,
With kind tears rendering unkind fortunes good,
Achilles’ and Patroclus’ soul appear’d,
And his soul, of whom never ill was heard,
The good Antilochus, and the soul of him
That all the Greeks pass’d both for force and limb,
Excepting the unmatch’d Aeacides,
Illustrious Ajax. But the first of these
That saw, acknowledg’d, and saluted me,
Was Thetis’ conquering son, who (heavily
His state here taking) said: ‘Unworthy breath!
What act yet mightier imagineth
Thy vent’rous spirit? How dost thou descend
These under regions, where the dead man’s end
Is to be look’d on, and his foolish shade?’
I answer’d him: ‘I was induced t’ invade
These under parts, most excellent of Greece,
To visit wise Tiresias, for advice
Of virtue to direct my voyage home
To rugged Ithaca; since I could come
To note in no place where Achaia stood,
And so lived ever, tortur’d with the blood
In man’s vain veins. Thou therefore, Thetis’ son,
Hast equall’d all, that ever yet have won
The bliss the earth yields, or hereafter shall.
In life thy eminence was ador’d of all,
Ev
’
n with the gods; and now, ev’n dead, I see
Thy virtues propagate thy empery
To a renew’d life of command beneath;
So great Achilles triumphs over death.’
This comfort of him this encounter found:
‘Urge not my death to me, nor rub that wound.
I rather wish to live in earth a swain,
Or serve a swain for hire, that scarce can gain
Bread to sustain him, than, that life once gone,
Of all the dead sway the imperial throne.
But say, and of my son some comfort yield,
If he goes on in first fights of the field,
Or lurks for safety in the obscure rear?
Or of my father if thy royal ear
Hath been advertis’d, that the Phthian throne
He still commands, as greatest Myrmidon?
Or that the Phthian and Thessalian rage
(Now feet and hands are in the hold of age)
Despise his empire? Under those bright rays,
In which heav’n’s fervour hurls about the days,
Must I no more shine his revenger now,
Such as of old the Ilion overthrow
Witness’d my anger, th’ universal host
Sending before me to this shady coast,
In fight for Grecia. Could I now resort
(But for some small time) to my father’s court,
In spirit and power as then, those men should find
My hands inaccessible, and of fire my mind,
That durst with all the numbers they are strong
Unseat his honour, and suborn his wrong.’
This pitch still flew his spirit, though so low,
And this I answer’d thus: ‘I do not know
Of blameless Peleus any least report,
But of your son, in all the utmost sort,
I can inform your care with truth, and thus:
From Scyros princely Neoptolemus
By fleet I convey’d to the Greeks, where he
Was chief at both parts, when our gravity
Retir
’
d to council, and our youth to fight.
In council still so fiery was conceit
In his quick apprehension of a cause,
That first he ever spake, nor pass’d the laws
Of any grave stay, in his greatest haste.
None would contend with him, that counsell’d last,
Unless illustrious Nestor, he and I
Would sometimes put a friendly contrary
On his opinion. In our fights, the prease
Of great or common, he would never cease,
But far before fight ever. No man there,
For force, he forced. He was slaughterer
Of many a brave man in most dreadful fight.
But one and other whom he reft of light,
In Grecian succour, I can neither name,
Nor give in number. The particular fame
Of one man’s slaughter yet I must not pass:
Eurypylus Telephides he was,
That fell beneath him, and with him the falls
Of such huge men went, that they show’d like whales
Rampired about him. Neoptolemus
Set him so sharply, for the sumptuous
Favours of mistresses he saw him wear;
For past all doubt his beauties had no peer
Of all that mine eyes noted, next to one,
And that was Memnon, Tithon’s Sun-like son.
Thus far, for fight in public, may a taste
Give of his eminence. How far surpass’d
His spirit in private, where he was not seen,
Nor glory could be said to praise his spleen,
This close note I excerpted. When we sat
Hid in Epeus’ horse, no optimate
Of all the Greeks there had the charge to ope
And shut the stratagem but I. My scope
To note then each man’s spirit in a strait
Of so much danger, much the better might
Be hit by me than others, as, provok’d,
I shifted place still, when in some I smok’d
Both privy tremblings and close vent of tears,
In him yet not a soft conceit of theirs
Could all my search see, either his wet eyes
Ply’d still with wipings, or the goodly guise
His person all ways put forth, in least part,
By any tremblings, show’d his touch’d-at heart.
But ever he was urging me to make
Way to their sally, by his sign to shake
His sword hid in his scabbard, or his lance
Loaded with iron, at me. No good chance
His thoughts to Troy intended. In th’ event,
High Troy depopulate, he made ascent
To his fair ship, with prise and treasure store,
Safe, and no touch away with him he bore
Of far-off-hurl’d lance, or of close-fought sword,
Whose wounds for favours war doth oft afford,
Which he (though sought) miss’d in war’s closest wage.
In close fights Mars doth never fight, but rage.’
This made the soul of swift Achilles tread
A march of glory through the herby mead,
For joy to hear me so renown his son;
And vanish’d stalking. But with passion
Stood th’ other souls struck, and each told his bane.
Only the spirit Telamonian
Kept far off, angry for the victory
I won from him at fleet, though arbitry
Of all a court of war pronounced it mine,
And Pallas’ self. Our prise were th’ arms divine
Of great Aeacides, propos
’
d t’ our fames
By his bright mother, at his funeral games.
I wish to heav’n I ought not to have won,
Since for those arms so high a head so soon
The base earth cover’d: Ajax, that of all
The host of Greece had person capital,
And acts as eminent, excepting his
Whose arms those were, in whom was nought amiss.
I tried the great soul with soft words, and said:
‘Ajax! Great son of Telamon, array’d
In all our glories! What! Not dead resign
Thy wrath for those curst arms? The pow’rs divine
In them forg’d all our banes in thine own one;
In thy grave fall our tow’r was overthrown.
We mourn, for ever maim’d, for thee as much
As for Achilles; nor thy wrong doth touch,
In sentence, any but Saturnius’ doom,
In whose hate was the host of Greece become
A very horror; who express’d it well
In signing thy fate with this timeless hell.
Approach then, king of all the Grecian merit,
Repress thy great mind, and thy flamy spirit,
And give the words I give thee worthy ear.’
All this no word drew from him, but less near
The stern soul kept; to other souls he fled,
And glid along the river of the dead.
Though anger mov
’
d him, yet he might have spoke,
Since I to him. But my desires were strook
With sight of other souls. And then I saw
Minos, that minister’d to Death a law,
And Jove’s bright son was. He was set, and sway’d
A golden sceptre; and to him did plead
A sort of others, set about his throne,
In Pluto’s wide-door’d house; when straight came on
Mighty Orion, who was hunting there
The herds of those beasts he had slaughter’d here
In desert hills on earth. A club he bore,
Entirely steel, whose virtues never wore.
Tityus I saw, to whom the glorious earth
Open’d her womb, and gave unhappy birth.
Upwards, and flat upon the pavement, lay
His ample limbs, that spread in their display
Nine acres’ compass. On his bosom sat
Two vultures, digging, through his caul of fat,
Into his liver with their crooked beaks;
And each by turns the concrete entrail breaks,
As smiths their steel beat, set on either side.
Nor doth he ever labour to divide
His liver and their beaks, nor with his hand
Offer them off, but suffers by command
Of th’ angry Thund’rer, of
f
’
ring to enforce
His love Latona, in the close recourse
She used to Pytho through the dancing land,
Smooth Panopaeus. I saw likewise stand,
Up to the chin amidst a liquid lake,
Tormented Tantalus, yet could not slake
His burning thirst. Oft as his scornful cup
Th’ old man would taste, so oft ’twas swallow’d up,
And all the black earth to his feet descried
(Divine pow’r plaguing him) the lake still dried.
About his head, on high trees clust’ring hung
Pears, apples, granates, olives ever young,
Delicious figs, and many fruit trees more
Of other burden; whose alluring store
When th’ old soul striv’d to pluck, the winds from sight,
In gloomy vapours made them vanish quite.
There saw I Sisyphus in infinite moan,
With both hands heaving up a massy stone,
And on his tip-toes racking all his height,
To wrest up to a mountain-top his freight;
When prest to rest it there, his nerves quite spent,
Down rush’d the deadly quarry, the event
Of all his torture new to raise again;
To which straight set his never-rested pain.
The sweat came gushing out from every pore,
And on his head a standing mist he wore,
Reeking from thence, as if a cloud of dust
Were rais’d about it. Down with these was thrust
The idol of the force of Hercules;
But his firm self did no such fate oppress,
He feasting lives amongst th’ immortal states,
White-ankled Hebe and himself made mates
In heavenly nuptials – Hebe, Jove’s dear race
And Juno’s whom the golden sandals grace.
About him flew the clamours of the dead
Like fowls, and still stoop’d cuffing at his head.