The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (39 page)

This world of mountain presseth down, as told it is in tale,

Enceladus the thunder-scorched; huge Ætna on him cast,

From all her bursten furnaces breathes out his fiery blast;

And whensoe‘er his weary side he shifteth, all the shore

Trinacrian trembleth murmuring, and heaven is smoke-clad o‘er.

 

 

In thicket close we wear the night amidst these marvels dread,

Nor may we see what thing it is that all the noise hath shed:

For neither showed the planet fires, nor was the heaven bright

With starry zenith; mirky cloud hung over all the night,

In midst of dead untimely tide the moon was hidden close.

 

 

But when from earliest Eastern dawn the following day arose,

And fair Aurora from the heaven the watery shades had cleared,

Lo, suddenly out of the wood new shape of man appeared.

Unknown he was, most utter lean, in wretchedest of plight:

Shoreward he stretched his suppliant hands; we turn back at the sight,

And gaze on him: all squalor there, a mat of beard we see,

And raiment clasped with wooden thorns; and yet a Greek is he,

Yea, sent erewhile to leaguered Troy in Greekish weed of war.

But when he saw our Dardan guise and arms of Troy afar,

Feared at the sight he hung aback at first a little space,

But presently ran headlong down into our sea-side place

With tears and prayers:

“0 Teucrian men, by all the stars,” he cried,

“By all the Gods, by light of heaven ye breathe, O bear me wide

Away from here! to whatso land henceforth ye lead my feet

It is enough. That I am one from out the Danaan fleet,

And that I warred on Ilian house erewhile, most true it is;

For which, if I must pay so much wherein I wrought amiss,

Then strew me on the flood and sink my body in the sea!

To die by hands of very men shall be a joy to me.“

 

He spake with arms about our knees, and wallowing still he clung

Unto our knees: but what he was and from what blood he sprung

We bade him say, and tell withal what fate upon him drave.

His right hand with no tarrying then Father Anchises gave

Unto the youth, and heartened him with utter pledge of peace.

So now he spake when fear of us amid his heart did cease:

 

 

 

“Luckless Ulysses’ man am I, and Ithaca me bore,

Hight Achemenides, who left that Adamastus poor

My father (would I still were there!) by leaguered Troy to be.

Here while my mates aquake with dread the cruel threshold flee,

They leave me in the Cyclops’ den unmindful of their friend;

A house of blood and bloody meat, most huge from end to end,

Mirky within: high up aloft star-smiting to behold

Is he himself; such bane, 0 God, keep thou from field and fold!

Scarce may a man look on his face; no word to him is good;

On wretches’ entrails doth he feed and black abundant blood.

Myself I saw him of our folk two hapless bodies take

In his huge hand, whom straight he fell athwart a stone to break

As there he lay upon his back; I saw the threshold swim

With spouted blood, I saw him grind each bloody dripping limb,

I saw the joints amidst his teeth all warm and quivering still.

—He payed therefore, for never might Ulysses bear such ill,

Nor was he worser than himself in such a pinch bestead:

For when with victual satiate, deep sunk in wine, his head

Fell on his breast, and there he lay enormous through the den,

Snorting out gore amidst his sleep, with gobbets of the men

 

And mingled blood and wine; then we sought the great Gods with prayer

And drew the lots, and one and all crowded about him there,

And bored out with a sharpened pike the eye that used to lurk

Enormous lonely ‘neath his brow o’erhanging grim and mirk,

As great as shield of Argolis, or Phoebus’ lamp on high;

And so our murdered fellows’ ghosts avenged we joy- ously.

—But ye, 0 miserable men, flee forth! make haste to pluck

The warping hawser from the shore!

For even such, and e‘en so great as Polypheme in cave

Shuts in the wealth of woolly things and draws the udders’ wave,

An hundred others commonly dwell o‘er these curving bights,

Unutterable Cyclop folk, or stray about the heights.

Thrice have the twin horns of the moon fulfilled the circle clear

While I have dragged out life in woods and houses of the deer,

And gardens of the beasts; and oft from rocky place on high

Trembling I note the Cyclops huge, hear foot and voice go by.

And evil meat of wood-berries, and cornel’s flinty fruit

The bush-boughs give; on grass at whiles I browse, and plucked-up root.

So wandering all about, at last I see unto the shore

Your ships a-coming: thitherward my steps in haste I bore:

Whate‘er might hap enough it was to flee this folk of ill;

Rather do ye in any wise the life within me spill.“

 

And scarcely had he said the word ere on the hill above

The very shepherd Polypheme his mountain mass did move,

A marvel dread, a shapeless trunk, an eyeless monstrous thing,

Who down unto the shore well known his sheep was shepherding;

A pine-tree in the hand of him leads on and stays his feet;

The woolly sheep his fellows are, his only pleasure sweet,

The only solace of his ill.

But when he touched the waters deep, and mid the waves was come,

He falls to wash the flowing blood from off his eye dug out;

Gnashing his teeth and groaning sore he walks the sea about,

But none the less no wave there was up to his flank might win.

Afeard from far we haste to flee, and, having taken in

Our suppliant, who had earned it well, cut cable silently,

And bending to the eager oars sweep out along the sea.

He heard it, and his feet he set to follow on the sound;

But when his right hand failed to reach, and therewithal he found

He might not speed as fast as fares the Ionian billow lithe,

Then clamour measureless he raised, and ocean quaked therewith

Through every wave, and inwardly the land was terrified

Of Italy, and Ætna boomed from many-hollowed side.

But all the race of Cyclops stirred from woods and lofty hills,

Down rushes to the haven-side and all the haven fills;

And Ætna’s gathered brethren there we see; in vain they stand

Glowering grim-eyed with heads high up in heaven, a dreadful band

Of councillors: they were as when on ridge aloft one sees

The oaks stand thick against the sky, and cone-hung cypresses,

Jove’s lofty woods, or thicket where Diana’s footsteps stray.

 

Then headlong fear fell on our folk in whatsoever way

To shake the reefs out, spreading sail to any wind that blew;

But Helenus had bid us steer a midmost course and true

‘Twixt Scylla and Charybdis, lest to death we sail o’er close :

So safest seemed for backward course to let the sails go loose.

But lo, from out Pelorus’ strait comes down the northern flaw,

And past Pantagia’s haven-mouth of living stone we draw,

And through the gulf of Megara by Thapsus lying low.

Such names did Achemenides, Ulysses’ fellow, show,

As now he coasted back again the shore erst wandered by.

In jaws of the Sicanian bay there doth an island lie

Against Plemyrium’s wavy face; folk called it in old days

Ortygia: there, as tells the tale, Alpheus burrowed ways

From his own Elis ‘neath the sea, and now by mouth of thine,

O Arethusa, blendeth him with that Sicilian brine.

We pray the isle’s great deities, e‘en as we bidden were:

And thence we pass the earth o‘erfat about Helorus’ mere;

Then by Pachynus’ lofty crags and thrust-forth rocks we skim,

And Camarina showeth next a long way off and dim;

Her whom the Fates would ne‘er be moved: then comes the plain in sight

Of Gela, yea, and Gela huge from her own river hight:

Then Acragas the very steep shows great walls far away,

Begetter of the herds of horse high-couraged on a day.

Then thee, Selinus of the psalms, I leave with happy wind,

And coast the Lilybean shoals and tangled skerries blind.

 

But next the firth of Drepanum, the strand without a joy,

Will have me. There I tost so sore, the tempests’ very toy,

O woe is me! my father lose, lightener of every care,

Of every ill: me all alone, me weary, father dear,

There wouldst thou leave; thou borne away from perils all for nought!

Ah, neither Helenus the seer, despite the fears he taught,

Nor grim Celæno in her wrath, this grief of soul forebode.

This was the latest of my toils, the goal of all my road,

For me departed thence some God to this your land did bear.“

So did the Father Æneas, with all at stretch to hear,

Tell o‘er the fateful ways of God, and of his wanderings teach:

But there he hushed him at the last and made an end of speech.

 

But she who Love long since had swallowed down,
Melts with hid fire; her wound doth inward weep:
The man’s much worth, his nation’s much renown
Runs in her mind: his looks and words are deep
Fixt in her breast: care weans her eyes from sleep.
The Morn with Phoebus’ lamp the earth survey’d
And drew Heav‘n’s veil through which moist stars did
creep,
When thus to her dear sister, sick, she said,
“Anna, what frightful dreams my wavering soul invade!

“Who is this man that visits our abodes?
How wise! how valiant! what a face he has!
Well may he be descended from the gods.
Fear shows ignoble minds: but he, alas,
Tost with what fates! through what wars did he pass!
Were I not well resolv’d never to wed
Since my first love by death bereft me was:
Did I not loathe the nuptial torch and bed,
To this one fault perchance, perchance I might be led.

“For since my poor Sychæus’ fatal hour
(Our household gods besmear’d by brother’s steel)
This only man, I must confess, had power
To shake my constant faith and make it reel:
The footsteps of that ancient flame I feel.
But first earth swallow me, or, thunder-slain,
Jove nail me to the shades, pale shades of Hell,
And everlasting night, before I stain
Thee, holy chastity, or thy fair rites profane.

 

“He took my love with him (and let him keep’t
Cold in his grave), to whom I first was tied.”
This said, her bosom full of tears she wept.
“0 dearer than my life!” Anna replied,
“Wilt thou for ever live a dead man’s bride?
Nor pretty babes, rewards of Venus, know?
Are ghosts appeas‘d, or ashes satisfied
With this, think’st thou? What if before, thy woe
Yet green and fresh, no husbands down with thee
would go?

 

“Not Libya’s king, Iarbas, scorn’d in Tyre
Before, with other chiefs whom Afric high
In mettle breeds? Wilt thou quench love’s sweet fire?
Nor yet consider whom thou‘rt planted nigh?
Here, a fierce people, the Gætulians lie,
Bitless Numidian horse, and quicksands dire;
There mad Barceans block thee up, and dry
Deserts. What speak I of the bloodier ire
A wolf turn’d brother breathes, and gathering clouds
from Tyre!

 

“Auspicious Heav‘ns, and Juno’s care of thee
The Trojan navy hither, doubtless, led.
O sister, what a city will this be!
How shalt thou see thy sceptre flourish! wed
To Troy, how will the Punic glory spread!

“Ask but Heav‘n’s leave, thy guest then, feasting, keep,
Pretending ’tis unsafe to sail in winter,
When ships are tost, and Pleiades do weep,
And ominous skies forbid on seas to venter.”
These words blew love t’ a flame, for doubts hope lent
her
And stanch’d her blushes. First in solemn wise
To Phœbus, Bacchus, Ceres, Law’s inventor,
Selected lambs i’ th’ fane they sacrifice,
But Juno most atone who favours nuptial ties.

 

The queen herself, more beauteous in those rites,
Between the crescent of a milk-white cow
The liquor pours: or passing in their sights
Unto the gods with reverend grace doth bow,
Consults the panting lites, and prays her vow.
Alas, vain mysteries! blind priests aread,
Which is the sacrifice is offer’d now!
Soft flames upon the offerer’s marrow feed,
And her concealed wound doth freshly inward bleed.