No More Learning

The bard a herald guides; the gazing throng
Pay low obeisance as he moves along:
Beneath a sculptur'd arch he sits enthroned,
The peers encircling form an awful round.
Then, from the chine, Ulysses carves with art
Delicious food, an honorary part:
"This, let the master of the lyre receive,
A pledge of love! 'tis all a wretch can give.
Lives there a man beneath the spacious skies
Who sacred honours to the bard denies?
The Muse the bard inspires, exalts his mind;
The muse indulgent loves the harmonious kind. "

The herald to his hand the charge conveys,
Not fond of flattery, nor unpleased with praise.

When now the rage of hunger was allay'd,
Thus to the lyrist wise Ulysses said:
"O more than man! thy soul the muse inspires,
Or Phoebus animates with all his fires;
For who, by Phoebus uninform'd, could know
The woe of Greece, and sing so well the woe?
Just to the tale, as present at the fray,
Or taught the labours of the dreadful day:
The song recalls past horrors to my eyes,
And bids proud Ilion from her ashes rise.
Once more harmonious strike the sounding string,
The Epaean fabric, framed by Pallas, sing:
How stern Ulysses, furious to destroy,
With latent heroes sack'd imperial Troy.
If faithful thou record the tale of Fame,
The god himself inspires thy breast with flame
And mine shall be the task henceforth to raise
In every land thy monument of praise. "

Full of the god he raised his lofty strain:
How the Greeks rush'd tumultuous to the main;
How blazing tents illumined half the skies,
While from the shores the winged navy flies;
How e'en in Ilion's walls, in deathful bands,
Came the stern Greeks by Troy's assisting hands:
All Troy up-heaved the steed; of differing mind,
Various the Trojans counsell'd: part consign'd
The monster to the sword, part sentence gave
To plunge it headlong in the whelming wave;
The unwise award to lodge it in the towers,
An offering sacred to the immortal powers:
The unwise prevail, they lodge it in the walls,
And by the gods' decree proud Ilion falls:
Destruction enters in the treacherous wood,
And vengeful slaughter, fierce for human blood.

He sung the Greeks stern-issuing from the steed,
How Ilion burns, how all her fathers bleed;
How to thy dome, Deiphobus! ascends
The Spartan king; how Ithacus attends
(Horrid as Mars); and how with dire alarms
He fights--subdues, for Pallas strings his arms

Thus while he sung, Ulysses' griefs renew,
Tears bathe his cheeks, and tears the ground bedew
As some fond matron views in mortal fight
Her husband falling in his country's right;
Frantic through clashing swords she runs, she flies,
As ghastly pale he groans, and faints and dies;
Close to his breast she grovels on the ground,
And bathes with floods of tears the gaping wound;
She cries, she shrieks: the fierce insulting foe
Relentless mocks her violence of woe:
To chains condemn'd, as wildly she deplores;
A widow, and a slave on foreign shores.

So from the sluices of Ulysses' eyes
Fast fell the tears, and sighs succeeded sighs:
Conceal'd he grieved: the king observed alone
The silent tear, and heard the secret groan;
Then to the bard aloud: "O cease to sing,
Dumb be thy voice, and mute the tuneful string;
To every note his tears responsive flow,
And his great heart heaves with tumultuous woe;
Thy lay too deeply moves: then cease the lay,
And o'er the banquet every heart be gay:
This social right demands: for him the sails,
Floating in air, invite the impelling gales:
His are the gifts of love: the wise and good
Receive the stranger as a brother's blood.
"But, friend, discover faithful what I crave;
Artful concealment ill becomes the brave:
Say what thy birth, and what the name you bore,
Imposed by parents in the natal hour?
(For from the natal hour distinctive names,
One common right, the great and lowly claims:)
Say from what city, from what regions toss'd,
And what inhabitants those regions boast?
So shalt thou instant reach the realm assign'd,
In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind;
No helm secures their course, no pilot guides;
Like man intelligent, they plough the tides,
Conscious of every coast, and every bay,
That lies beneath the sun's all-seeing ray;
Though clouds and darkness veil the encumber'd sky,
Fearless through darkness and through clouds they fly;
Though tempests rage, though rolls the swelling main,
The seas may roll, the tempests rage in vain;
E'en the stern god that o'er the waves presides,
Safe as they pass, and safe repass the tides,
With fury burns; while careless they convey
Promiscuous every guest to every bay,
These ears have heard my royal sire disclose
A dreadful story, big with future woes;
How Neptune raged, and how, by his command,
Firm rooted in a surge a ship should stand
A monument of wrath; how mound on mound
Should bury these proud towers beneath the ground.
But this the gods may frustrate or fulfil,
As suits the purpose of the Eternal Will.
But say through what waste regions hast thou stray'd
What customs noted, and what coasts survey'd;
Possess'd by wild barbarians fierce in arms,
Or men whose bosom tender pity warms?
Say why the fate of Troy awaked thy cares,
Why heaved thy bosom, and why flowed thy tears?
Just are the ways of Heaven: from Heaven proceed
The woes of man; Heaven doom'd the Greeks to bleed,
A theme of future song! Say, then, if slain
Some dear-loved brother press'd the Phrygian plain?
Or bled some friend, who bore a brother's part,
And claim'd by merit, not by blood, the heart? "



BOOK IX.

THE ADVENTURES OF THE CICONS, LOTOPHAGI AND CYCLOPS

Ulysses begins the relation of his adventures: how, after the
destruction of Troy, he with his companions made an incursion on
the Cicons, by whom they were repulsed; and, meeting with a storm,
were driven to the coast of the Lotophagi. From there they sailed
to the land of the Cyclops, whose manners and situation are
particularly characterised. The giant Polyphemus and his cave
described; the usage Ulysses and his companions met with there;
and, lastly, the method and artifice by which he escaped.



Then thus Ulysses: "Thou whom first in sway,
As first in virtue, these thy realms obey;
How sweet the products of a peaceful reign!
The heaven-taught poet and enchanting strain;
The well-filled palace, the perpetual feast,
A land rejoicing, and a people bless'd!
How goodly seems it ever to employ
Man's social days in union and in joy;
The plenteous hoard high-heap'd with cates divine,
And o'er the foaming bowl the laughing wine!