Ajax keeps at
a sullen distance, and disdains to answer him.
a sullen distance, and disdains to answer him.
Odyssey - Pope
ye think your toils are o'er,
Your hopes already touch your native shore:
Alas! far otherwise the nymph declares,
Far other journey first demands our cares;
To tread the uncomfortable paths beneath,
The dreary realms of darkness and of death;
To seek Tiresias' awful shade below,
And thence our fortunes and our fates to know. '
"My sad companions heard in deep despair;
Frantic they tore their manly growth of hair;
To earth they fell: the tears began to rain;
But tears in mortal miseries are vain,
Sadly they fared along the sea-beat shore;
Still heaved their hearts, and still their eyes ran o'er.
The ready victims at our bark we found,
The sable ewe and ram together bound.
For swift as thought the goddess had been there,
And thence had glided, viewless as the air:
The paths of gods what mortal can survey?
Who eyes their motion? who shall trace their way? "
BOOK XI.
ARGUMENT.
THE DESCENT INTO HELL.
Ulysses continues his narration. How he arrived at the land of the
Cimmerians, and what ceremonies he performed to invoke the dead.
The manner of his descent, and the apparition of the shades: his
conversation with Elpenor, and with Tiresias, who informs him in a
prophetic manner of his fortunes to come. He meets his mother
Anticles, from whom he learns the state of his family. He sees the
shades of the ancient heroines, afterwards of the heroes, and
converses in particular with Agamemnon and Achilles.
Ajax keeps at
a sullen distance, and disdains to answer him. He then beholds
Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, Hercules; till he is deterred from
further curiosity by the apparition of horrid spectres, and the
cries of the wicked in torments.
"Now to the shores we bend, a mournful train,
Climb the tall bark, and launch into the main;
At once the mast we rear, at once unbind
The spacious sheet, and stretch it to the wind;
Then pale and pensive stand, with cares oppress'd,
And solemn horror saddens every breast.
A freshening breeze the magic power supplied,
While the wing'd vessel flew along the tide;
Our oars we shipp'd; all day the swelling sails
Full from the guiding pilot catch'd the gales.
"Now sunk the sun from his aerial height,
And o'er the shaded billows rush'd the night;
When lo! we reach'd old Ocean's utmost bounds,
Where rocks control his waves with ever-during mounds.
"There in a lonely land, and gloomy cells,
The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells;
The sun ne'er views the uncomfortable seats,
When radiant he advances, or retreats:
Unhappy race! whom endless night invades,
Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in shades.
"The ship we moor on these obscure abodes;
Disbark the sheep, an offering to the gods;
And, hellward bending, o'er the beach descry
The doleful passage to the infernal sky.
The victims, vow'd to each Tartarian power,
Eurylochus and Perimedes bore.
"Here open'd hell, all hell I here implored,
And from the scabbard drew the shining sword:
And trenching the black earth on every side,
A cavern form'd, a cubit long and wide.
New wine, with honey-temper'd milk, we bring,
Then living waters from the crystal spring:
O'er these was strew'd the consecrated flour,
And on the surface shone the holy store.
"Now the wan shades we hail, the infernal gods,
To speed our course, and waft us o'er the floods:
So shall a barren heifer from the stall
Beneath the knife upon your altars fall;
So in our palace, at our safe return,
Rich with unnumber'd gifts the pile shall burn;
So shall a ram, the largest of the breed,
Black as these regions, to Tiresias bleed.
"Thus solemn rites and holy vows we paid
To all the phantom-nations of the dead;
Then died the sheep: a purple torrent flow'd,
And all the caverns smoked with streaming blood.
When lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts,
Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts:
Fair, pensive youths, and soft enamour'd maids;
And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkled shades;
Ghastly with wounds the forms of warriors slain
Stalk'd with majestic port, a martial train:
These and a thousand more swarm'd o'er the ground,
And all the dire assembly shriek'd around.
Your hopes already touch your native shore:
Alas! far otherwise the nymph declares,
Far other journey first demands our cares;
To tread the uncomfortable paths beneath,
The dreary realms of darkness and of death;
To seek Tiresias' awful shade below,
And thence our fortunes and our fates to know. '
"My sad companions heard in deep despair;
Frantic they tore their manly growth of hair;
To earth they fell: the tears began to rain;
But tears in mortal miseries are vain,
Sadly they fared along the sea-beat shore;
Still heaved their hearts, and still their eyes ran o'er.
The ready victims at our bark we found,
The sable ewe and ram together bound.
For swift as thought the goddess had been there,
And thence had glided, viewless as the air:
The paths of gods what mortal can survey?
Who eyes their motion? who shall trace their way? "
BOOK XI.
ARGUMENT.
THE DESCENT INTO HELL.
Ulysses continues his narration. How he arrived at the land of the
Cimmerians, and what ceremonies he performed to invoke the dead.
The manner of his descent, and the apparition of the shades: his
conversation with Elpenor, and with Tiresias, who informs him in a
prophetic manner of his fortunes to come. He meets his mother
Anticles, from whom he learns the state of his family. He sees the
shades of the ancient heroines, afterwards of the heroes, and
converses in particular with Agamemnon and Achilles.
Ajax keeps at
a sullen distance, and disdains to answer him. He then beholds
Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, Hercules; till he is deterred from
further curiosity by the apparition of horrid spectres, and the
cries of the wicked in torments.
"Now to the shores we bend, a mournful train,
Climb the tall bark, and launch into the main;
At once the mast we rear, at once unbind
The spacious sheet, and stretch it to the wind;
Then pale and pensive stand, with cares oppress'd,
And solemn horror saddens every breast.
A freshening breeze the magic power supplied,
While the wing'd vessel flew along the tide;
Our oars we shipp'd; all day the swelling sails
Full from the guiding pilot catch'd the gales.
"Now sunk the sun from his aerial height,
And o'er the shaded billows rush'd the night;
When lo! we reach'd old Ocean's utmost bounds,
Where rocks control his waves with ever-during mounds.
"There in a lonely land, and gloomy cells,
The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells;
The sun ne'er views the uncomfortable seats,
When radiant he advances, or retreats:
Unhappy race! whom endless night invades,
Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in shades.
"The ship we moor on these obscure abodes;
Disbark the sheep, an offering to the gods;
And, hellward bending, o'er the beach descry
The doleful passage to the infernal sky.
The victims, vow'd to each Tartarian power,
Eurylochus and Perimedes bore.
"Here open'd hell, all hell I here implored,
And from the scabbard drew the shining sword:
And trenching the black earth on every side,
A cavern form'd, a cubit long and wide.
New wine, with honey-temper'd milk, we bring,
Then living waters from the crystal spring:
O'er these was strew'd the consecrated flour,
And on the surface shone the holy store.
"Now the wan shades we hail, the infernal gods,
To speed our course, and waft us o'er the floods:
So shall a barren heifer from the stall
Beneath the knife upon your altars fall;
So in our palace, at our safe return,
Rich with unnumber'd gifts the pile shall burn;
So shall a ram, the largest of the breed,
Black as these regions, to Tiresias bleed.
"Thus solemn rites and holy vows we paid
To all the phantom-nations of the dead;
Then died the sheep: a purple torrent flow'd,
And all the caverns smoked with streaming blood.
When lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts,
Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts:
Fair, pensive youths, and soft enamour'd maids;
And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkled shades;
Ghastly with wounds the forms of warriors slain
Stalk'd with majestic port, a martial train:
These and a thousand more swarm'd o'er the ground,
And all the dire assembly shriek'd around.
