No More Learning

or what difference makes these retire from the
banks, those go with sweeping oars over the leaden waterways? '

To him the long-lived priestess thus briefly returned: 'Seed of
Anchises, most sure progeny of gods, thou seest the deep pools of
Cocytus and the Stygian marsh, by whose divinity the gods fear to swear
falsely. All this crowd thou discernest is helpless and unsepultured;
Charon is the ferryman; they who ride on the wave found a tomb. Nor is
it given to cross the awful banks and hoarse streams ere the dust hath
found a resting-place. An hundred years they wander here flitting about
the shore; then at last they gain entrance, and revisit the pools so
sorely desired. '

Anchises' son stood still, and ponderingly stayed his footsteps, pitying
at heart their cruel lot. There he discerns, mournful and unhonoured
dead, Leucaspis and Orontes, captains of the Lycian squadron, whom, as
they sailed together from Troy over gusty seas, the south wind
overwhelmed and wrapped the waters round ship and men.

[337-369]Lo, there went by Palinurus the steersman, who of late, while
he watched the stars on their Libyan passage, had slipped from the stern
and fallen amid the waves. To him, when he first knew the melancholy
form in that depth of shade, he thus opens speech: 'What god, O
Palinurus, reft thee from us and sank thee amid the seas? forth and
tell. For in this single answer Apollo deceived me, never found false
before, when he prophesied thee safety on ocean and arrival on the
Ausonian coasts. See, is this his promise-keeping? '

And he: 'Neither did Phoebus on his oracular seat delude thee, O prince,
Anchises' son, nor did any god drown me in the sea. For while I clung to
my appointed charge and governed our course, I pulled the tiller with me
in my fall, and the shock as I slipped wrenched it away. By the rough
seas I swear, fear for myself never wrung me so sore as for thy ship,
lest, the rudder lost and the pilot struck away, those gathering waves
might master it.
Three wintry nights in the water the blustering south
drove me over the endless sea; scarcely on the fourth dawn I descried
Italy as I rose on the climbing wave. Little by little I swam shoreward;
already I clung safe; but while, encumbered with my dripping raiment, I
caught with crooked fingers at the jagged needles of mountain rock, the
barbarous people attacked me in arms and ignorantly deemed me a prize.
Now the wave holds me, and the winds toss me on the shore. By heaven's
pleasant light and breezes I beseech thee, by thy father, by Iulus thy
rising hope, rescue me from these distresses, O unconquered one! Either
do thou, for thou canst, cast earth over me and again seek the haven of
Velia; or do thou, if in any wise that may be, if in any wise the
goddess who bore thee shews a way,--for not without divine will do I
deem thou wilt float across these vast rivers and the Stygian
pool,--lend me a pitying [370-403]hand, and bear me over the waves in
thy company, that at least in death I may find a quiet resting-place. '

Thus he ended, and the soothsayer thus began: 'Whence, O Palinurus, this
fierce longing of thine? Shalt thou without burial behold the Stygian
waters and the awful river of the Furies? Cease to hope prayers may bend
the decrees of heaven. But take my words to thy memory, for comfort in
thy woeful case: far and wide shall the bordering cities be driven by
celestial portents to appease thy dust; they shall rear a tomb, and pay
the tomb a yearly offering, and for evermore shall the place keep
Palinurus' name. ' The words soothed away his distress, and for a while
drove grief away from his sorrowing heart; he is glad in the land of his
name.

So they complete their journey's beginning, and draw nigh the river.
Just then the waterman descried them from the Stygian wave advancing
through the silent woodland and turning their feet towards the bank, and
opens on them in these words of challenge: 'Whoso thou art who marchest
in arms towards our river, forth and say, there as thou art, why thou
comest, and stay thine advance. This is the land of Shadows, of Sleep,
and slumberous Night; no living body may the Stygian hull convey. Nor
truly had I joy of taking Alcides on the lake for passenger, nor Theseus
and Pirithous, born of gods though they were and unconquered in might.
He laid fettering hand on the warder of Tartarus, and dragged him
cowering from the throne of my lord the King; they essayed to ravish our
mistress from the bridal chamber of Dis. ' Thereto the Amphrysian
soothsayer made brief reply: 'No such plot is here; be not moved; nor do
our weapons offer violence; the huge gatekeeper may bark on for ever in
his cavern and affright the bloodless ghosts; Proserpine may keep her
honour within her uncle's gates.