No More Learning

Thus terribly adorned the figures shine,
Inimitably wrought with skill divine.
The mighty good advanced with awful look,
And, turning his grim visage, sternly spoke:

"'O exercise in grief! by arts refined;
O taught to bear the wrongs of base mankind!
Such, such was I! Still toss'd from care to care,
While in your world I drew the vital air!
E'en I, who from the Lord of Thunders rose,
Bore toils and dangers, and a weight of woes;
To a base monarch still a slave confined,
(The hardest bondage to a generous mind! )
Down to these worlds I trod the dismal way,
And dragg'd the three-mouth'd dog to upper day
E'en hell I conquer'd, through the friendly aid
Of Maia's offspring, and the martial maid.

"Thus he, nor deign'd for our reply to stay,
But, turning, stalk'd with giant-strides away.

"Curious to view the kings of ancient days,
The mighty dead that live in endless praise,
Resolved I stand; and haply had survey'd
The godlike Theseus, and Pirithous' shade;
But swarms of spectres rose from deepest hell,
With bloodless visage, and with hideous yell.
They scream, they shriek; and groans and dismal sounds
Stun my scared ears, and pierce hell's utmost bounds.
No more my heart the dismal din sustains,
And my cold blood hangs shivering in my veins;
Lest Gorgon, rising from the infernal lakes,
With horrors arm'd, and curls of hissing snakes,
Should fix me stiffen'd at the monstrous sight,
A stony image, in eternal night!
Straight from the direful coast to purer air
I speed my flight, and to my mates repair.
My mates ascend the ship; they strike their oars;
The mountains lessen, and retreat the shores;
Swift o'er the waves we fly; the freshening gales
Sing through the shrouds, and stretch the swelling sails. "



BOOK XII

ARGUMENT.

THE SIRENE, SCYLLA, AND CHARYBDIS.
He relates how, after his return from the shades, he was sent by
Circe on his voyage, by the coast of the Sirens, and by the strait
of Scylla and Charybdis: the manner in which he escaped those
dangers: how, being cast on the island Trinacria, his companions
destroyed the oxen of the Sun: the vengeance that followed; how
all perished by shipwreck except himself, who, swimming on the
mast of the ship, arrived on the island of Calypso. With which his
narration concludes.



"Thus o'er the rolling surge the vessel flies,
Till from the waves the AEaean hills arise.
Here the gay Morn resides in radiant bowers,
Here keeps here revels with the dancing Hours;
Here Phoebus, rising in the ethereal way,
Through heaven's bright portals pours the beamy day.
At once we fix our halsers on the land.
At once descend, and press the desert sand:
There, worn and wasted, lose our cares in sleep,
To the hoarse murmurs of the rolling deep.

"Soon as the morn restored the day, we paid
Sepulchral honours to Elpenor's shade.
Now by the axe the rushing forest bends,
And the huge pile along the shore ascends.
Around we stand, a melancholy train,
And a loud groan re-echoes from the main.
Fierce o'er the pyre, by fanning breezes spread,
The hungry flames devour the silent dead.
A rising tomb, the silent dead to grace,
Fast by the roarings of the main we place;
The rising tomb a lofty column bore,
And high above it rose the tapering oar.

"Meantime the goddess our return survey'd
From the pale ghosts and hell's tremendous shade.
Swift she descends: a train of nymphs divine
Bear the rich viands and the generous wine:
In act to speak the power of magic stands,
And graceful thus accosts the listening bands;

"'O sons of woe? decreed by adverse fates
Alive to pass through hell's eternal gates!
All, soon or late, are doom'd that path to tread;
More wretched you! twice number'd with the dead!