Sing we the last of that man’s days who tore
From Troy its safeguard, not against the will
Of Pallas; Pallas brought him safely home.
Be with us, daughter of Mnemosyne!
Thou who, altho’ thou visitest the abyss
Of Etna, where Enceladus is bound,
Tempestuous giant, mad with impotence,
And darest walk by Styx and Phlegethon,
Nor dreadest, bolt in hand, the Thunderer,
Yet from Sorrento gazest with delight
On waves so softly voluble. To these
I also turn: I seek that shore alone
Where stiffens on high rocks the hoary moss,
Too close and hard for idle child to strip
Or singing-bird to twine round slender nest.
When mute the trumpet of Misenus, mute
The Sybil’s cave, when o’er Parthenope
Crumbles the bust and scarce her name remains,
Thou holdest up the deeds of glorious men
And followest their funerals with song.
Tell us then in what region sank to rest
Ulysses; say, what did he, suffered he,
When he departed homeward from these shores?
Ogygia’s secret, Circe’s festive, bower,
Faithless to hospitality, we leave,
And harp that Phoebus scorns, and woof unseen
Of Pallas, tho’ its shuttle be of gold:
Better by far to mark how pure and firm
Connubial bonds in life and death are blest.
Jove pitied him who, after toils which man
Had never undergone, was guided now
By Pallas: he decreed in recompense
Penelope not only should retain
Her love and duty, but her youth and charms.
Many the marvels his eventful life
Had witnest; this more marvelous than all
Was unobserv’d; not through ingratitude;
But such he ever thought her; such she seem’d
In grace and beauty at all after-times
As when he left her to depart for Troy,
Or when he led her, with the fife before,
Under the garlands of her father’s gate.
That which the God now gave her seem’d her due,
Her property; he never fear’d that age
Or fate could alter beauty such as hers.
He who sees all things saw the hero’s mind.
The crowd of suitors own’d the miracle;
And now the wretched men began to fear
Who rioted so loosely in the house.
How late their piety! how scant their shame!
How rapidly death’s wide and downward road
Opens before them! opens, yet unseen.
Indignant that Penelope had borne
So long their importunities and threats,
And that Ulysses had in vain escaped
Calypso’s wiles and Circe’s bristling caves,
In vain had brought the archer back to Troy
With arrows poison’d in the hydra’s blood,
The Sire to Venus “Highth of wickedness!
Those suitors, once so patient, now abstain
Not even from the choicest of the herd,
Fatten’d, at his return, for us above:
Nor these alone the wretches would consume,
But their fierce lust burns fiercer from delay.
I doubt not. beauty often counsels ill...
If hope, if pleasure, give a brighter glow,
Or any deity her charms increase..
I doubt not. I fear greatly. that, subdued
By ardent prayers she lend a patient ear.
The more I dread it lest Minerva’s ire
Again be kindled: therefor I abstain,
As thou dost wisely, daughter, from offence.
Within twelve days ’tis destin’d he returns
For whom thou, Venus, hast thro’ wars and waves
Preserv’d the flame so vivid. Fate decrees
(What I could wish Fate never had decreed)
That the last corner carry off the prize,
Meeting her earliest on the twelfth day’s mom.
A crowd of lovers shakes the faith of few,
He shakes it who stands back and waits his hour.
I hope she may not meet the better man
Than her Ulysses: if she should so meet
That better man, I would not he prevail.”
Venus had listened to this wily speech
Fearing lest strong commands might follow it,
But when her father added nothing more
She fancied she could over-reach the wise
And potent, and make Pallas feel her might.
No hesitation: thro’ the air she flies,
She stands before Penelope asleep,
And thus, without awakening her.
“The first
In the twelfth mom who meets thee, shall be held
By thee in love unbroken, and subdue
Whatever enemy advances near.”
Close to the bed she goes, and there she stops,
Admiring her own gifts: then to herself,
“If Paris had beheld thee.. but just then
Thy husband took thee from the Spartan land..
I was wrong then. I am much wiser now..
But, had he seen thee, he, his house, his realm,
Had stil been safe; no guest betraid, no wrath,
By armure ript from heroes drag’d thro’ dust,
By temples sunk in ashes, by the wounds
Of Gods, and even their bloodshed, unappeas’d.”
Gazing once more ere vanishing, she said
“How beautiful! how modest!”
When that morn
Advances, she repents the doom it brings,
And fears him angry whom she little fear’d
So gracious: now she wishes she may fail
In what she most desired: she blames her power
Of eloquence, to which Minerva’s self
Must yield a victory greater than the last.
What should she do? alas! what had she done?
Unduteous wishes she would now unwish.
Upon no land is rest for her; no land
Can hide, not all Idalia shade her guilt,
Nor clouds of incense from a hundred shrines.
To heaven, where only there is peace, she flies,
Pity of Jove and pardon to implore.
With placid brow he heard his daughter plead.
Turning her eyes decorous from his face,
Distantly first she stood, then cast herself
Before his knees: he rais’d her and spake thus:
“Did not thy hand, my daughter, which of late
Covered with cloud Anchises’ son, and led
To Africa, lead him whom thou hast blest,
Ulysses? for already hath he past
His city-gate, unknown, and hath approacht
The queen, a welcome unexpected guest.
See what your efforts, in a single day,
Applied with such discretion, can achieve!
Yea, I have granted.. if indeed thy power
Hath any need of mine.. that lasting love
Unite the brave and constant: but within
Thy rule this lies, when Juno hath approved.
Seldom with Juno art thou so agreed,
And seldom hast thou sanction’d so her bonds.
Behold what feats conjointly ye perform!
I too, by somewhat, slightly may assist.
Ulysses in the vigour of his youth
(Rejoice with me) shall flourish, and shall crush
All enemies he finds beneath his roof:
Moreover (and in this with me rejoice)
Beneath a calmer sky his day shall close.”
Astonisht at these words the Goddess wept
Thro’ very shame, and hated Pallas more.
Ah! we must now away from gentle Gods,
The Muse forbidding us to look behind
Or tarry longer. I would not decline
To sing of shipwrecks, wanderings, battles fought
By one against so many, thro’ the love
He bore his wife, fought under her defence
Who shatters with her ægis arms unchaste:
For neither song hath fail’d me nor the blast
Of trumpet. Harder is the task, and skill
Greater, to take from age its weariness,
To give slow years fresh movement, and bear up
Sorrows when friends and household Gods are far.
He must himself relate the larger part
Of what befell him: audience will he find
In Arpi; there he hopes to close his life
With Diomed, short as that life may be.
Thither he came, unknown; and there he saw
In a close valley near his narrow walls,
Enjoying young men’s games, the generous king.
Pleas’d he lookt on awhile, then took his seat
Among the elders, in the grass by holm
Oershadow’d; and there sate he til the stars
Threw tremulous light among the dusky leaves
And over was the contest: then the prince
Distributed the prizes: when the last
Had been awarded, the Dulichian chief
Bespake him thus, from full and throbbing heart.
“Glorious in war we knew thee; now in peace
Well hast thou garner’d up what best befits
The armury of Mars against foul days,
And Themis best in her old house protects.
Few things are pleasant to my wearied eyes,
But this is pleasant.
“I have given help
Ere while, and now I ask it: thou alone,
O son of Tydeus! hast deserv’d that Heaven
To all thy wants and wishes should incline.”
He groan’d: more closely Diomed embraced
That brave and faithful breast: he yearn’d to hear
What had befallen him the Greek most Greek.
From a huge bowl he casts its crown away
And pours out wine to Jupiter, then drinks
And gives it to the guest, and kindly jeers
His temperate draught, and bids the boys around
Fill it again while it is yet half-full.
The handmaids gather nigh: one brings the vase
Smoking with water pure; another (white
From dewy meadow what herself had spun)
The soft long napkin; many more are charged
With baskets, such as Ceres smiles to see,
Full of her gifts.. all anxious to behold
That equal chieftain whom their master loved.
From ash and pine high leaps the flame, to glad
A guest beneath chill mountain shade received.
Warm grew the heroes mid redundant bowls,
And life-like boar, and black and ridgy hoof
Announcing good old stag, and joke, the growth
Of generous cheer: but moments there were yet
When he of Ithaca could ill suppress
A sigh, a groan.. thus with blithe voice reproved.
“Do not too much lament that thou hast left
The chaste Penelope: it griev’d thee less
For Circe and Calypso, whom the gods
Endowed with deathless beauty like their own.
If cares which touch all mortals move thee so,
And children, and that ill-persuading heed
Of what is future or may never be,
If thou hast lost Telemachus in fight
Or wreckt at sea in seeking thee, my hills
Will soon repair that loss, will soon rebuild
Thy house again: here virgin manners dwell
In virgin bodies active fresh and firm.
Tender are women in a tender age,
The heart grows harder as the years advance.
One thing is constant with them: never laid
Is the dread specter of departed youth;
By day, by night, it rises in its pride;
And often wilt thou wonder, often grieve,
To see the necklace of a smooth round neck
From throat ferruginous hang thinly down.
Even the scorpion in its early day
Shows milky whiteness; its pellucid breast
Quivers with gentle fiber; take it up,
And its worst anger is quite innocent;
But thou wouldst shake it off thee when its arms
Livid with venom varicate amain.”
Ulysses smiled in silence; to his mind
Ægiale with Cyllabaros return’d.
But Diomed continued, “What forbids
That we should now be comrades, we whom Mars
So soon united when we first bore arms?
If this my house and this my realm were closed,
Or not in common, to the man with whom
Dangers were ever common, day and night,
When, most successful prest the Phrygian foe,
And the Gods lowered most angrily, because
Of Venus wounded and their pride abased,
I should be such a hoste as Polypheme
Or Polymnestor, nor deserve thy stay.
The aged Daunus bade the Hesperian hinds
Obey my scepter: I engaged to guard
Their cots and pastures with OEtolian arms:
On these conditions I became their king.
Hence the Salentine hills another race
Now holds, and all those regions where once reign’d
Iapyx, sprung of Daedalus.
“In vain
From the Rutulian king came Venulus,
Swelling with recent war, and bearing high
His crest above its changes, to attract
My arms across the mountains, on a foe
Of other days, whose mother from my spear
Protected him. I envy not the dower
Latinus gives him. That he merited
Wide lands and royal bride even those confess
Who seldom do confess another’s worth.
Yet fear I not the Dardan: far away
From countries over which his scepter sways,
We rear our castles upon rocks abrupt,
That, none offending us, offending none,
We may enjoy our own.. and unendower’d.
Remote from us be war and cause for war;
And may that pious man his hands abstain,
Nor fancy fate hath given him whate’er
The plenteous fields of Italy produce,
But, above all, stop short in his career
Before it reach Messapiusis domain,
Bounding the lands of Daunus, our allie;
Else he may see the gift of Vulcan hang
Against our temple-walls, and, vanquisht thrice,
May only have the comfort to believe
That, were even Hector living, he had fail’d.
Much has he; let him have it. Trojan spoil
Procures for me the comforts of old-age:
Let those who list remember what I was,
The proud invader what I am shall see.
All I desire is to secure my throne
And give my people few and equal laws.
Nor does that people with ungrateful mind
Repay my cares; nor sterile is our glebe,
Nor under influence of malignant star.
If from OEtolia far indeed remote,
If far away Evenus paces slow
Among rich pastures where the quoit sinks deep,
At least Atrides sways no scepter here.”
Then spake Ulysses.
“Whence, illustrious son
Of Tydeus! whence this hatred? Of all Greeks
Never was one more duteous to his chief;
A great man’s no small praise; may this be thine,
And leave to weaker an indocile rage.”
Then smiled the founder of the Arpine walls.
“All things are bearable to him who rose
In valour equal to the first in rank.
Son of Laertes! in those times I held
My peace, thou knowest; valour was enough
For me; worse men commanded. Do those men
Restore our kingdoms? Are we not exiled
From our own fields, from our own household Gods?
Did I petition? askest thou? Compel’d
So far not even the exile is, whose shade
Must wander under these Italian skies.
To ask, is buying at too high a price.
Let the spear bring me what is mine, or rest
For ever! Can men’s prayers avail when men
Themselves are nothing! Should I try to move
The lofty whom my name could never reach?
But, O thou sprung from Mercury! when praise
Descends from thee or any thy compeer,
The lost I seek not, nor do things to come
The present quiet of my soul disturb.
“From Neritos a pinnace had arrived
And told us thou hadst to thy home return’d,
And found there those who had bemoan’d thee lost,
Sometimes in forein lands, sometimes (as dreams
Or vague reports were prevalent) by death;
Told us not only that thy aged sire
Thy boy and thy sweet partner thou hadst found,
But overcome her suitors, slaying all.
Was it not pleasant to thee, looking on,
To see the mistress and her maidens trip
Away to hide the sable vests they wore,
While there was time; and the next mom to hear
How warm and pressing the domestic siege,
To hear the words and voices mockt so well?
It did amuse; and now it should console.
But tell me what good fortune (such is mine)
Restores thee to me? Has the wrath of Heaven,
Or prepotence of Circe, been the cause
Of this last absence from thy native land?”
With downcast eyes Ulysses thus replied.
“She, if she could, would not have done me ill.
She sprinkled my companions with her bane
And changed their figures: me, than bane or spell
More potent, love preserv’d. I am ashamed
To own it. one whole year. by love, by hope,
By all vain images her charms could raise..
The fair Perseis my frail heart enthral’d.
Lost all the rest, one only ship, one wreck,
Escaping from the Læstrigons, had reacht
The fatal shore.
“I yield to sleep my eyes
Weary with watching, rigid with the salt
That hung upon them. In a dream I see
Penelope: I know that golden hair
Braided and hound as usual close behind,
And that green tunic which the Dryads wear
Following Diana thro’ the sunny dew.
I stretch my arms to clasp her; she escapes
The embrace; not vanishing to empty air;
Her form, her voice, her gentle speech, remain.
‘Cease, O Ulysses! cease at length to mourn
My absence, my departure: none among
The Achaian chiefs to happy homes return;
Another torch hath lit beloved wives,
Children so cherisht roam in other lands;
But me, besought until my latest hour
By many suitors, no new love hath toucht
(Gods! bear me witness! ) nor untimely fate
By Dian’s dart oertaken me; but grief
Perpetual for thy loss, thy toils, thy woes,
Thy wanderings over every land and sea,
And rising over all, thy manly breast,
Thy beauteous image.. these, Ulysses! these
Wasted my youth, now mingled with the shades.
Farewell, farewell! enjoy this tranquil land
Blest with eternal spring; remember me;
But not too fondly, lest enjoyment cease.’
“Again I rush to her embrace; I wake.
My eyes see nothing round me, now disturb’d
By weeping, nothing but dark cypresses
And lofty cedars over me, and spred
Along the shore the thin-leav’d olive-tree,
And, wet with tears, the turf whereon I slept.
But somewhat like the presence of that dear
Devoted head remain’d: the chamber-sound
Of her sweet accents warbled in my ear,
Her flower-like hair exhaled its odour stil.
‘Restore me, O Persephone!’ I cried,
‘That fond, that faithful one! Why intercept
The coming years of the most beautiful,
O house of Pluto! gladden’d by no grace?
“To these complainings evermore renew’d
I added all that grief could add, and all
That madness and impiety could urge.
“Under this form the daughter of the Sun
Deluded me, rejoicing in the groans
Of spell-bound sleep, and wishing me to share
Her bed for life. Time and assiduous love
Softened my sorrow: but my hands and eyes
Often I rais’d to Pallas, and implored
She would not utterly abandon me,
Unworthy, yet desirous to return
Beneath her holy guidance. When the Nymph
Found me devoted to appease that Power
Which in the perils of uncertain war
And on the Ionian and Sicilian sea
Was alway present, she assumed her form
And with her voice detain’d me, loth to part.
No longer could Tritonia then endure.
While I was praying that, since Heaven had will’d
Penelope should leave me for the Shades
And nought on earth so cherisht should be mine,
I might in duty prop my father’s age,
Suddenly at this prayer from open skies
In gorgon terrors came the Virgin down
And stood before the guilty.
“‘Thou hast dared,
And with impunity ‘ the Goddess cried,
“To simulate another: but to lift
Minerva’s helmet on a shameless brow,
Minerva’s ægis o’er a breast impure,
Themis and he who rules the Gods forbid.
Now then, since thou hast broken every bond
Whereby thou passest human life in years,
Tho’ I could justly mulct thee of them all,
Not one I take away from thee; I leave
The number, stripping them of graceful youth
And giving helpless solitary age.’
She spake, and rose, and vanisht in the clouds.
The Nymph grew hideous; her indignant voice
Lost its own likeness; and, that nought remain
Of tender to compassionate, her tears
Were taken from her; she could wail, not weep.
Cold, to the inmost chamber, is the air
Of the whole house; still are the grots; the birds
Are silent in the grove; the shrivel’d vine
Drops from the tree, the ivy from the wall.
Stupefied at the sight, with faltering voice
I call upon the Goddess, now averse.
Regardless, or forgetting me, not once
Had that stem eye been bent on me, not once
While she was nearer dared I lift up mine.
“I leave the sadden’d shore, lone, helpless, wild
From crowding thoughts. Accurst with guiltiness
I knew not whither I should bend my way,
But was resolved on going. Swift my step
By the blood’s tide, and thirsty was my tongue;
I sought the fountain; its perennial source
Shrank up before me, and where water flow’d
Nothing was left but one dry black lagoon.
What evils, thought I, had I not deserv’d!
What punishment, that Rhadamanthus dooms
Or Æacus, my ancestors to hear,
Was not alike my due? Such thoughts revolved
In my sad breast; but milder now succede,
And tears, profusely running down, assuage
The storm of grief, and nourish hopes again;
They buoy up distant Ithaca, they bring
Before my eyes their fairest first delights,
They bring Eurotas hack to me, that stream
Which ran so lucidly along the field
Of good Icarius; I behold afresh
The plighted hand, the overtaken bride,
The cheek upon my shoulder, and the veil
Which stil to Modesty the Spartan maids
At the turf altar dedicate in song.
Above all other thoughts that bride arose,
Chaste, beauteous; and Telemachus her son.”
Diomed heard in silence all he said..
In silence.. not unmoved. As the clear steam
Of wood, however season’d, hurts the eyes,
He backt his seat and turn’d them just aside
And drew his hand across them once or twice,
Then, after short delay, nor late at night,
Wisht placid slumber to his weary guest.