"And now the moon had run her monthly round,
The south-east blustering with a dreadful sound:
Unhurt the beeves, untouch'd the woolly train,
Low through the grove, or range the flowery plain:
Then fail'd our food: then fish we make our prey,
Or fowl that screaming haunt the watery way.
Till now from sea or flood no succour found,
Famine and meagre want besieged us round.
Pensive and pale from grove to grove I stray'd,
From the loud storms to find a sylvan shade;
There o'er my hands the living wave I pour;
And Heaven and Heaven's immortal thrones implore,
To calm the roarings of the stormy main,
And guide me peaceful to my realms again.
Then o'er my eyes the gods soft slumber shed,
While thus Eurylochus arising said:
"O friends, a thousand ways frail mortals lead
To the cold tomb, and dreadful all to tread ;
But dreadful most, when by a slow decay
Pale hunger wastes the manly strength away.
Why cease ye then t' implore the powers above,
And offer hecatombs to thundering Jove?
Why seize ye not yon beeves, and fleecy prey?
Arise unanimous; arise and slay!
And if the gods ordain a safe return,
To Phoebus shrines shall rise, and altars burn.
But, should the powers that o'er mankind preside
Decree to plunge us in the whelming tide,
Better to rush at once to shades below
Than linger life away, and nourish woe.'
"Thus he the beeves around securely stray,
When swift to ruin they invade the prey;
They seize, they kill!-but for the rite divine
The barley fail'd, and for libations wine.
Swift from the oak they strip the shady pride;
And verdant leaves the flowery cake supplied.
"With prayer they now address th' ethereal train,
Slay the selected beeves, and flay the slain:
The thighs, with fat involved, divide with art,
Strew'd o'er with morsels cut from every part.
Water, instead of wine, is brought in urns,
And pour'd profanely as the victim burns.
The thighs thus offer'd, and the entrails dress'd,
They roast the fragments, and prepare the feast.
""Twas then soft slumber fled my troubled brain;
Back to the bark I speed along the main.
When lo an odour from the feast exhales,
Spreads o'er the coast, and scents the tainted gales;
A chilly fear congeal'd my vital blood,
And thus, obtesting Heaven, I mourn'd aloud:
"O sire of men and gods, immortal Jove!
O all ye blissful powers that reign above!
Why were my cares beguiled in short repose?
O fatal slumber, paid with lasting woes!
A deed so dreadful all the gods alarms,
Vengeance is on the wing, and Heaven in arms!'
"Meantime Lampetie mounts th' aërial way,3
id kindles into rage the god of day:
LAMPETIE COMPLAINING TO APOLLO.
"Vengeance, ye powers (he cries), and thou whose hand
Aims the red bolt, and hurls the writhen brand!
Slain are those herds which I with pride survey,
When through the ports of heaven I pour the day,
Or deep in ocean plunge the burning ray.
Vengeance, ye gods! or I the skies forego,
And bear the lamp of heaven to shades below.'
8 Lampetie was the daughter of Apollo and Neæra, and guardian of the sacred flocks.
"To whom the thundering Power: 'O source of day! Whose radiant lamp adorns the azure way,
Still may thy beams through heaven's bright portal rise,
The joy of earth, and glory of the skies:
Lo! my red arm I bare, my thunders guide,
To dash th' offenders in the whelming tide.'
"To fair Calypso, from the bright abodes, Hermes convey'd these counsels of the gods.
"Meantime from man to man my tongue exclaims,
My wrath is kindled, and my soul in flames.
In vain! I view perform'd the direful deed,
Beeves, slain by heaps, along the ocean bleed.
"Now heaven gave signs of wrath: along the ground
Crept the raw hides, and with a bellowing sound
Roar'd the dead limbs; the burning entrails groan'd.
Six guilty days my wretched mates employ
In impious feasting, and unhallowed joy;
The seventh arose, and now the sire of gods
Rein'd the rough storms, and calm'd the tossing floods:
With speed the bark we climb; the spacious sails
Loosed from the yards invite th' impelling gales.
Past sight of shore, along the surge we bound,
And all above is sky, and ocean all around;
When lo! a murky cloud the Thunderer forms
Full o'er our heads, and blackens heaven with storms.
Night dwells o'er all the deep and now outflies
The gloomy west, and whistles in the skies.
The mountain-billows roar! the furious blast
Howls o'er the shroud, and rends it from the mast:
The mast gives way, and, crackling as it bends,
Tears up the deck; then all at once descends:
The pilot by the tumbling ruin slain,
Dash'd from the helm, falls headlong in the main.
Then Jove in anger bids his thunders roll,
And forky lightnings flash from pole to pole:
Fierce at our heads his deadly bolt he aims,
Red with uncommon wrath, and wrapp'd in flames:
Full on the bark it fell; now high, now low,
Toss'd and retoss'd, it reel'd beneath the blow;
At once into the main the crew it shook :
Sulphureous odours rose, and smouldering smoke.
Like fowl that haunt the floods, they sink, they rise,
Now lost, now seen, with shrieks and dreadful cries;
And strive to gain the bark; but Jove denies.
Firm at the helm I stand, when fierce the main
Rush'd with dire noise, and dash'd the sides in twain;
Again impetuous drove the furious blast,
Snapp'd the strong helm, and bore to sea the mast.
Firm to the mast with cords the helm I bind,
And ride aloft, to Providence resign'd,
Through tumbling billows and a war of wind.
"Now sunk the west, and now a southern breeze,
More dreadful than the tempest, lash'd the seas;
For on the rocks it bore where Scylla raves,
And dire Charybdis rolls her thundering waves.
All night I drove; and at the dawn of day,
Fast by the rocks beheld the desperate way:
Just when the sea within her gulfs subsides,
And in the roaring whirlpools rush the tides,
Swift from the float I vaulted with a bound,
The lofty fig-tree seized, and clung around:
So to the beam the bat tenacious clings,
And pendant round it clasps his leather wings.
High in the air the tree its boughs display'd,
And o'er the dungeon cast a dreadful shade;
All unsustain'd between the wave and sky,
Beneath my feet the whirling billows fly.
What time the judge forsakes the noisy bar
To take repast, and stills the wordy war,
Charybdis rumbling from her inmost caves,
The mast refunded on her refluent waves.
Swift from the tree, the floating mass to gain,
Sudden I dropp'd amidst the flashing main
Once more undaunted on the ruin rode,
And oar'd with labouring arms along the flood.
Unseen I pass'd by Scylla's dire abodes:
So Jove decreed (dread sire of men and gods).
Then nine long days I plough'd the calmer seas,
Heaved by the surge, and wafted by the breeze.
Weary and wet th' Ogygian shores I gain,
When the tenth sun descended to the main.
There, in Calypso's ever-fragrant bowers,
Refresh'd I lay, and joy beguil'd the hours.
"My following fates to thee, O king, are known, And the bright partner of thy royal throne. Enough in misery can words avail?
And what so tedious as a twice-told tale ?"
THE ARRIVAL OF ULYSSES IN ITHACA.
Ulysses takes his leave of Alcinoüs and Aretè, and embarks in the evening.
Next morning the ship arrives at Ithaca; where the sailors, as Ulysses is
yet sleeping, lay him on the shore with all his treasures.
On their return,
Neptune changes their ship into a rock. In the mean time Ulysses awaking, knows not his native Ithaca, by reason of a mist which Pallas had cast round him. He breaks into loud lamentations; till the goddess appearing to him in the form of a shepherd, discovers the country to him, and points out the particular places. He then tells a feigned story of his adventures, upon which she manifests herself, and they consult together of the measures to be taken to destroy the suitors. To conceal his return, and disguise his person the more effectually, she changes him into the figure of an old beggar.
E ceased; but left so pleasing on their ear
His voice, that listening still they seem'd to hear.
A pause of silence hush'd the shady rooms:
The grateful conference then the king resumes.
"Whatever toils the great Ulysses pass'd,
Beneath this happy roof they end at last;
No longer now from shore to shore to roam,
Smooth seas and gentle winds invite him home.
But hear me, princes! whom these walls inclose,
For whom my chanter sings, and goblet flows
With wine unmix'd (an honour due to age,
To cheer the grave, and warm the poet's rage);
Though labour'd gold and many a dazzling vest
Lie heap'd already for our godlike guest;
Without new treasures let him not remove,
Large, and expressive of the public love:
Each peer a tripod, each a vase bestow,
A general tribute, which the state shall owe."
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