Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

What will the suitors? must my servant-train
The allotted labours of the day refrain,
For them to form some exquisite repast?
Heaven grant this festival may prove their last!
Or, if they still must live, from me remove
The double plague of luxury and love!
Forbear, ye sons of insolence! forbear,
In riot to consume a wretched heir.

In the young soul illustrious thought to raise,
Were ye not tutor'd with Ulysses' praise?
Have not your fathers oft my lord defined,
Gentle of speech, beneficent of mind?
Some kings with arbitrary rage devour,
Or in their tyrant-minions vest the power:
Ulysses let no partial favours fall,

The people's parent he protected all :
But absent now, perfidious and ingrate!
His stores ye ravage, and usurp his state.

910

To tend the fruit-groves; with incessant speed
He shall this violence of death decreed
To good Laertes tell. Experienced age
May timely intercept the ruffian rage.
Convene the tribes, the murderous plot reveal,
And to their power to save his race appeal.
Then Euryclea thus. My dearest dread!
Though to the sword I bow this hoary head,
Or if a dungeon be the pain decreed,

I own me conscious of the unpleasing deed:
Auxiliar to his flight, my aid implored,
With wine and viands I the vessel stored :

A solemn oath, imposed, the secret seal'd,
Till the twelfth dawn the light of heaven reveal'd.
920 Dreading the effect of a fond mother's fear,
He dared not violate your royal ear.
But bathe, and, in imperial robes array'd,
Pay due devotions to the martial maid,*
And rest affianced in her guardian aid.
Send not to good Laërtes, nor engage
In toils of state the miseries of age:
'Tis impious to surmise the powers divine
To ruin doom the Jove-descended line:
Long shall the race of just Arcesius reign,
930 And isles remote enlarge his old domain.

He thus: O were the woes you speak the worst!
They form a deed more odious and accurst;
More dreadful than your boding soul divines:
But pitying Jove avert the dire designs!
The darling object of your royal care
Is mark'd to perish in a deathful snare;
Before he anchors in his native port,
From Pyle-resailing and the Spartan court;
Horrid to speak! in ambush is decreed
The hope and heir of Ithaca to bleed!
Sudden she sunk beneath the weighty woes,
The vital streams a chilling horror froze;
The big round tear stands trembling in her eye,
And on her tongue imperfect accents die.
At length, in tender language interwove
With sighs, she thus express'd her anxious love:
Why rashly would my son his fate explore,
Ride the wild waves, and quit the safer shore?
Did he, with all the greatly wretched, crave
A blank oblivion, and untimely grave?

"Tis not, replied the sage, to Medon given To know, if some inhabitant of heaven

In his young breast the daring thought inspired!
Or if alone with filial duty fired,

The winds and waves he tempts in early bloom,
Studious to learn his absent father's doom.
The sage retired: unable to controul
The mighty griefs that swell her labouring soul,
Rolling convulsive on the floor, is seen
The piteous object of a prostrate queen.
Words to her dumb complaint a pause supplies,
And breath, to waste in unavailing cries.
Around their sovereign wept the menial fair,
To whom she thus address'd her deep despair.
Behold a wretch whom all the gods consign
To woe! Did ever sorrows equal mine?
Long to my joys my dearest lord is lost,
His country's buckler, and the Grecian boast:
Now from my fond embrace, by tempests torn,
Our other column of the state is borne:
Nor took a kind adieu, nor sought consent!-
Unkind confederates in his dire intent!
Ill suits it with your shows of duteous zeal,
From me the purposed voyage to conceal :
Though at the solemn midnight hour he rose,
Why did you fear to trouble my repose?
He either had obey'd my fond desire,
Or seen his mother pierced with grief expire.
Bid Dolius quick attend, the faithful slave
Whom to my nuptial train Icarius gave,

930

990

1000

The queen her speech with calm attention hears,
Her eyes restrain the silver-streaming tears:
She bathes, and robed, the sacred dome ascends;
Her pious speed a female train attends;
The salted cakes in canisters are laid,
And thus the queen invokes Minerva's aid.

Daughter divine of Jove, whose arm can wield
The avenging bolt, and shake the dreadful shield!
If e'er Ulysses to thy fane preferr'd

940 The best and choicest of his flock and herd,
Hear, goddess, hear, by those oblations won;
And for the pious sire preserve the son;
His wish'd return with happy power befriend,
And on the suitors let thy wrath descend.

950

She ceased; shrill ecstacies of joy declare
The favouring goddess present to the prayer:
The suitors heard, and deem'd the mirthful voice
A signal of her hymeneal choice:
Whilst one most jovial thus accosts the board:
"Too late the queen selects a second lord;
In evil hour the nuptial rite intends,

1010

When o'er her son disastrous death impends." 1020
Thus he unskill'd of what the fates provide !
But with severe rebuke Antinous cried.

1030

These empty vaunts will make the voyage vain;
Alarm not with discourse the menial train:
The great event with silent hope attend;
Our deeds alone our counsel must commend.
His speech thus ended short, he frowning rose,
960 And twenty chiefs renown'd for valour chose:
Down to the strand he speeds with haughty strides,
Where anchor'd in the bay the vessel rides,
Replete with mail and military store,
In all her tackle trim to quit the shore.
The desperate crew ascend, unfurl the sails
(The seaward prow invites the tardy gales ;)
Then take repast, till Hesperus display'd
His golden circlet in the western shade.
Meantime the queen, without refection due,
970 Heart-wounded, to the bed of state withdrew :
In her sad breast the prince's fortunes roll,
And hope and doubt alternate seize her soul.
* Minerva.

1040

[ocr errors]

So when the woodman's toil her cave surrounds,
And with the hunter's cry the grove resounds,
With grief and rage the mother-lion stung,
Fearless herself, yet trembles for her young.

While pensive in the silent slumberous shade,
Sleep's gentle powers her drooping eyes invade;
Minerva, life-like on embodied air
Impress'd the form of Iphthima the fair;
(Icarius' daughter she, whose blooming charms
Allured Eumelus to her virgin arms;
A scepter'd lord, who o'er the fruitful plain
Of Thessaly, wide stretch'd his ample reign :)
As Pallas will'd, along the sable skies,
To calm the queen, the phantom sister flies.
Swift on the regal dome, descending right,
The bolted valves are pervious to her flight.
Close to her head the pleasing vision stands,
And thus performs Minerva's high commands.
O why, Penelope, this causeless fear,
To render sleep's soft blessing unsincere?
Alike devote to sorrow's dire extreme
The day-reflection, and the midnight dream!
Thy son the gods propitious will restore,
And bid thee cease his absence to deplore.

1050

BOOK V.

ARGUMENT.

The departure of Ulysses from Calypso. Pallas in a council of the gods complains of the detention of lysses in the island of Calypso; whereupon Mercury is sent to command his remov 1 The seat of Calypso described. She consents with much difficulty; and Ulysses builds a vessel with his own hands, on which he embarks. Neptune overtakes him with a terrible tempest, in which he is shipwrecked, and in the last danger of death: till Leucothea, a sea-goddess, assists him, and, after innumerable perils, he gets ashore at Phæacia.

BOOK V.

THE saffron morn, with early blushes spread,
Now rose refulgent from Tithonus' bed;
With new-born day to gladden mortal sight,

1060 And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light.
Then met the eternal synod of the sky,

Before the god who thunders from on high,
Supreme in might, sublime in majesty.
Pallas to these deplores the unequal fates

To whom the queen (whilst yet her pensive mind Of wise Ulysses, and his toils relates:

Was in the silent gates of sleep confined :)

O sister, to my soul for ever dear,

Why this first visit to reprove my fear?

How, in a realm so distant, should you know

From what deep source my ceaseless sorrows flow!
To all my hope my royal lord is lost,

1071

His country's buckler, and the Grecian boast:
And, with consummate woe to weigh me down,
The heir of all his honours and his crown,
My darling son is fled! an easy prey
To the fierce storms, or men more fierce than they:
Who, in a league of blood associates sworn,
Will intercept the unwary youth's return.

Courage resume, the shadowy form replied,
In the protecting care of heaven confide:
On him attends the blue-eyed martial maid;
What earthly can implore a surer aid?
Me now the guardian goddess deigns to send,
To bid thee patient his return attend.

The queen replies: If in the bless'd abodes,
A goddess, thou hast commerce with the gods;
Say, breathes my lord the blissful realm of light,
Or lies he wrapp'd in ever-during night?

Inquire not all his doom, the phantom cries,
I speak not of the counsel of the skies:

Nor must indulge with vain discourse or long,
The windy satisfaction of the tongue.

Swift through the valves the visionary fair
Repass'd, and viewless mix'd with common air.
The queen awakes deliver'd of her woes;
With florid joy her heart dilating glows:
The vision manifest of future fate,
Makes her with hope her son's arrival wait.

Meantime, the suitors plough the watery plain;
Telemachus, in thought, already slain!
When sight of lessening Ithaca was lost,
Their sail directed for the Samian coast;
A small but verdant isle appeared in view,
And Asteris the advancing pilot knew:
An ample port the rocks projected form,
To break the rolling waves and ruffling storm:
That safe recess they gain with happy speed,
And in close ambush wait the murderous deed.

Her hero's danger touch'd the pitying power,
The nymph's seducements, and the magic bower.
Thus she began her plaint: Immortal Jove!
And you who fill the blissful seats above!
Let kings no more with gentle mercy sway,
Or bless a people willing to obey,
But crush the nations with an iron rod,
And every monarch be the scourge of God!
If from your thoughts Ulysses you remove,
Who ruled his subjects with a father's love.
Sole in an isle, encircled with the main,
Abandon'd, banish'd from his native reign,
Unbless'd he sighs; detain'd by lawless charms,
And press'd unwilling in Calypso's arms.
1080 Nor friends are there, nor vessels to convey,
Nor oars to cut the immeasurable way.
And now fierce traitors, studious to destroy
His only son, their ambush'd fraud employ;
Who, pious, following his great father's fame,
To sacred Pylos and to Sparta came.

10

20

29

What words are these? (replied the power who
forms

The clouds of night, and darkens heaven with storms;)
Is not already in thy soul decreed,

1090 The chief's return shall make the guilty bleed?
What cannot Wisdom do? Thou may'st restore
The son in safety to his native shore:
While the fell foes, who late in ambush lay,
With fraud defeated measure back their way.

Then thus to Hermes the command was given:
Hermes, thou chosen messenger of heaven!
Go; to the nymph be these our orders borne;
Tis Jove's decree, Ulysses shall return:
The patient man shall view his old abodes,
1100 Nor help'd by mortal hand, nor guiding gods;
In twice ten days shall fertile Scheria find,
Alone, and floating to the wave and wind.
The bold Phracians there, whose haughty line
Is mix'd with gods, half human, half divine,
The chief shall honour as some heavenly guest,
And swift transport him to his place of rest.
His vessels loaded with a plenteous store
Of brass, of vestures, and resplendent ore,

40

50

(A richer prize than if his joyful isle

Received him charged with Ilion's noble spoil,)
His friends, his country, he shall see, though late;
Such is our sovereign will, and such is fate.

He spoke. The god who mounts the winged
winds

[blocks in formation]

For who, self-moved, with weary wing would sweep
Such length of ocean and unmeasured deep:
A world of waters! far from all the ways

60 Where men frequent, or sacred altars blaze?
But to Jove's will submission we must pay:
What power so great, to dare to disobey?
A man, he says, a man resides with thee,
Of all his kind most worn with misery;

130

The Greeks, (whose arms for nine long years employ'd
Their force on Ilion, in the tenth destroy'd)

At length embarking in a luckless hour,
With conquest proud, incensed Minerva's power:
Hence on the guilty race her vengeance hurl'd

70 With storms pursued them through the liquid world.
There all his vessels sunk beneath the wave!
There all his dear companions found their grave! 140
Saved from the jaws of death by heaven's decree,
The tempest drove him to these shores and thee :
Him Jove now orders to his native lands
Straight to dismiss: so destiny commands:
Impatient fate his near return attends,
And calls him to his country, and his friends.

Fast to his feet the golden pinions binds,
That high through fields of air his flight sustain
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main.
He grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumber seals the wakeful eye:
Then shoots from heaven to high Pieria's steep
And stoops incumbent on the rolling deep.
So watery fowl, that seek their fishy food,
With wings expanded, o'er the foaming flood,
Now sailing smooth the level surface sweep,
Now dip their pinions in the briny deep.
Thus o'er the world of waters Hermes flew,
Till now the distant island rose in view:
Then swift ascending from the azure wave,
He took the path that winded to the cave.
Large was the grot, in which the nymph he found;
(The fair-hair'd nymph with every beauty crown'd.)
She sate and sung; the rocks resound her lays:
The cave was brighten'd with a rising blaze;
Cedar and frankincense, an odorous pile,
Flamed on the hearth, and wide perfumed the isle ;
While she with work and song the time divides,
And through the loom the golden shuttle guides.
Without the grot a various sylvan scene
Appear'd around, and groves of living green;
Poplars and alders ever quivering play'd,
And nodding cypress form'd a fragrant shade;
On whose high branches, waving with the storm,
The birds of broadest wing their mansions form,
The chough, the sea-mew, the loquacious crow,
And scream aloft, and skim the deeps below.
Depending vines the shelving cavern screen,
With purple clusters blushing through the green.
Four limpid fountains from the clefts distil,
And every fountain pours a several rill,
In mazy windings wandering down the hill,
Where bloomy meads with vivid greens were crown'd,
And glowing violets threw odours round.
A scene, where if a god should cast his sight,
A god might gaze, and wander with delight!
Joy touched the messenger of heaven: he stay'd
Entranced, and all the blissful haunts survey'd.
Him, entering in the cave, Calypso knew;
For powers celestial to each other's view
Stand still confess'd, though distant far they lie
To habitants of earth, or sea, or sky.

Even to her inmost soul the goddess shook :
80 Then thus her anguish and her passion broke :
Ungracious gods! with spite and envy curst!
Still to your own ethereal race the worst!
Ye envy mortal and immortal joy,

And love, the only sweet of life, destroy.
Did ever goddess by her charms engage
A favour'd mortal, and not feel your rage?
So when Aurora sought Orion's love,
Her joys disturb'd your blissful hours above,
Till, in Ortygia, Dian's winged dart

150

160

90 Had pierced the hapless hunter to the heart.
So when the covert of the thrice-ear'd field
Saw stately Ceres to her passion yield,
Scarce could läsion taste her heavenly charms,
But Jove's swift lightning scorch'd him in her arms.
And is it now my turn, ye mighty powers!
Am I the envy of your blissful bowers?

100

A man, an outcast to the storm and wave,
It was my crime to pity and to save;
When he who thunders rent his bark in twain,
And sunk his brave companions in the main,
Alone, abandon'd, in mid-ocean toss'd

The sport of winds, and driven from every coast, 170
Hither this man of miseries I led,

Received the friendless, and the hungry fed;
Nay promised (vainly promised!) to bestow
Iminortal life, exempt from age and woe.
'Tis past-and Jove decrees he shall remove;
Gods as we are, we are but slaves to Jove,
Go then he may (he must, if he ordain,
110 Try all those dangers, all those deeps, again :)
But never, never shall Calypso send

But sad Ulysses, by himself apart,
Pour'd the big sorrows of his swelling heart.
All on the lonely shore he sate to weep,
And roll'd his eyes around the restless deep;
Toward his loved coast he roll'd his eyes in vain,
Till, dimm'd with rising grief, they stream'd again.
Now graceful seated on her shining throne,
To Hermes thus the nymph divine begun :
God of the golden wand! on what behest
Arrivest thou here, an unexpected guest?
Loved as thou art, thy free injunctions lay;
'Tis mine, with joy and duty to obey.
Till now a stranger, in a happy hour
Approach and taste the dainties of my bower.

Thus having spoke, the nymph the table spread; (Ambrosial cates, with nectar rosy-red ;)

To toils like these her husband and her friend.
What ships have I, what sailors to convey,
What oars to cut the long laborious way?

180

Yet, I'll direct the safest means to go;

That last advice is all I can bestow.

To her the power who bears the charming rod: Dismiss the man, nor irritate the god;

[ocr errors]

Prevent the rage of him who reigns above;
For what so dreadful as the wrath of Jove?
Thus having said, he cut the cleaving sky,
And in a moment vanish'd from her eye.
The nymph, obedient to divine command,
To seek Ulysses, paced along the sand.
Him pensive on the lonely beach she found,
With streaming eyes in briny torrents drown'd,
And inly pining for his native shore;

For now the soft enchantress pleased no more:
For now, reluctant, and constrain'd by charms,
Absent he lay in her desiring arms;

In slumber wore the heavy night away;

Their hunger satiate, and their thirst represt,
Thus spoke Calypso to her godlike guest;
Ulysses! (with a sigh she thus began ;)
190 O sprung from gods! in wisdom more than man!
Is then thy home the passion of thy heart?
Thus wilt thou leave me? are we thus to part? 260
Farewell! and ever joyful may'st thou be,

Nor break the transport with one thought of me.
But, ah, Ulysses! wert thou given to know
What Fate yet dooms thee yet to undergo;
Thy heart might settle in this scene of ease,

And even these slighted charms might learn to please.
A willing goddess, and immortal life,

On rocks and shores consumed the tedious day: 200 Might banish from thy mind an absent wife.
There sate all desolate, and sigh'd alone,
With echoing sorrows made the mountains groan,
And roll'd his eyes o'er all the restless main,
Tili, dimm'd with rising grief, they stream'd again.
Here, on his musing mood the goddess press'd,
Approaching soft: and thus the chief address'd:
Unhappy man! to wasting woes a prey,
No more in sorrows languish life away:
Free as the winds I give thee now to rove-
Go, fell the timber of yon lofty grove,
And form a raft, and build the rising ship,
Sublime to bear thee o'er the gloomy deep;
To store the vessel let the care be mine,
With water from the rock, and rosy wine,
And life-sustaining bread, and fair array,

Am I inferior to a mortal dame?

Less soft my feature, less august my frame?
Or shall the daughters of mankind compare
Their earth-born beauties with the heavenly fair?
Alas! for this (the prudent man replies)
Against Ulysses shall thy anger rise?
Loved and adored, oh goddess, as thou art,
Forgive the weakness of a human heart.
Though well I see thy graces far above

And prosperous gales to waft thee on the way.
These, if the gods with my desire comply,
(The gods, alas! more mighty far than I,
And better skill'd in dark events to come,)
In peace shall land thee at thy native home.
With sighs Ulysses heard the words she spoke,
Then thus his melancholy silence broke.
Some other motive, goddess! sways thy mind
Some close design, or turn of womankind,)
Nor my return the end, nor this the way,
On a slight raft to pass the swelling sea,
Huge, horrid, vast! where scarce in safety sails
The best-built ship, though Jove inspire the gales.
The bold proposal how shall I fulfil,
Dark as I am, unconscious of thy will?

210 The dear, though mortal, object of my love;
Of youth eternal well the difference know,
And the short date of fading charms below;
Yet every day, while absent thus I roam,
I languish to return and die at home.
Whate'er the gods shall destine me to bear
In the black ocean, or the watery war,
'Tis mine to master with a constant mind;
Inured to perils, to the worst resign'd.
By seas, by wars, so many dangers run;
220 Still I can suffer: their high will be done!

230

270

280

290

Thus while he spoke, the beamy sun descends,
And rising night her friendly shade extends.
To the close grot the lonely pair remove,
And slept delighted with the gifts of love.
When rosy morning call'd them from their rest,
Ulysses robed him in the cloak and vest:
The nymph's fair head a veil transparent graced,
Her swelling loins a radiant zone embraced
With flowers of gold: an under robe, unbound,
In snowy waves flow'd glittering on the ground.
Forth issuing thus, she gave him first to wield
A weighty ax with truest temper steel'd,
And doubled-edged; the handle smooth and plain,
Wrought of the clouded olive's easy grain:
And next, a wedge to drive with sweepy sway:
Then to the neighbouring forest led the way.
On the lone island's utmost verge there stood
Of poplars, pines, and firs, a lofty wood,
Whose leafless summits to the skies aspire,
Scorch'd by the sun, or sear'd by heavenly fire,
241 (Already dried.) These pointing out to view,

Swear then thou mean'st not what my soul forebodes;
Swear by the solemn oath that binds the gods.

Him, while he spoke, with smiles Calypso eyed,
And gently grasp'd his hand, and thus replied:
This shows thee, friend, by old experience taught,
And learn'd in all the wiles of human thought.
How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
But hear, oh earth, and hear, ye sacred skies!
And thou, oh Styx! whose formidable floods
Glide through the shades, and bind the attesting gods!
No form'd design, no meditated end,
Lurks in the counsel of thy faithful friend;
Kind the persuasion, and sincere my aim;
The same my practice, were my fate the same.
Heaven has not curst me with a heart of steel,
But given the sense, to pity, and to feel.

Thus having said, the goddess march'd before:
He trod her footsteps in the sandy shore.
At the cool cave arrived, they took their state:
He fill'd the throne where Mercury had sate.
For him, the nymph a rich repast ordains,
Such as the mortal life of man sustains;
Before herself were placed the cates divine,
Ambrosial banquet, and celestial wine.

300

The nymph just show'd him, and with tears withdrew.
Now toils the hero: trees on trees o'erthrown 310
Fall crackling round him and the forests groan:
Sudden, full twenty on the plain are strow'd,
And lopp'd and lighten'd of their branchy load.
At equal angles these disposed to join,

He smooth'd and squared them by the rule and line.
(The wimbles for the work Calypso found)

250 With those he pierced them, and with clinchers bound.
Long and capacious as a shipwright forms

Some bark's broad bottom to out-ride the storms, 320
So large he built the raft: then ribb'd it strong
From space to space, and nail'd the planks along;

These form'd the sides: the deck he fashion'd last; 'Tis Jove himself the swelling tempest rears;

Then o'er the vessel raised the taper mast,
With crossing sail-yards dancing in the wind;
And to the helm the guiding rudder join'd,
(With yielding osiers fenced, to break the force
Of surging waves, and steer the steady course.)
Thy loom, Calypso! for the future sails
Supplied the cloth, capacious of the gales.
With stays and cordage last he rigg'd the ship,
And, roll'd on levers, launch'd her in the deep.

Death, present death, on every side appears.
Happy! thrice happy! who, in battle slain,
Press'd, in Atrides' cause, the Trojan plain!
Oh! had I died before that well-fought wall;
Had some distinguish'd day renown'd my fall
(Such as was that when showers of javelins fled
330 From conquering Troy around Achilles dead :)
All Greece had paid me solemn funerals then,
And spread my glory with the sons of men.
A shameful fate now hides my hapless head,
Unwept, unnoted, and for ever dead!

Four days were past, and now the work complete,
Shone the fifth morn, when from her sacred seat
The nymph dismiss'd him (odorous garments given)]
And bath'd in fragrant oils that breath'd of heaven;
Then fill'd two goat-skins with her hands divine,
With water one, and one with sable wine:
Of every kind, provisions heaved aboard;
And the full decks with copious viands stored.
The goddess, last, a gentle breeze supplies,
To curl old Ocean, and to warm the skies.

400

410

A mighty wave rush'd o'er him as he spoke,
The raft it cover'd, and the mast it broke;
Swept from the deck, and from the rudder torn,
Far on the swelling surge the chief was borne;
While by the howling tempest rent in twain
340 Flew sail and sail-yards rattling o'er the main.
Long press'd, he heaved beneath the weighty wave,
Clogg'd by the cumbrous vest Calypso gave;
At length emerging, from his nostrils wide,
And gushing mouth, effused the briny tide,
Even then, not mindless of his last retreat,
He seized the raft, and leap'd into his seat,
Strong with the fear of death. The rolling flood
Now here, now there, impell'd the floating wood.
As when a heap of gather'd thorns is cast
350 Now to, now fro, before the autumnal blast;
Together clung, it rolls around the field;
So roll'd the float, and so its texture held:
And now the south, and now the north, bear sway,
And now the east the foamy floods obey,
And now the west-wind whirls it o'er the sea.
The wandering chief with toils on toils oppress'd,
Leucothea saw, and pity touch'd her breast:
(Herself a mortal once, of Cadmus' strain,
But now an azure sister of the main.)

And now, rejoicing in the prosperous gales,
With beating heart Ulysses spreads his sails:
Placed at the helm he sate, and mark'd the skies,
Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes.
There view'd the Pleiads, and the Northern Team,
And great Orion's more refulgent beam,
To which, around the axle of the sky,
The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye:
Who shines exalted on the ethereal plain,
Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main.
Far on the left those radiant fires to keep,
The nymph directed, as he sail'd the deep.
Full seventeen nights he cut the foamy way:
The distant land appear'd the following day:
Then swell'd to sight Phæacia's dusky coast,
And woody mountains, half in vapours lost,
That lay before him indistinct and vast,
Like a broad shield amid the watery waste.
But him, thus voyaging the deeps below,
From far, on Solymè's aërial brow,
The king of Ocean saw, and seeing burn'd;
(From Æthiopia's happy climes return'd :)
The raging monarch shook his azure head,
And thus in secret to his soul he said:

420

360 Swift as a sea-mew, springing from the flood,
All radiant on the raft the goddess stood:
Then thus address'd him: Thou, whom heaven
decrees
431

To Neptune's wrath, stern tyrant of the seas:
(Unequal contest!) not his rage and power,
Great as he is, such virtue shall devour.

Heavens! how uncertain are the powers on high! What I suggest, thy wisdom will perform;

Is then reversed the sentence of the sky,
In one man's favour; whilst a distant guest
I shared secure the Ethiopian feast?
Behold how near Phæacia's land he draws!
The land, affix'd by Fate's eternal laws

Forsake thy float, and leave it to the storm:
Strip off thy garments; Neptune's fury brave
370 With naked strength, and plunge into the wave.
To reach Phæacia all thy nerves extend,
There Fate decrees thy miseries shall end.
This heavenly scarf beneath thy bosom bind,
And live; give all thy terrors to the wind.
Soon as thy arms the happy shore shall gain,
Return the gift, and cast it in the main;
Observe my orders, and with heed obey,
Cast it far off, and turn thy eyes away.

To end his toils. Is then our anger vain ?
No; if this sceptre yet commands the main.
He spoke, and high the forky trident hurl'd,
Rolls clouds on clouds, and stirs the watery world,
At once the face of earth and sea deforms,
Swells all the winds, and rouses all the storms.
Down rush'd the night: east, west, together roar;
And south and north roll mountains to the shore; 380
Then shook the hero, to despair resign'd,
And question'd thus his yet unconquer'd mind.
Wretch that I am! what farther fates attend
This life of toils? and what my destined end?
Too well, alas! the island goddess knew,
On the black sea what perils should ensue.
New horrors now this destined head enclose,
Unfill'd is yet the measure of my woes;
With what a cloud the brows of heaven are crown'd!
What raging winds! what roaring waters round! 390

440

With that, her hand the sacred veil bestows,
Then down the deeps she dived from whence she rose:
A moment snatch'd the shining form away,
And all was cover'd with the curling sea.

Struck with amaze, yet still to doubt inclined, 450
He stands suspended, and explores his mind.
What shall I do? unhappy me! who knows
But other gods intend me other woes?
Whoe'er thou art, I shall not blindly join
Thy pleaded reason, but consult with mine.
For scarce in ken appears that distant isle
Thy voice foretells me shall conclude my toil.

« ZurückWeiter »