The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (94 page)

To see how strew’d about our cups and cates,

As tables set with feast so we with fates,

All gash’d and slain lay, all the floor embru’d

With blood and brain. But that which most I ru’d,

Flew from the heavy voice that Priam’s seed,

Cassandra, breath’d, whom she that wit doth feed

With baneful crafts, false Clytemnestra, slew,

Close sitting by me; up my hands I threw

From earth to heav’n, and tumbling on my sword

Gave wretched life up; when the most abhorr’d,

By all her sex’s shame, forsook the room,

Nor deign’d, though then so near this heavy home,

To shut my lips, or close my broken eyes.

Nothing so heap’d is with impieties

As such a woman that would kill her spouse

That married her a maid, when to my house

I brought her, hoping of her love in heart,

To children, maids, and slaves. But she (in th’ art

Of only mischief hearty) not alone

Cast on herself this foul aspersion,

But loving dames, hereafter, to their lords

Will bear, for good deeds, her bad thoughts and words.’

‘Alas,’ said I, ‘that Jove should hate the lives

Of Atreus’ seed so highly for their wives!

For Menelaus’ wife a number fell,

For dangerous absence thine sent thee to hell.’

‘For this,’ he answer’d, ‘be not thou more kind

Than wise to thy wife. Never all thy mind

Let words express to her. Of all she knows,

Curbs for the worst still in thyself repose.

But thou by thy wife’s wiles shalt lose no blood,

Exceeding wise she is, and wise in good.

Icarius’ daughter, chaste Penelope,

We left a young bride, when for battle we

Forsook the nuptial peace, and at her breast

Her first child sucking, who by this hour, blest

Sits in the number of surviving men.

And his bliss she hath, that she can contain,

And her bliss thou hast, that she is so wise.

For, by her wisdom, thy returned eyes

Shall see thy son, and he shall greet his sire

With fitting welcomes; when in my retire,

My wife denies mine eyes my son’s dear sight,

And, as from me, will take from him the light,

Before she adds one just delight to life,

Or her false wit one truth that fits a wife.

For her sake therefore let my harms advise,

That though thy wife be ne’er so chaste and wise,

Yet come not home to her in open view,

With any ship or any personal show,

But take close shore disguis’d, nor let her know,

For ’tis no world to trust a woman now.

But what says fame? Doth my son yet survive,

In Orchomen, or Pylos? Or doth live

In Sparta with his uncle? Yet I see

Divine Orestes is not here with me.’

I answer’d, asking: ‘Why doth Atreus’ son

Enquire of me, who yet arriv
’
d where none

Could give to these news any certain wings?

And ’tis absurd to tell uncertain things.’

Such sad speech pass’d us; and as thus we stood,

With kind tears rendering unkind fortunes good,

Achilles’ and Patroclus’ soul appear’d,

And his soul, of whom never ill was heard,

The good Antilochus, and the soul of him

That all the Greeks pass’d both for force and limb,

Excepting the unmatch’d Aeacides,

Illustrious Ajax. But the first of these

That saw, acknowledg’d, and saluted me,

Was Thetis’ conquering son, who (heavily

His state here taking) said: ‘Unworthy breath!

What act yet mightier imagineth

Thy vent’rous spirit? How dost thou descend

These under regions, where the dead man’s end

Is to be look’d on, and his foolish shade?’

I answer’d him: ‘I was induced t’ invade

These under parts, most excellent of Greece,

To visit wise Tiresias, for advice

Of virtue to direct my voyage home

To rugged Ithaca; since I could come

To note in no place where Achaia stood,

And so lived ever, tortur’d with the blood

In man’s vain veins. Thou therefore, Thetis’ son,

Hast equall’d all, that ever yet have won

The bliss the earth yields, or hereafter shall.

In life thy eminence was ador’d of all,

Ev
’
n with the gods; and now, ev’n dead, I see

Thy virtues propagate thy empery

To a renew’d life of command beneath;

So great Achilles triumphs over death.’

This comfort of him this encounter found:

‘Urge not my death to me, nor rub that wound.

I rather wish to live in earth a swain,

Or serve a swain for hire, that scarce can gain

Bread to sustain him, than, that life once gone,

Of all the dead sway the imperial throne.

But say, and of my son some comfort yield,

If he goes on in first fights of the field,

Or lurks for safety in the obscure rear?

Or of my father if thy royal ear

Hath been advertis’d, that the Phthian throne

He still commands, as greatest Myrmidon?

Or that the Phthian and Thessalian rage

(Now feet and hands are in the hold of age)

Despise his empire? Under those bright rays,

In which heav’n’s fervour hurls about the days,

Must I no more shine his revenger now,

Such as of old the Ilion overthrow

Witness’d my anger, th’ universal host

Sending before me to this shady coast,

In fight for Grecia. Could I now resort

(But for some small time) to my father’s court,

In spirit and power as then, those men should find

My hands inaccessible, and of fire my mind,

That durst with all the numbers they are strong

Unseat his honour, and suborn his wrong.’

This pitch still flew his spirit, though so low,

And this I answer’d thus: ‘I do not know

Of blameless Peleus any least report,

But of your son, in all the utmost sort,

I can inform your care with truth, and thus:

From Scyros princely Neoptolemus

By fleet I convey’d to the Greeks, where he

Was chief at both parts, when our gravity

Retir
’
d to council, and our youth to fight.

In council still so fiery was conceit

In his quick apprehension of a cause,

That first he ever spake, nor pass’d the laws

Of any grave stay, in his greatest haste.

None would contend with him, that counsell’d last,

Unless illustrious Nestor, he and I

Would sometimes put a friendly contrary

On his opinion. In our fights, the prease

Of great or common, he would never cease,

But far before fight ever. No man there,

For force, he forced. He was slaughterer

Of many a brave man in most dreadful fight.

But one and other whom he reft of light,

In Grecian succour, I can neither name,

Nor give in number. The particular fame

Of one man’s slaughter yet I must not pass:

Eurypylus Telephides he was,

That fell beneath him, and with him the falls

Of such huge men went, that they show’d like whales

Rampired about him. Neoptolemus

Set him so sharply, for the sumptuous

Favours of mistresses he saw him wear;

For past all doubt his beauties had no peer

Of all that mine eyes noted, next to one,

And that was Memnon, Tithon’s Sun-like son.

Thus far, for fight in public, may a taste

Give of his eminence. How far surpass’d

His spirit in private, where he was not seen,

Nor glory could be said to praise his spleen,

This close note I excerpted. When we sat

Hid in Epeus’ horse, no optimate

Of all the Greeks there had the charge to ope

And shut the stratagem but I. My scope

To note then each man’s spirit in a strait

Of so much danger, much the better might

Be hit by me than others, as, provok’d,

I shifted place still, when in some I smok’d

Both privy tremblings and close vent of tears,

In him yet not a soft conceit of theirs

Could all my search see, either his wet eyes

Ply’d still with wipings, or the goodly guise

His person all ways put forth, in least part,

By any tremblings, show’d his touch’d-at heart.

But ever he was urging me to make

Way to their sally, by his sign to shake

His sword hid in his scabbard, or his lance

Loaded with iron, at me. No good chance

His thoughts to Troy intended. In th’ event,

High Troy depopulate, he made ascent

To his fair ship, with prise and treasure store,

Safe, and no touch away with him he bore

Of far-off-hurl’d lance, or of close-fought sword,

Whose wounds for favours war doth oft afford,

Which he (though sought) miss’d in war’s closest wage.

In close fights Mars doth never fight, but rage.’

This made the soul of swift Achilles tread

A march of glory through the herby mead,

For joy to hear me so renown his son;

And vanish’d stalking. But with passion

Stood th’ other souls struck, and each told his bane.

Only the spirit Telamonian

Kept far off, angry for the victory

I won from him at fleet, though arbitry

Of all a court of war pronounced it mine,

And Pallas’ self. Our prise were th’ arms divine

Of great Aeacides, propos
’
d t’ our fames

By his bright mother, at his funeral games.

I wish to heav’n I ought not to have won,

Since for those arms so high a head so soon

The base earth cover’d: Ajax, that of all

The host of Greece had person capital,

And acts as eminent, excepting his

Whose arms those were, in whom was nought amiss.

I tried the great soul with soft words, and said:

‘Ajax! Great son of Telamon, array’d

In all our glories! What! Not dead resign

Thy wrath for those curst arms? The pow’rs divine

In them forg’d all our banes in thine own one;

In thy grave fall our tow’r was overthrown.

We mourn, for ever maim’d, for thee as much

As for Achilles; nor thy wrong doth touch,

In sentence, any but Saturnius’ doom,

In whose hate was the host of Greece become

A very horror; who express’d it well

In signing thy fate with this timeless hell.

Approach then, king of all the Grecian merit,

Repress thy great mind, and thy flamy spirit,

And give the words I give thee worthy ear.’

All this no word drew from him, but less near

The stern soul kept; to other souls he fled,

And glid along the river of the dead.

Though anger mov
’
d him, yet he might have spoke,

Since I to him. But my desires were strook

With sight of other souls. And then I saw

Minos, that minister’d to Death a law,

And Jove’s bright son was. He was set, and sway’d

A golden sceptre; and to him did plead

A sort of others, set about his throne,

In Pluto’s wide-door’d house; when straight came on

Mighty Orion, who was hunting there

The herds of those beasts he had slaughter’d here

In desert hills on earth. A club he bore,

Entirely steel, whose virtues never wore.

Tityus I saw, to whom the glorious earth

Open’d her womb, and gave unhappy birth.

Upwards, and flat upon the pavement, lay

His ample limbs, that spread in their display

Nine acres’ compass. On his bosom sat

Two vultures, digging, through his caul of fat,

Into his liver with their crooked beaks;

And each by turns the concrete entrail breaks,

As smiths their steel beat, set on either side.

Nor doth he ever labour to divide

His liver and their beaks, nor with his hand

Offer them off, but suffers by command

Of th’ angry Thund’rer, of
f
’
ring to enforce

His love Latona, in the close recourse

She used to Pytho through the dancing land,

Smooth Panopaeus. I saw likewise stand,

Up to the chin amidst a liquid lake,

Tormented Tantalus, yet could not slake

His burning thirst. Oft as his scornful cup

Th’ old man would taste, so oft ’twas swallow’d up,

And all the black earth to his feet descried

(Divine pow’r plaguing him) the lake still dried.

About his head, on high trees clust’ring hung

Pears, apples, granates, olives ever young,

Delicious figs, and many fruit trees more

Of other burden; whose alluring store

When th’ old soul striv’d to pluck, the winds from sight,

In gloomy vapours made them vanish quite.

There saw I Sisyphus in infinite moan,

With both hands heaving up a massy stone,

And on his tip-toes racking all his height,

To wrest up to a mountain-top his freight;

When prest to rest it there, his nerves quite spent,

Down rush’d the deadly quarry, the event

Of all his torture new to raise again;

To which straight set his never-rested pain.

The sweat came gushing out from every pore,

And on his head a standing mist he wore,

Reeking from thence, as if a cloud of dust

Were rais’d about it. Down with these was thrust

The idol of the force of Hercules;

But his firm self did no such fate oppress,

He feasting lives amongst th’ immortal states,

White-ankled Hebe and himself made mates

In heavenly nuptials – Hebe, Jove’s dear race

And Juno’s whom the golden sandals grace.

About him flew the clamours of the dead

Like fowls, and still stoop’d cuffing at his head.