第47章

He scarcely knew him, striving to disown His blotted form, and blushing to be known;And therefore first began: "O Tsucer's race, Who durst thy faultless figure thus deface?

What heart could wish, what hand inflict, this dire disgrace?

'Twas fam'd, that in our last and fatal night Your single prowess long sustain'd the fight, Till tir'd, not forc'd, a glorious fate you chose, And fell upon a heap of slaughter'd foes.

But, in remembrance of so brave a deed, A tomb and fun'ral honors I decreed;Thrice call'd your manes on the Trojan plains:

The place your armor and your name retains.

Your body too I sought, and, had I found, Design'd for burial in your native ground."The ghost replied: "Your piety has paid All needful rites, to rest my wand'ring shade;But cruel fate, and my more cruel wife, To Grecian swords betray'd my sleeping life.

These are the monuments of Helen's love:

The shame I bear below, the marks I bore above.

You know in what deluding joys we pass'd The night that was by Heav'n decreed our last:

For, when the fatal horse, descending down, Pregnant with arms, o'erwhelm'd th' unhappy town She feign'd nocturnal orgies; left my bed, And, mix'd with Trojan dames, the dances led Then, waving high her torch, the signal made, Which rous'd the Grecians from their ambuscade.

With watching overworn, with cares oppress'd, Unhappy I had laid me down to rest, And heavy sleep my weary limbs possess'd.

Meantime my worthy wife our arms mislaid, And from beneath my head my sword convey'd;The door unlatch'd, and, with repeated calls, Invites her former lord within my walls.

Thus in her crime her confidence she plac'd, And with new treasons would redeem the past.

What need I more? Into the room they ran, And meanly murther'd a defenseless man.

Ulysses, basely born, first led the way.

Avenging pow'rs! with justice if I pray, That fortune be their own another day!

But answer you; and in your turn relate, What brought you, living, to the Stygian state:

Driv'n by the winds and errors of the sea, Or did you Heav'n's superior doom obey?

Or tell what other chance conducts your way, To view with mortal eyes our dark retreats, Tumults and torments of th' infernal seats."While thus in talk the flying hours they pass, The sun had finish'd more than half his race:

And they, perhaps, in words and tears had spent The little time of stay which Heav'n had lent;But thus the Sibyl chides their long delay:

"Night rushes down, and headlong drives the day:

'T is here, in different paths, the way divides;The right to Pluto's golden palace guides;The left to that unhappy region tends, Which to the depth of Tartarus descends;The seat of night profound, and punish'd fiends."Then thus Deiphobus: "O sacred maid, Forbear to chide, and be your will obey'd!

Lo! to the secret shadows I retire, To pay my penance till my years expire.

Proceed, auspicious prince, with glory crown'd, And born to better fates than I have found."He said; and, while he said, his steps he turn'd To secret shadows, and in silence mourn'd.

The hero, looking on the left, espied A lofty tow'r, and strong on ev'ry side With treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds, Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds;And, press'd betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds Wide is the fronting gate, and, rais'd on high With adamantine columns, threats the sky.

Vain is the force of man, and Heav'n's as vain, To crush the pillars which the pile sustain.

Sublime on these a tow'r of steel is rear'd;And dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward, Girt in her sanguine gown, by night and day, Observant of the souls that pass the downward way.

From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains Of sounding lashes and of dragging chains.

The Trojan stood astonish'd at their cries, And ask'd his guide from whence those yells arise;And what the crimes, and what the tortures were, And loud laments that rent the liquid air.

She thus replied: "The chaste and holy race Are all forbidden this polluted place.

But Hecate, when she gave to rule the woods, Then led me trembling thro' these dire abodes, And taught the tortures of th' avenging gods.

These are the realms of unrelenting fate;And awful Rhadamanthus rules the state.

He hears and judges each committed crime;Enquires into the manner, place, and time.

The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal, (Loth to confess, unable to conceal), From the first moment of his vital breath, To his last hour of unrepenting death.

Straight, o'er the guilty ghost, the Fury shakes The sounding whip and brandishes her snakes, And the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes.

Then, of itself, unfolds th' eternal door;With dreadful sounds the brazen hinges roar.

You see, before the gate, what stalking ghost Commands the guard, what sentries keep the post.

More formidable Hydra stands within, Whose jaws with iron teeth severely grin.

The gaping gulf low to the center lies, And twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies.

The rivals of the gods, the Titan race, Here, sing'd with lightning, roll within th' unfathom'd space.

Here lie th' Alaean twins, (I saw them both,)Enormous bodies, of gigantic growth, Who dar'd in fight the Thund'rer to defy, Affect his heav'n, and force him from the sky.

Salmoneus, suff'ring cruel pains, I found, For emulating Jove; the rattling sound Of mimic thunder, and the glitt'ring blaze Of pointed lightnings, and their forky rays.

Thro' Elis and the Grecian towns he flew;Th' audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew:

He wav'd a torch aloft, and, madly vain, Sought godlike worship from a servile train.

Ambitious fool! with horny hoofs to pass O'er hollow arches of resounding brass, To rival thunder in its rapid course, And imitate inimitable force!

But he, the King of Heav'n, obscure on high, Bar'd his red arm, and, launching from the sky His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke, Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook.

There Tityus was to see, who took his birth From heav'n, his nursing from the foodful earth.