the earth than reign over all the dead. So much did the inactivity and
slothful condition of that state displease his unquenchable and restless
spirit. Only he inquired of Ulysses if his father Peleus were living, and
how his son Neoptolemus conducted himself.
Of Peleus Ulysses could tell him nothing; but of Neoptolemus he thus bore
witness: "From Scyros I convoyed your son by sea to the Greeks: where I
can speak of him, for I knew him. He was chief in council, and in the
field. When any question was proposed, so quick was his conceit in the
forward apprehension of any case, that he ever spoke first, and was heard
with more attention than the older heads. Only myself and aged Nestor
could compare with him in giving advice. In battle I cannot speak his
praise, unless I could count all that fell by his sword. I will only
mention one instance of his manhood. When we sat hid in the belly of the
wooden horse, in the ambush which deceived the Trojans to their
destruction, I, who had the management of that stratagem, still shifted my
place from side to side to note the behaviour of our men. In some I marked
their hearts trembling, through all the pains which they took to appear
valiant, and in others tears, that in spite of manly courage would gush
forth. And to say truth, it was an adventure of high enterprise, and as
perilous a stake as was ever played in war's game. But in him I could not
observe the least sign of weakness, no tears nor tremblings, but his hand
still on his good sword, and ever urging me to set open the machine and
let us out before the time was come for doing it; and when we sallied out
he was still first in that fierce destruction and bloody midnight
desolation of king Priam's city."
This made the soul of Achilles to tread a swifter pace, with high-raised
feet, as he vanished away, for the joy which he took in his son being
applauded by Ulysses.
A sad shade stalked by, which Ulysses knew to be the ghost of Ajax, his
opponent, when living, in that famous dispute about the right of
succeeding to the arms of the deceased Achilles. They being adjudged by
the Greeks to Ulysses, as the prize of wisdom above bodily strength, the
noble Ajax in despite went mad, and slew himself. The sight of his rival
turned to a shade by his dispute so subdued the passion of emulation in
Ulysses that for his sake he wished that judgment in that controversy had
been given against himself, rather than so illustrious a chief should have
perished for the desire of those arms which his prowess (second only to
Achilles in fight) so eminently had deserved. "Ajax," he cried, "all the
Greeks mourn for thee as much as they lamented for Achilles. Let not thy
wrath burn forever, great son of Telamon. Ulysses seeks peace with thee,
and will make any atonement to thee that can appease thy hurt spirit." But
the shade stalked on, and would not exchange a word with Ulysses, though
he prayed it with many tears and many earnest entreaties. "He might have
spoke to me," said Ulysses, "since I spoke to him; but I see the
resentments of the dead are eternal."
Then Ulysses saw a throne on which was placed a judge distributing
sentence. He that sat on the throne was Minos, and he was dealing out just
judgments to the dead. He it is that assigns them their place in bliss or
woe.
Then came by a thundering ghost, the large-limbed Orion, the mighty
hunter, who was hunting there the ghosts of the beasts which he had
slaughtered in desert hills upon the earth. For the dead delight in the
occupations which pleased them in the time of their living upon the earth.
There was Tityus suffering eternal pains because he had sought to violate
the honour of Latona, as she passed from Pytho into Panopeus. Two vultures
sat perpetually preying upon his liver with their crooked beaks; which as
fast as they devoured, is forever renewed; nor can he fray them away with
his great hands.
There was Tantalus, plagued for his great sins, standing up to his chin in
water, which he can never taste, but still as he bows his head, thinking
to quench his burning thirst, instead of water he licks up unsavory dust.
All fruits pleasant to the sight, and of delicious flavor, hang in ripe
clusters about his head, seeming as though they offered themselves to be
plucked by him; but when he reaches out his hand, some wind carries them
far out of his sight into the clouds; so he is starved in the midst of
plenty by the righteous doom of Jove, in memory of that inhuman banquet at
which the sun turned pale, when the unnatural father served up the limbs
of his little son in a dish, as meat for his divine guests.
There was Sisyphus, that sees no end to his labours. His punishment is, to
be forever rolling up a vast stone to the top of a mountain, which, when
it gets to the top, falls down with a crushing weight, and all his work is
to be begun again. He was bathed all over in sweat, that reeked out a
smoke which covered his head like a mist. His crime had been the revealing
of state secrets.
There Ulysses saw Hercules--not that Hercules who enjoys immortal life in
heaven among the gods, and is married to Hebe or Youth; but his shadow,
which remains below. About him the dead flocked as thick as bats, hovering
around, and cuffing at his head: he stands with his dreadful bow, ever in
the act to shoot.
There also might Ulysses have seen and spoken with the shades of Theseus,
and Pirithous, and the old heroes; but he had conversed enough with
horrors; therefore, covering his face with his hands, that he might see no
more spectres, he resumed his seat in his ship, and pushed off. The bark
moved of itself without the help of any oar, and soon brought him out of
the regions of death into the cheerful quarters of the living, and to the
island of Aeaea, whence he had set forth.
CHAPTER THREE
The Song of the Sirens.--Scylla and Charybdis.--The Oxen of the Sun.--The
Judgment.--The Crew Killed by Lightning.
"Unhappy man, who at thy birth wast appointed twice to die! others shall
die once; but thou, besides that death that remains for thee, common to
all men, hast in thy lifetime visited the shades of death. Thee Scylla,
thee Charybdis, expect. Thee the deathful Sirens lie in wait for, that
taint the minds of whoever listen to them with their sweet singing.
Whosoever shall but hear the call of any Siren, he will so despise both
wife and children through their sorceries that the stream of his affection
never again shall set homewards, nor shall he take joy in wife or children
thereafter, or they in him."
With these prophetic greetings great Circe met Ulysses on his return. He
besought her to instruct him in the nature of the Sirens, and by what
method their baneful allurements were to be resisted.
"They are sisters three," she replied, "that sit in a mead (by which your
ship must needs pass) circled with dead men's bones. These are the bones
of men whom they have slain, after with fawning invitements they have
enticed them into their fen. Yet such is the celestial harmony of their
voice accompanying the persuasive magic of their words, that, knowing
this, you shall not be able to withstand their enticements. Therefore,
when you are to sail by them, you shall stop the ears of your companions
with wax, that they may hear no note of that dangerous music; but for
yourself, that you may hear, and yet live, give them strict command to
bind you hand and foot to the mast, and in no case to set you free, till
you are out of the danger of the temptation, though you should entreat it,
and implore it ever so much, but to bind you rather the more for your
requesting to be loosed. So shall you escape that snare."
Ulysses then prayed her that she would inform him what Scylla and
Charybdis were, which she had taught him by name to fear. She replied:
"Sailing from Aeaea to Trinacria, you must pass at an equal distance
between two fatal rocks. Incline never so little either to the one side or
the other, and your ship must meet with certain destruction. No vessel
ever yet tried that pass without being lost but the Argo, which owed her
safety to the sacred freight she bore, the fleece of the golden-backed
ram, which could not perish. The biggest of these rocks which you shall
come to, Scylla hath in charge. There in a deep whirlpool at the foot of
the rock the abhorred monster shrouds her face; who if she were to show
her full form, no eye of man or god could endure the sight: thence she
stretches out all her six long necks, peering and diving to suck up fish,
dolphins, dog-fish, and whales, whole ships, and their men, whatever comes
within her raging gulf. The other rock is lesser, and of less ominous
aspect; but there dreadful Charybdis sits, supping the black deeps. Thrice
a day she drinks her pits dry, and thrice a day again she belches them all
up; but when she is drinking, come not nigh, for, being once caught, the
force of Neptune cannot redeem you from her swallow. Better trust to
Scylla, for she will but have for her six necks six men: Charybdis in her
insatiate draught will ask all."
Then Ulysses inquired, in case he should escape Charybdis, whether he
might not assail that other monster with his sword; to which she replied
that he must not think that he had an enemy subject to death, or wounds,
to contend with, for Scylla could never die. Therefore, his best safety
was in flight, and to invoke none of the gods but Gratis, who is Scylla's
mother, and might perhaps forbid her daughter to devour them. For his
conduct after he arrived at Trinacria she referred him to the admonitions
which had been given him by Tiresias.
Ulysses having communicated her instructions, as far as related to the
Sirens, to his companions, who had not been present at that interview--but
concealing from them the rest, as he had done the terrible predictions of
Tiresias, that they might not be deterred by fear from pursuing their
voyage--the time for departure being come, they set their sails, and took
a final leave of great Circe; who by her art calmed the heavens, and gave
them smooth seas, and a right forewind (the seaman's friend) to bear them
on their way to Ithaca.
They had not sailed past a hundred leagues before the breeze which Circe
had lent them suddenly stopped. It was stricken dead. All the sea lay in
prostrate slumber. Not a gasp of air could be felt. The ship stood still.
Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far off, and that
they had charmed the air so with their devilish singing. Therefore he made
him cakes of wax, as Circe had instructed him, and stopped the ears of his
men with them; then causing himself to be bound hand and foot, he
commanded the rowers to ply their oars and row as fast as speed could
carry them past that fatal shore. They soon came within sight of the
Sirens, who sang in Ulysses's hearing:
Come here, thou, worthy of a world of praise,
That dost so high the Grecian glory raise,
Ulysses' stay thy ship, and that song hear
That none pass'd ever, but it bent his ear,
But left him ravish'd, and instructed more
By us than any ever heard before.
For we know all things, whatsoever were
In wide Troy labor'd, whatsoever there
The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain'd,
By those high issues that the gods ordain'd;
And whatsoever all the earth can show
To inform a knowledge of desert, we know.
These were the words, but the celestial harmony of the voices which sang
them no tongue can describe: it took the ear of Ulysses with ravishment.
He would have broken his bonds to rush after them; and threatened, wept,
sued, entreated, commanded, crying out with tears and passionate
imprecations, conjuring his men by all the ties of perils past which they
had endured in common, by fellowship and love, and the authority which he
retained among them, to let him loose; but at no rate would they obey him.
And still the Sirens sang. Ulysses made signs, motions, gestures,
promising mountains of gold if they would set him free; but their oars
only moved faster. And still the Sirens sang. And still the more he
adjured them to set him free, the faster with cords and ropes they bound
him; till they were quite out of hearing of the Sirens' notes, whose
effect great Circe had so truly predicted. And well she might speak of
them, for often she has joined her own enchanting voice to theirs, while
she has sat in the flowery meads, mingled with the Sirens and the Water
Nymphs, gathering their potent herbs and drugs of magic quality: their
singing altogether has made the gods stoop, and "heaven drowsy with the
harmony."
[Illustration: _He would have broken his bonds to rush after them_.]
Escaped that peril, they had not sailed yet a hundred leagues farther,
when they heard a roar afar off, which Ulysses knew to be the barking of
Scylla's dogs, which surround her waist, and bark incessantly. Coming
nearer they beheld a smoke ascend, with a horrid murmur, which arose from
that other whirlpool, to which they made nigher approaches than to Scylla.
Through the furious eddy, which is in that place, the ship stood still as
a stone, for there was no man to lend his hand to an oar, the dismal roar
of Scylla's dogs at a distance, and the nearer clamours of Charybdis,
where everything made an echo, quite taking from them the power of
exertion. Ulysses went up and down encouraging his men, one by one, giving
them good words, telling them that they were in greater perils when they
were blocked up in the Cyclop's cave, yet, Heaven assisting his counsels,
he had delivered them out of that extremity. That he could not believe but
they remembered it; and wished them to give the same trust to the same
care which he had now for their welfare. That they must exert all the
strength and wit which they had, and try if Jove would not grant them an
escape even out of this peril. In particular, he cheered up the pilot who
sat at the helm, and told him that he must show more firmness than other
men, as he had more trust committed to him, and had the sole management by
his skill of the vessel in which all their safeties were embarked. That a
rock lay hid within those boiling whirlpools which he saw, on the outside
of which he must steer, if he would avoid his own destruction and the
destruction of them all.
They heard him, and like men took to the oars; but little knew what
opposite danger, in shunning that rock, they must be thrown upon. For
Ulysses had concealed from them the wounds, never to be healed, which
Scylla was to open: their terror would else have robbed them all of all
care to steer or move an oar, and have made them hide under the hatches,
for fear of seeing her, where he and they must have died an idle death.
But even then he forgot the precautions which Circe had given him to
prevent harm to his person, who had willed him not to arm, or show himself
once to Scylla; but disdaining not to venture life for his brave
companions, he could not contain, but armed in all points, and taking a
lance in either hand, he went up to the fore-deck, and looked when Scylla
would appear.
She did not show herself as yet, and still the vessel steered closer by
her rock, as it sought to shun that other more dreaded; for they saw how
horribly Charybdis' black throat drew into her all the whirling deep,
which she disgorged again, that all about her boiled like a kettle, and
the rock roared with troubled waters; which when she supped in again, all
the bottom turned up, and disclosed far under shore the swart sands naked,
whose whole stern sight frayed the startled blood from their faces, and
made Ulysses turn to view the wonder of whirlpools. Which when Scylla saw,
from out her black den she darted out her six long necks, and swooped up
as many of his friends: whose cries Ulysses heard, and saw them too late,
with their heels turned up, and their hands thrown to him for succour, who
had been their help in all extremities, but could not deliver them now;
and he heard them shriek out, as she tore them, and to the last they
continued to throw their hands out to him for sweet life. In all his
sufferings he never had beheld a sight so full of miseries.
Escaped from Scylla and Charybdis, but with a diminished crew, Ulysses and
the sad remains of his followers reached the Trinacrian shore. Here
landing, he beheld oxen grazing of such surpassing size and beauty that,
both from them and from the shape of the Island (having three promontories
jutting into the sea), he judged rightly that he was come to the
Triangular island and the oxen of the Sun, of which Tiresias had
forewarned him.
So great was his terror lest through his own fault, or that of his men,
any violence or profanation should be offered to the holy oxen, that even
then, tired as they were with the perils and fatigues of the day past, and
unable to stir an oar, or use any exertion, and though night was fast
coming on, he would have had them re-embark immediately, and make the best
of their way from that dangerous station; but his men with one voice
resolutely opposed it, and even the too cautious Eurylochus himself
withstood the proposal; so much did the temptation of a little ease and
refreshment (ease tenfold sweet after such labours) prevail over the
sagest counsels, and the apprehension of certain evil outweigh the
prospect of contingent danger. They expostulated that the nerves of
Ulysses seemed to be made of steel, and his limbs not liable to lassitude
like other men's; that waking or sleeping seemed indifferent to him; but
that they were men, not gods, and felt the common appetites for food and
sleep. That in the night-time all the winds most destructive to ships are
generated. That black night still required to be served with meat, and
sleep, and quiet havens, and ease. That the best sacrifice to the sea was
in the morning. With such sailor-like sayings and mutinous arguments,
which the majority have always ready to justify disobedience to their
betters, they forced Ulysses to comply with their requisition, and against
his will to take up his night-quarters on shore. But he first exacted from
them an oath that they would neither maim nor kill any of the cattle which
they saw grazing, but content themselves with such food as Circe had
stowed their vessel with when they parted from Aeaea. This they man by man
severally promised, imprecating the heaviest curses on whoever should
break it; and mooring their bark within a creek, they went to supper,
contenting themselves that night with such food as Circe had given them,
not without many sad thoughts of their friends whom Scylla had devoured,
the grief of which kept them great part of the night waking.
In the morning Ulysses urged them again to a religious observance of the
oath that they had sworn, not in any case to attempt the blood of those
fair herds which they saw grazing, but to content themselves with the
ship's food; for the god who owned those cattle sees and hears all.
They faithfully obeyed, and remained in that good mind for a month, during
which they were confined to that station by contrary winds, till all the
wine and the bread were gone which they had brought with them. When their
victuals were gone, necessity compelled them to stray in quest of whatever
fish or fowl they could snare, which that coast did not yield in any great
abundance. Then Ulysses prayed to all the gods that dwelt in bountiful
heaven, that they would be pleased to yield them some means to stay their
hunger without having recourse to profane and forbidden violations; but
the ears of heaven seemed to be shut, or some god incensed plotted his
ruin; for at midday, when he should chiefly have been vigilant and
watchful to prevent mischief, a deep sleep fell upon the eyes of Ulysses,
during which he lay totally insensible of all that passed in the world,
and what his friends or what his enemies might do for his welfare or
destruction. Then Eurylochus took his advantage. He was the man of most
authority with them after Ulysses. He represented to them all the misery
of their condition; how that every death is hateful and grievous to
mortality, but that of all deaths famine is attended with the most
painful, loathsome, and humiliating circumstances; that the subsistence
which they could hope to draw from fowling or fishing was too precarious
to be depended upon; that there did not seem to be any chance of the winds
changing to favour their escape, but that they must inevitably stay there
and perish, if they let an irrational superstition deter them from the
means which nature offered to their hands; that Ulysses might be deceived
in his belief that these oxen had any sacred qualities above other oxen;
and even admitting that they were the property of the god of the Sun, as
he said they were, the Sun did neither eat nor drink, and the gods were
best served not by a scrupulous conscience, but by a thankful heart, which
took freely what they as freely offered: with these and such like
persuasions he prevailed on his half-famished and half-mutinous companions
to begin the impious violation of their oath by the slaughter of seven of
the fairest of these oxen which were grazing. Part they roasted and eat,
and part they offered in sacrifice to the gods, particularly to Apollo,
god of the Sun, vowing to build a temple to his godhead when they should
arrive in Ithaca, and deck it with magnificent and numerous gifts. Vain
men! and superstition worse than that which they so lately derided! to
imagine that prospective penitence can excuse a present violation of duty,
and that the pure natures of the heavenly powers will admit of compromise
or dispensation for sin.
But to their feast they fell, dividing the roasted portions of the flesh,
savoury and pleasant meat to them, but a sad sight to the eyes, and a
savour of death in the nostrils, of the waking Ulysses, who just woke in
time to witness, but not soon enough to prevent, their rash and
sacrilegious banquet. He had scarce time to ask what great mischief was
this which they had done unto him; when behold, a prodigy! the ox-hides
which they had stripped began to creep as if they had life; and the
roasted flesh bellowed as the ox used to do when he was living. The hair
of Ulysses stood up on end with affright at these omens; but his
companions, like men whom the gods had infatuated to their destruction,
persisted in their horrible banquet.
The Sun from his burning chariot saw how Ulysses's men had slain his oxen,
and he cried to his father Jove, "Revenge me upon these impious men who
have slain my oxen, which it did me good to look upon when I walked my
heavenly round. In all my daily course I never saw such bright and
beautiful creatures as those my oxen were." The father promised that ample
retribution should be taken of those accursed men: which was fulfilled
shortly after, when they took their leaves of the fatal island.
Six days they feasted in spite of the signs of heaven, and on the seventh,
the wind changing, they set their sails and left the island; and their
hearts were cheerful with the banquets they had held; all but the heart of
Ulysses, which sank within him, as with wet eyes he beheld his friends,
and gave them for lost, as men devoted to divine vengeance. Which soon
overtook them; for they had not gone many leagues before a dreadful
tempest arose, which burst their cables; down came their mast, crushing
the skull of the pilot in its fall; off he fell from the stern into the
water, and the bark wanting his management drove along at the wind's
mercy; thunders roared, and terrible lightnings of Jove came down; first a
bolt struck Eurylochus, then another, and then another, till all the crew
were killed, and their bodies swam about like sea-mews; and the ship was
split in pieces. Only Ulysses survived; and he had no hope of safety but
in tying himself to the mast, where he sat riding upon the waves, like one
that in no extremity would yield to fortune. Nine days was he floating
about with all the motions of the sea, with no other support than the
slender mast under him, till the tenth night cast him, all spent and weary
with toil, upon the friendly shores of the island Ogygia.
[Illustration: _Nine days was he floating about with all the motions of
the sea_.]
CHAPTER FOUR
The Island of Calypso.--Immortality Refused.