blindfolded through the familiar forest. In a short hour they had
reached the camp unperceived, and then, as Nisus had anticipated, they
found a scene of barbarous revelry. Amongst tilted war-chariots,
tethered horses, and empty wine-jars men lay stretched in drunken
slumber.
"Follow me," whispered Nisus, "and keep an open eye lest any attack me
from behind. I will hew thee anon a path of blood by which we can both
pass to our goal."
With drawn sword he rushed on Rhamnes, who lay snoring on a pile of
broidered coverlets: an augur was he of royal blood, but little did
his augury avail him that day. His three attendants soon followed
their master to the shades. Like a ravening wolf who has leapt into
the sheepfold he dealt havoc right and left, and all that Nisus spared
the sword of Euryalus despatched.
"Enough," cried Nisus, at length sated with carnage; "our way through
the enemy is clear, and the tell-tale morn is nigh at hand." Much rich
spoil they left behind--flagons of gold and silver, gemmed goblets and
broideries; but Euryalus cast longing eyes on a huge baldrick with
bosses of gold, an heirloom of the dead augur, and he strapped it
round his shoulder; nor could he resist (proud youth) the temptation
to try on a bright helmet with flaming crest of Messapus, the Tamer of
Steeds. With these spoils to attest their glorious raid, the pair left
the camp and gained in safety the open.
Their task seemed well-nigh accomplished, but it chanced that a troop
of three hundred horse, despatched from the Latin capital as an
advanced guard for Turnus, were just then approaching the camp from
the opposite direction, and espying in the twilight the glint of the
helmet they challenged the pair. No answer was returned, and Nisus,
who was leading, quickened his pace to gain the shelter of the forest.
The horsemen wheeled round and sought to cut off their retreat, but
they were too late, and Nisus was already speeding down a winding
bypath that he knew full well, when he looked back, and to his horror
perceived that Euryalus was not following. "Euryalus!" he shouted, but
no answer came. He turned and painfully retraced his steps. Soon he
heard the tramp of horses among the brushwood and broken branches,
and guided by the sound in a clearing of the forest he saw Euryalus,
his back against an oak, like a stag at bay, facing a ring of
horsemen. What was he to do? To save himself by flight was
unthinkable, but should he rush at once on certain death? In
desperation he breathed a prayer to his patron goddess Diana. "Queen
of the woods," he cried, "by the gifts I have offered on thine altar,
by the vows I have daily paid, help me now in my utmost need and guide
my aim!" So praying, he hurled with all his might a spear, and so
straight and swift it flew that Sulmo was transfixed from back to
breast, and the shaft snapped off short as the barbed head quivered in
the wound. A second spear buried itself in Tagus's brain, and he too
bit the dust. Volscens, the captain of the troop, saw his two comrades
struck down as by a bolt from the blue, and with drawn sword he turned
on Euryalus crying, "If I cannot reach the fiend who hurled those
spears, thy blood at least shall atone the bloody deed."
At this Nisus could no longer restrain himself, and leaping from the
covert he shouted, "I, none but I, am the guilty cause. Oh, spare this
innocent boy and turn your swords on me! To love his friend too well,
this was his only crime!" But his words were vain; while yet he spoke
the sword of Volscens had pierced the boy's heart and stained with
gore his white side, and he drooped his head like a poppy drenched
with rain, or a harebell upturned by the plowshare.
At the sight Nisus hurled himself into the thick of his foes,
scattering them right and left with the lightnings of his glaive, till
he forced his way to Volscens, and with a dying effort smote the
murderer of his sweet friend. Pierced with a hundred wounds he fell
upon Euryalus' prostrate corpse, and a smile was on his lips, for in
death they were not divided.
Such was the tale that Virgil sang, and the prophecy that he uttered
nigh upon two thousand years ago has been fulfilled:
"O happy pair, if aught my verse avail,
Your memory through the ages shall not fail,
While on the Capitol Rome's flag is seen
And Rome holds sway, Italia's Empress Queen."
ULYSSES IN HADES
BY M. M. BIRD
Before he left fair Circe's isle Ulysses reminded the goddess of her
promise to speed them on their homeward way. This, she assured him,
not she but the Fates refused. Nor could they hope to breathe their
native air till a long and toilsome journey had been taken, a journey
that would lead them down even to the dread realms of Death. "But
there," she said, "you shall seek out blind Tiresias, the Theban bard;
though his eyes be blind his mind is filled with prophetic light. He
will tell you all you seek to know of your future and the fate of
those you love."
Brave as he was, Ulysses shuddered at the awful road he had to tread,
and appealed to Circe for further aid in this adventure. So she told
him the landmarks to guide him on his way, and instructed him what to
do when he reached the realms of Tartarus. And when morn broke he
summoned his companions to set forth. They came in haste and joy.
But one was missing. Elpenor, the youngest of the band, a wild and
senseless youth, had climbed to the housetop to breathe the cold air
after a debauch lasting far into the night. At the sudden tumult of
departure he was roused, and hastening down he missed the ladder and
fell headlong from the roof and broke his neck.
Ignorant of his fate, the rest crowded eagerly round their leader,
till his few and sober words told them that not yet the joys of
homecoming awaited them, but it was decreed that first they should
seek the awful shade of Tiresias in the dark and dreary realms of
Death. Sadly then upon that shore they made their sacrifices to the
immortal gods, and sadly embarked in the waiting ship and spread their
sails to the freshening breeze.
As the sun sank, and all the ways were darkened, they reached the
utmost bounds of Ocean, a lonely land, where the sun never shines,
where darkness broods perpetually over bare and rocky crags, the abode
of the Cimmerians. Off their desolate shore Ulysses cast anchor, and
leaping from his ship, descried the awful chasm that leads to the
realms of the dead.
His two companions bore with them the black sheep as Circe had bidden,
and Ulysses drew his shining sword and carved a great trench, a cubit
long and wide, in the black earth. This was filled with wine, milk,
and honey, and the blood of the newly offered sacrifices. Thus, with
solemn rites and holy vows, they invoked the nations of the dead. And
lo! among the frowning caverns and all along the dusky shores appeared
the phantom shapes of unsubstantial ghosts. Old and young, warriors
ghastly with wounds, matrons and maids, rich and poor, they crowded
about the trench filled with the reeking blood of sacrifice. But
Ulysses in terror brandished his sword above the flowing blood, and
the pale throngs started back and stood silently about him.
Then he saw Elpenor, new to the realms of Death. Astonished, he
demanded of the shade how it was that he had outrun their swift sail,
and was found wandering with the dead. To which the youth replied that
his feet, unsteady through excess of wine, had betrayed him and sent
him headlong from the tower, and as he fell his neck was broken and
his soul plunged in Hell.
But he implored Ulysses, by all he held most dear, to give his
unburied limbs a peaceful grave, and set up a barrow, and on it plant
his oar to show that he had been one of Ulysses' crew. And Ulysses
granted the boon, and the spirit of Elpenor departed content.
Then, as Ulysses sat watching the trench, he saw the shade of his
royal mother, Anticlea, approach; but though the tears bedewed his
cheek at the sight, the pale shade stood regardless of her son.
Next came the mighty Theban, Tiresias, bearing a scepter of gold; and
he knew him and spake: "Why, son of Laertes, wanderest thou from
cheerful day to tread this sorrowful path? What angry gods have led
thee, alive, to be companion of the dead? If thou wilt sheathe thy
sword I will relate thy future and the high purposes of Heaven towards
thee."
Ulysses sheathed his glittering blade, and the seer bent down and
drank of the dark blood. Then he foretold all the strange disasters
that would threaten and detain Ulysses on his homeward way. He told
how at length he alone of all his crew would survive to reach his
country--there to find his labors not yet at an end, with foes in
power at his court, lordly suitors besieging his wife, and wasting his
substance in riot and debauch. But a peaceful end to his long and
toilsome life should come at last, and see him sink to the grave
blessed by all his people. "This is thy life to come, and this is
Fate," said the seer.
To whom Ulysses, unmoved, made answer: "All that the gods ordain the
wise endure."
So the prophet went his way, and Ulysses waited on for his mother to
come. And anon, Anticlea came and stooped and drank of the dark blood,
and straightway all the mother in her soul awoke, and she addressed
her son, asking whence he came and why.
"To seek Tiresias, and learn my doom," Ulysses answered, "for I have
been a roamer and an exile from home ever since the fall of Troy."
Then he asked her how her own death had happened, whether his good
father Laertes still lived, if Telemachus his son ruled in Ithaca, and
if Penelope yet waited and watched for her absent lord, or if she had
taken a new mate.
To all his questions Anticlea made answer with tender pity. Penelope,
his faithful wife, still mourned for him uncomforted; Telemachus, now
almost grown to manhood, ruled his realm; and old Laertes, bowed with
grief, only waited in sorrow for the release of the tomb, since his
son Ulysses returned no more. She herself, his mother, had died of a
broken heart; for him she lived, and when he came not, for love of him
she died.
Ulysses, deeply moved, strove thrice to clasp her in his arms, and
thrice she slipped from his embrace, like a shadow or a dream. In vain
he begged that his fond arms might enfold the parent so tenderly
loved, that he might know it was she herself and no empty image sent
by Hell's queen to mock his sorrow. But the pensive ghost admonished
him that such were all spirits when they had quit their mortal bodies.
No substance of the man remained, said she: all had been devoured by
the funeral flames and scattered by the winds to the empty air. It was
but the soul that flew, like a dream, to the infernal regions. "But
go," she adjured him; "haste to climb the steep ascent; regain the day
and seek your bride, to recount to her the horrors and the laws of
Hell."
As she ceased and disappeared, a cloud of phantoms, wives and
daughters of kings and heroes, flitted round the visitant of earth.
Dauntless he waved his sword; the ghostly crew shrank away and dared
not drink of the wine in the trench at his feet. They passed, and to
each other Ulysses heard them recount their names and needs. There he
saw Alcmena, mother of Alcides; Megara, wife of Hercules, who was
slain by him in his madness; the beautiful Chloris, Antiope, and Leda,
mother of the deathless twins Castor and Pollux, who live and die
alternately, the one in Heaven and the other in Hell, the favored sons
of Jove.
There walked Phædra, shedding unceasing tears of remorse for her slain
love, and near her mournful Ariadne. All these, and many more, Ulysses
recognized in that pale procession of departed spirits. When they had
been summoned back to the black halls of Proserpine, the forms of the
heroes slain by the foul Ægisthus came in sight. High above them all
towered great Agamemnon. He drank the wine and knew his friend; with
tears Ulysses greeted him and inquired what relentless doom, what fate
of war, or mischance upon the ocean, had thrust his spirit into Hell?
And Agamemnon told him all the dreadful story of his return from Troy,
and the treachery of his wife Clytemnestra and her lover, who slew him
as he feasted, and with him all his friends; most pitiful of all, the
voice of the dying Cassandra, slain at his side as he himself lay
dying, still rang in his ears.
And Ulysses answered him: "What ills hath Jupiter wreaked on the house
of Atreus through the counsels of women!"
"Be warned," replied Agamemnon, "and tell no woman all that is in thy
heart; not even Penelope, though she is discreet and true above all
other women and will not plot thy death." And he grieved for his own
son Orestes, on whom he had never looked, envying his friend an heir
so wise and brave as the young Telemachus.
Then he saw Achilles and Patroclus, approaching through the gloom.
Achilles knew his friend and hastened to his side. "Oh mortal,
overbold," he asked, "how durst thou come down living to the realms of
the dead?" Ulysses told him how he had come, though living, to seek
counsel of the dead.
But Achilles made answer:
"Rather would I, in the sun's warmth divine,
Moil as a churl, who drags his days in grief,
Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine."
Then, like Agamemnon, he demanded news of his son, and Ulysses charmed
the father's heart by telling of the gallant deeds of Neoptolemus at
Troy town, and how he had escaped unscathed from the fight.
Achilles glowed with pride and delight; and as he joined the
illustrious shades of the warriors about him, Ulysses sought the side
of Ajax, whom he perceived standing apart in gloom and sullenness. His
lost honors perpetually stung his mind, though the fight had been fair
and Ulysses had been judged the victor by the Trojans. Ulysses seeing
him stand thus mournfully aloof, addressed him with tender sorrow.
"Still burns thy rage? Can brave souls bear malice e'en after death?"
he asked him sadly. But for all his appeals the resentful shade turned
from him with disdain, and silently stalked away. Touched to the
depths of a generous heart Ulysses started in pursuit through the
black and winding ways of Death, to find and force him to reply to his
earnest questioning, but on the way such strange and awful scenes met
his astonished eyes as caused him to pause and turn aside.
There was huge Orion, whirling aloft his ponderous mace of brass to
crush his savage prey.
There was Tityus, the son of Earth, who for offering violence to the
goddess Latona was shot dead by her children, and lay for ever in Hell
in fetters while vultures gnawed at his liver.
Again he looked, and beheld Tantalus, whose awful groans echoed
through the roofless caverns. When to the stream that rippled past him
he applied his parched lips, it fled before he could taste of it.
Fruit of all kinds hung round him--pomegranates, figs, and ripening
apples; but if he strove to seize the fruit, the baffling wind would
toss the branch high out of his reach.
When in horror at the sight of these torments, Ulysses turned aside,
he saw a laboring figure, Sisyphus, who with weary steps up a high
hill was heaving a huge round stone. When, with infinite straining, he
reached at length the summit, the boulder, poising but an instant,
bounded down the steep again with a wild impetuous rush, and dragged
with it Sisyphus into the depths of an awful cavern. Thence once
again, with sweat and agony, he must renew his toil and creep with
painful labor up the slope, thrusting the rock before him. This the
punishment for a life of avaricious greed, devoted to a pitiless
unassuageable lust for gold and power.
And farther on great Hercules was seen, a towering specter of gigantic
form. Gloomy as night he stood, in act to shoot an arrow from his
monstrous bow. With grim visage and terrible look he lamented his
wrongs and woes, and then abruptly turning, strode away.
When Ulysses, curious to view the kings of ancient days and all the
endless ranks of the mighty dead, would have stood strong in this
resolve to watch them, a great swarm of specters rose from deepest
Hell. With hideous yells they flew at him; they gaped at him and
gibbered in such menacing tones that his blood froze in his veins. In
fear lest the Gorgon, rising from the depths of the infernal lake,
with her crown of hissing snakes about her brow, should transfix him
to stone, he turned and fled.
He climbed the steep ascent and joined his waiting shipmates. They set
sail with all haste to leave the dread Cimmerian shore, and a fair
wind sped them on their backward way.
CIRCE'S PALACE
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
After escaping from the Cyclopes, and enduring many other perils by
land and sea in the course of his weary voyage to Ithaca, Ulysses
arrived at a green island, the name of which was unknown to him, and
was glad to moor his tempest-beaten bark in a quiet cove. But he had
encountered so many dangers from giants, and one-eyed Cyclopes, and
monsters of the sea and land, that he could not help dreading some
mischief, even in this pleasant and seemingly solitary spot. For two
days, therefore, the poor weather-worn voyagers kept quiet, and either
stayed on board of their vessel, or merely crept along under the
cliffs that bordered the shore; and to keep themselves alive, they dug
shell-fish out of the sand, and sought for any little rill of fresh
water that might be running towards the sea.
Before the two days were spent, they grew very weary of this kind of
life; for the followers of King Ulysses were terrible gormandizers,
and pretty sure to grumble if they missed their regular meals, and
their irregular ones besides. Their stock of provisions was quite
exhausted, and even the shell-fish began to get scarce, so that they
had now to choose between starving to death or venturing into the
interior of the island, where perhaps some huge three-headed dragon,
or other horrible monster, had his den.
But King Ulysses was a bold man as well as a prudent one; and on the
third morning he determined to discover what sort of a place the
island was, and whether it were possible to obtain a supply of food
for the hungry mouths of his companions. So, taking a spear in his
hand, he clambered to the summit of a cliff and gazed round about him.
At a distance, towards the center of the island, he beheld the stately
towers of what seemed to be a palace, built of snow-white marble, and
rising in the midst of a grove of lofty trees. The thick branches of
these trees stretched across the front of the edifice, and more than
half concealed it, although, from the portion which he saw, Ulysses
judged it to be spacious and exceedingly beautiful, and probably the
residence of some great nobleman or prince. A blue smoke went curling
up from the chimney, and was almost the pleasantest part of the
spectacle to Ulysses. For, from the abundance of this smoke, it was
reasonable to conclude that there was a good fire in the kitchen, and
that, at dinner-time, a plentiful banquet would be served up to the
inhabitants of the palace, and to whatever guests might happen to drop
in.
With so agreeable a prospect before him, Ulysses fancied that he could
not do better than to go straight to the palace gate, and tell the
master of it that there was a crew of poor shipwrecked mariners, not
far off, who had eaten nothing for a day or two save a few clams and
oysters, and would therefore be thankful for a little food. And the
prince or nobleman must be a very stingy curmudgeon, to be sure, if,
at least, when his own dinner was over, he would not bid them welcome
to the broken victuals from the table.
Pleasing himself with this idea, King Ulysses had made a few steps in
the direction of the palace, when there was a great twittering and
chirping from the branch of a neighboring tree. A moment afterwards a
bird came flying towards him, and hovered in the air, so as almost to
brush his face with its wings. It was a very pretty little bird, with
purple wings and body, and yellow legs, and a circle of golden
feathers round its neck, and on its head a golden tuft, which looked
like a king's crown in miniature. Ulysses tried to catch the bird. But
it fluttered nimbly out of his reach, still chirping in a piteous
tone, as if it could have told a lamentable story, had it only been
gifted with human language. And when he attempted to drive it away,
the bird flew no farther than the bough of the next tree, and again
came fluttering about his head, with its doleful chirp, as soon as he
showed a purpose of going forward.
"Have you anything to tell me, little bird?" asked Ulysses.
"Peep!" said the bird, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" And nothing else would
it say, but only, "Peep, peep, pe--weep!" in a melancholy cadence, and
over and over and over again. As often as Ulysses moved forward,
however, the bird showed the greatest alarm, and did its best to drive
him back with the anxious flutter of its purple wings. Its
unaccountable behavior made him conclude, at last, that the bird knew
of some danger that awaited him, and which must needs be very
terrible, beyond all question, since it moved even a little fowl to
feel compassion for a human being. So he resolved, for the present, to
return to the vessel, and tell his companions what he had seen.
This appeared to satisfy the bird. As soon as Ulysses turned back, it
ran up the trunk of a tree, and began to pick insects out of the bark
with its long, sharp bill; for it was a kind of woodpecker, you must
know, and had to get its living in the same manner as other birds of
that species. But every little while, as it pecked at the bark of the
tree, the purple bird bethought itself of some secret sorrow, and
repeated its plaintive note of "Peep, peep, pe--weep!"
On his way to the shore, Ulysses had the good luck to kill a large
stag. Taking it on his shoulders he lugged it along with him, and
flung it down before his hungry companions.
But the next morning their appetites were as sharp as ever. They
looked at Ulysses, as if they expected him to clamber up the cliff
again and come back with another fat deer upon his shoulders. Instead
of setting out, however, he summoned the whole crew together, and told
them it was in vain to hope that he could kill a stag every day for
their dinner, and therefore it was advisable to think of some other
mode of satisfying their hunger.
"Now," said he, "when I was on the cliff yesterday, I discovered that
this island is inhabited. At a considerable distance from the shore
stood a marble palace, which appeared to be very spacious, and had a
great deal of smoke curling out of one of its chimneys."
"Aha!" muttered some of his companions, smacking their lips. "That
smoke must have come from the kitchen fire. There was a good dinner on
the spit; and no doubt there will be as good a one to-day."
"But," continued the wise Ulysses, "you must remember, my good
friends, our misadventure in the cavern of one-eyed Polyphemus, the
Cyclops! To tell you the truth, if we go to yonder palace, there can
be no question that we shall make our appearance at the dinner-table;
but whether seated as guests, or served up as food, is a point to be
seriously considered."
"Either way," murmured some of the hungriest of the crew, "it will be
better than starvation; particularly if one could be sure of being
well fattened beforehand, and daintily cooked afterwards."
"That is a matter of taste," said King Ulysses, "and, for my own part,
neither the most careful fattening nor the daintiest of cookery would
reconcile me to being dished at last. My proposal is, therefore, that
we divide ourselves into two equal parties, and ascertain, by drawing
lots, which of the two shall go to the palace and beg for food and
assistance. If these can be obtained, all is well. If not, and if the
inhabitants prove as inhospitable as Polyphemus, or the Læstrygons,
then there will but half of us perish, and the remainder may set sail
and escape."