BOOK TENTH.

"NEXT to Æolia's isle we came, where Æolus doth dwell,
The son of Hippotas, whom all the deathless gods love well,—
A floating isle, around whose base there runs a brazen wall
Impregnable, while the sheer rock rises o'ertopping all.
Twelve children, of his consort born, within his walls abide,-
Six daughters fair, six noble sons, in stalwart manhood's pride;
And to each son the sire had given a daughter for his bride.
These with their sire and mother dear sit feasting evermore,
And dainty cates upon the board are heaped in countless store.
And from the mansion's steamy halls the winds, with moaning sound,
Make echo through the livelong day the outer court around.

At night each husband, by the side of his fair consort laid,
Sleeps on a deftly jointed couch, with coverlets arrayed.
Us to his palace and his town our errant course had led,

And well he played the kindly host till one whole moon had fled ;—

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1. Next to Eolia's isle, &c.

Ovid thus gives an epitome of the first fifty-nine lines of this Book: :

"Eolon ille refert Tusco regnare profundo ;
Æolon Hippotaden, cohibentem carcere ventos;
Quos bovis inclusos tergo, memorabile munus,
Dulichium sumpsisse ducem; flatuque secundo
Lucibus îsse novem, et terram aspexisse petitam ;
Proxima post nonam quum sese Aurora moveret,
Invidiâ socios prædæque cupidine ductos,
Esse ratos aurum, dempsisse ligamina ventis ;

Cum quibus îsse retro, per quas modo venerat undas,

Æoliique ratem portus repetîsse tyranni.”—Ov. Met., xiv. 223.

be.

He bade me oft the tale of Troy and of our ships unfold,
And of the Greeks who homeward sailed; and all I duly told.
But when I of our voyage asked in turn, and bade him speed
Our parting, he denied me not his friendly help at need.
Of ox that had nine summers seen he took a well-flayed hide,
And of each blust'ring wind the course he tightly bound inside,-
For he is keeper of the winds by Saturn's son's decree,
And bids them blow, or bids them cease, as his good will may
The hide with a bright silver cord he bound within my ship,
That not the faintest breath of air might from its opening slip;
The west-wind then the king sent forth to blow with gentle breeze,
To waft our well-benched ships and crews across the briny seas.
But not by him was our return thus fated to be wrought,
For on our heads destruction dire our own blind folly brought.
"Natheless for nine unbroken days we sailed both day and night;
On the tenth morn our fatherland dawned on our longing sight,—
So nigh that even those we saw who lit the beacons' flame.
But, wearied out with ceaseless toil, sweet slumber on me came;
For I throughout our run had held the tiller in mine hand,
Nor ever once gave o'er my charge-quicker to gain the land.

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66

22. For he is keeper of the winds, &c.
regemque dedit, qui fœdere certo

Et premere, et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas."

-VIRG. En., i. 62.

Fole, namque tibi divûm pater atque hominum rex,
Et mulcere dedit fluctus et tollere vento."-Ibid., i. 65.

30. Natheless for nine unbroken days, &c.
"And as sea-faring men, who long have wrought
In the great deep for gain, at last come home,
And towards evening see the headlands rise
Of their dear country, and can plain descry
A fire of withered furze which boys have lit
Upon the cliffs, or smoke of burning weeds
Out of a till'd field inland ;—then the wind
Catches them, and drives out again to sea;
And they go long days tossing up and down
Over the grey sea-ridges, and the glimpse
Of port they had makes bitterer for their toil.
So the gods' cross was bitterer for their joy."

-MATTHEW ARNOLD, Balder Dead.

In whispers then my comrades spake, and to each other told
How I was bringing home vast store of silver and of gold,-
Gifts that the noble Æolus to me, their chief, had made,-

And looking in his neighbour's face, each thus his thought betrayed:
"Ye gods, what love, what high esteem, await our leader, see!
In whatsoever land or town a sojourner he be.
From sack of Troy he laden comes with booty rich and rare.
Not so with us, the same long route and toil compelled to bear;—
We empty-handed o'er the main to seek our homes are driven.
Now, too, great Æolus these gifts in love to him hath given.
But come, let us without delay resolve the mystery,
What silver and what gold concealed within the bag may lie.'

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"They spake; the fatal counsel straight prevailed upon their minds:

They loosed the bag; - from prison - house at once rushed forth the winds.

Then swift upon us beat the storm, and in its fury bore

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My weeping company afar from our loved country's shore.

And when from slumber I awoke, I pondered which were best,—

Or plunging in the deep to put my sorrows all to rest,

Or silently my griefs to bear and 'mid the living stay,—

Still to endure was my resolve: so in the ship I lay,

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And brooded o'er my woes,—my head veiled from the light of day,—

Whilst by the ill-starred tempest's force my company was blown
Back to the isle of Æolus; and sorely did they groan.

"There disembarked, we water drew; their meal my comrades made,

Until of hunger and of thirst the longing they had stayed.

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A herald and a comrade next I chose, and with the twain

I sought the palace far-renowned of Æolus again.

Him feasting we in banquet-hall with wife and children found,
And ent'ring at his portal sat as suppliants on the ground.
In wonder at the sight they cried, 'How cam'st thou here again?
Ulysses, speak! what god of ill assailed thee on the main ?
'Twas surely with all diligence we sped thee from our shore
To fatherland, and home, and all by which thou settest store.'

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"They spake; and with a heavy heart to them I answer made: 'Bad comrades and a fatal sleep have me to woe betrayed. But oh, my friends, ye have the power to heal my bitter pain!'

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"I spake, in hope with soothing words their sympathy to gain.

But they were mute, until for all the sire thus made reply:

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'Avaunt, thou worst of all that live, and from this island fly!
Far be it from my thought to aid or further hence the man,
Who of the blessed gods above hath fallen 'neath the ban.
Away! since by th' immortal powers abhorred thou here hast come.'
'He said, and drove me at the word deep groaning from his home.
From thence with sorrow-laden hearts we went upon our way,
My wearied comrades' spirit crushed with rowing night and day,-
For through their folly we no more had wind our course to guide :
Yet for six days and nights the oar continuously we plied.

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A home-returning herdsman there, when 'neath the city wall,
To an outgoing shepherd cries, who answers to the call.

"Then, on the seventh, we to the walls of ancient Lamos came, The Læstrygonian city vast, Telepylus by name.

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A double wage the man might earn who hath no need of sleep,

By night to tend the lowing herds, by day the fleecy sheep,—
For speedily the darkness comes and goes upon its way,
And close upon the fall of night returns the dawn of day.

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83. Then, on the seventh, &c.

The Læstrygonian episode is thus epitomised by Ovid :—

"Inde Lami veterem Læstrygonis, inquit, in urbem
Venimus. Antiphates terrâ regnabat in illâ :
Missus ad hunc ego sum, numero comitante duorum;
Vixque fugâ quæsita salus comitique mihique :
Tertius e nobis Læstrygonis impia tinxit
Ora cruore suo; fugientibus instat, et agmen
Concitat Antiphates; coeunt, et saxa trabesque
Continuant, merguntque viros, merguntque carinas.
Una tamen, quæ nos, ipsumque vehebat Ulixen,
Effugit; amissâ sociorum parte, dolentes,

Multaque conquesti terris allabimur illis

Quas procul hinc cernis."-Ov. Met., xiv. 233.

89. For speedily the darkness, &c.

Literally, “For the outgoings of night and day are close together." As Mr Merry explains it, no sooner has Night stepped forth upon the scene, than Day reappears too, and so we may suppose that the interval of darkness beeween the two periods of light is actually inappreciable. Thus a man who has had his flock at pasture from morning till just the fall of evening, brings it home before the darkness sets in; but as he enters the city gate with his flock, he meets his fellow driving out his herd of oxen to pasture, for already daylight is beginning again—the evening twilight is melting into the dawn. Homer's idea,

There, when across the main, we reached the haven far renowned,
That lofty cliffs without a break on either side surround,
And fronting headlands at the mouth project into the main,
With just a narrow entrance-way that runneth through the twain.
Through these did all my comrades haste their rolling ships to steer,
And in the hollow haven bind each to the other near.

For never wave, nor great nor small, therein is seen to play,
But glassy with perpetual calm it lies from day to day.
I only followed not, but kept my own dark ship outside :
My hawsers at the furthest point fast to a rock I tied,
And clomb the steep ascent, and stood, and all around espied,
But from mine eminence no work of man's or cattle's toil
Could I behold, nor aught but smoke uprising from the soil.
A herald and two comrades more I chose from out my band,
To learn what race of mortal men inhabited the land.

These found the beaten road the wains were wont to travel o'er,
That timber from the lofty heights down to the city bore:

according to Mr Merry, is that the city of Telepylus lies in the extreme west, just at the turning-point of the sun's course. Thus the nights are reduced to a mere nothing, for the sun has scarce disappeared than he turns his chariot round the goal, and comes back again. Homer had heard vaguely of the long days and short nights of high latitudes, but in his mind they had no connection with the north,-they were one of the marvels of the extreme west. Substituting the imaginary realm of the Læstrygons for Britannia, the idea is very much that of Juvenal's "minimâ contentos nocte Britannos;" or still more exactly that of Tacitus, Agricola, xii. : "Nox clara et extremâ Britanniæ parte brevis, ut finem atque initium lucis exiguo discrimine internoscas."

92. That lofty cliffs, &c.

projectaque saxa Pachyni."-VIRG. Æn., iii. 699.

97. For never wave, &c.

"It was a still

And calmy bay, on th' one side sheltered
With the broad shadow of an hoary hill;

On th' other side an high rock towered still,

That twixt them both a pleasant port they made,

And did like an half theatre fulfill."

-SPENSER, Faerie Queene, Bk. ii. 12. 30.

101. And clomb the steep ascent, &c.

"Æneas scopulum interea conscendit, et omnem

Prospectum late pelago petit."-VIRG. Æn., i. 180.