Thou know'st how I am prisoned here upon this lonesome isle,—
How for escape I vainly seek, with fainting heart the while.
But do thou-for the gods know all thyself declare, I pray,
What god still keeps me prisoned here, and thus hath barred my way.
Across the wide fish-teeming sea can home e'en yet be won?'
"I spake, he answered straight: Thou shouldst thy sacrifice have
done
To Jove, and all the blessed gods, ere thou didst leave the strand;
So o'er the dark seas swiftly borne thou shouldst have reached thy land.
For it hath been ordained by fate that never shalt thou see
Thy friends, nor reach thy well-built house, and country dear to thee,
Till to Ægyptus' cloud-fed stream thou shalt have passed again,
And to the deathless gods of heav'n thine hecatombs there slain :
So shall they grant thy longing heart fair journey o'er the main.'
“Thus spake he, and my heart was crushed that unto Egypt's shore He bade me through the dark seas' waves my course retrace once
A tedious, long, and toilsome way.
"Old sire, as thou commandest me, the voyage will I make.
But come, I pray thee tell me this, the whole truth let me know,
If all the other Greeks unharmed on their return did go,
Whom I and Nestor, when we sailed from Troy, behind us left.
Have some by grievous death at sea sunk, of the light bereft?
Or died in friendly comrades' arms, when the last fight was o'er?'
"So spake I, and the prophet old thus answered me once more:
'Atrides, wherefore dost thou ask? For neither may I show
All that within my breast lies hid, nor ought'st thou all to know ;
Nor do I think that for long time thou wilt thy tears withhold,
When thou of all hast heard aright the mournful story told,—
For many a one has fate subdued, and many still remain.
But on the homeward voyage died of all the chiefs but twain
(For thou thyself dost know of all that in the battle fell),
And one does on some sea-girt isle a living pris'ner dwell.
Ajax on board his long-oared ships was smitten on the wave:
Poseidon first to Gyara's rock the mighty chieftain drave,
And, rescued from the billowy surge, he would have 'scaped his fate,
Though by Athene's wrath pursued with unrelenting hate,
Had he not made an impious boast, mad with besotted pride,
That in the god's despite the sea's great gulf he had defied.
But straightway to Poseidon's ear his vaunting cry did go,
And with his trident firmly grasped the sea-god struck a blow.
Full upon Gyara's rock it fell, and sundered it in twain,-
One fragment stood, whilst thund'ring fell the other in the main,
Seated on which great Ajax spake the boast that brought him bane,
For him it bore away, and plunged into the surging tide,—
So, swallowing down a briny draught, the boastful hero died.
Thy brother too in hollow ship 'scaped death upon the wave,
For him great Here's watchful care from all mishap did save.
But as of Malea's rugged cliff the sight his eye did meet,
A sudden storm of wind arose, and swept away his fleet.
Then, sore lamenting, was he borne o'er the fish-teeming sea,
E'en to the land that erst was wont Thyestes' home to be:
But now Ægisthus there abode, of old Thyestes son;
Then did it seem as if the day of safe return was won,
For the gods caused the wind to shift, and without further toil
He made the shore, and joyful touched once more his native soil,
And touching, kissed it, whilst hot tears adown his cheeks did rain,
With glad delight that he beheld his country once again.
A watchman spied him from his tower, where wakeful guard to hold
Ægisthus set him, promising two talents of pure gold.
Throughout twelve months did he the main with sleepless eye
Lest unobserved the king pass by, and inland find his way,
And summon all his wonted strength and prowess in the fight.
So with his tidings to his lord fast fled that watchman wight,
And then a plot with treach'rous craft Ægisthus quickly planned.
He twenty of his bravest chose, in ambush set the band,
While on the mansion's other side he bade a feast be spread;
Then with fair words of welcoming to Agamemnon sped.
With steeds and chariots forth he went to bring the monarch home,
The while his caitiff heart contrived the bloody deed to come.
Him, not suspecting ill, he led within the banquet-hall,
And slew him feasting, as one slays an ox within his stall;
Nor of Atrides' comrades brave survived a single one,
Nor of the traitors,—all alike that day to death were done.'
"He spake, and at his words my heart was broken utterly:
I sat me down upon the sands, and wept with bitter cry,
Nor cared to live, nor henceforth see the sunshine in the sky.
But when I'd had my fill of tears, and grov'lling on the shore,
The old truth-telling ocean seer thus spake to me once more:
'Atrides, weep no longer here, drowned in a ceaseless grief;
For 'tis not sorrowing thus, methinks, that thou wilt find relief.
Try rather how thy native land to reach with utmost speed,—
For either yet alive thou'lt find the author of the deed,
Or smitten by Orestes' hand the traitor dead will lie,
And thus his fun'ral-feast will be the sight that meets thine eye.'
"He spake though smarting sore with grief, my heart within my breast
Was cheered, and thus in winged words the old man I addressed:
"Of these I know, but of the third the name to me unfold, Whom far away the boundless sea alive or dead doth hold,-Though sorely grieving at thy news, fain would I this be told.'
'It was of old Laertes' son, the Ithacan, I spake.
Him on a lone isle late I saw, letting the big tears fall,
Detained a prisoner perforce in nymph Calypso's hall;
"Thus I, and answer unto me the ancient seer did make:
Nor can he flee the spot, nor thence to his own loved land come ;-
No well-benched ships hath he at hand across the seas to roam,
Nor comrades true to man his bark and bear him to his home.
But, Menelaus, noble prince, know 'tis not fate's decree
That thou in Argos famed for steeds thine end of life shalt see.
Thee to the blest Elysian plains th' immortals will convey,
Where the far-distant ends of earth own Rhadamanthus' sway.
There lapped in a delicious ease the life of man glides by;
No snow nor winter's storm is there, no rain falls from the sky;
But ever fresh'ning from the wave some new-born zephyr springs,
And, sent by ocean, to mankind its grateful coolness brings:
559. In Book vi. 39, the abode and life of the gods on the summit of Olympus are described in terms very similar to this description of the Elysian plains. I have there given renderings of the passage by Lucretius, Tasso, and Mr Tennyson. I subjoin one here from Mr Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon :—
"Lands undiscoverable in the unheard-of west,
Around which the strong stream of a sacred sea
Rolls without wind for ever, and the sun
There shows not her white wings and windy feet,
Nor thunder, nor swift rain saith anything,
Nor the sun burns,—but all things rest and thrive."
As Helen's spouse, Jove's son-in-law, this lot, O prince, is thine.'
The old man spake, and headlong plunged beneath the foaming brine.
"Then I, with my companions brave, our vessel straightway sought,
Revolving, as along the shore I wandered, many a thought.
But when my vessel and the sea we reached, we took our meal,
And o'er us of celestial night the darkness 'gan to steal.
So there upon the breakers' edge we slumbered through the night;
But when the rosy-fingered Morn, Day's mother, brought the light,
Into the mighty sea our ships we launched from off the shore,
And in them fixed their masts and sails, and tackling all, once more.
Then speedily all came aboard, and on his rower's seat
Each in due order took his place, and the white sea-wave beat.
Back to Egyptus' rain-fed stream returned, my ships I stayed,
Nor longer of full hecatombs the sacrifice delayed.
But when Heav'n's wrath I had appeased, I to the memory
Of Agamemnon raised a tomb, that ne'er his fame might die.
These things fulfilled, I sought return, and Heav'n to aid me sent
A fav'ring wind,-so swiftly home to fatherland I went.
But come! do thou a welcome guest within my palace stay,
Till th' eleventh morn or the twelfth at least hath passed away:
Then homeward sped with precious gifts thou shalt thy voyage make,
For I three steeds and chariot bright will give thee hence to take,—
A beauteous cup will also add, that, when within thine hall
The due libation thou shalt pour, may me thine host recall.”
Telemachus him answer made : Detain me not, I pray,
Atrides, though a twelvemonth here I well could bear to stay,
Nor aught of longing feel for home, or for my parents dear,-
For wondrous charm thy speech and tale have for my list'ning ear.
"Dixerat hæc Proteus: et condidit æquore vultum,
Admisitque suos in verba novissima fluctus.”—Ov. Met., xi. 255.
Linquere tum portus jubeo, et considere transtris."-VIRG. Æn., iii. 289.
"Vela cadunt; remis insurgimus: haud mora, nautæ
Adnixi torquent spumas, et cærula verrunt."-Ibid., iii. 207.
But even now my comrades chafe, that absent I remain,
Waiting at Pylos, while thy guest thou seekest to detain.
But let thy gift some precious thing meet for a keepsake be,
For horses unto Ithaca I will not take with me;
But let them of thy stables here remain the boast and pride, —
For thou art ruler o'er a plain that stretcheth far and wide,
Where lotus grows abundantly, and wheat, and galingale,
Where yield of broad-eared barley white and ryegrass ne'er doth fail.
But Ithaca hath no wide runs, fit to try courser's speed,
Nor hath she plains and straths laid out with many a verdant mead.
A nurse of goats, which yet doth seem more precious in mine eye
Than such as rich in pastures broad, fit for the horse, doth lie.
No isle hath plains where thou couldst train or drive thy coursers fleet, 605
Or pasture find,—and least of all for such our own is meet.”
Thus he brave Menelaus smiled, and with his hand caressed
The youthful chief, and in reply bespake his dear-loved guest:
"Thy words, dear child, that thou dost come of noble sire betray.
These gifts for others I will change, for this I can and may;
And from the goodly treasures here within my palace stored,
To thee I'll give the very best and choicest of the hoard.
A wroughten cup shall be my gift, Hephaestus' work of old,—
"Tis all of silver finished off, with rim of purest gold,
Which he who Sidon's people rules to me did erst present,—
The noble hero Phædimus, when I to Sidon went,
And 'neath his roof a shelter found, when thither o'er the sea
Back I returned; and this his gift will I bestow on thee."
While thus they parleyed, feasters sought the palace of the king,
And with them did heart-gladd'ning wine and sheep for slaughter bring. Their spouses too, with chaplets decked, brought goodly store of bread,— 621 So they within the monarch's hall a plenteous banquet spread.
Meanwhile before the palace doors the suitors pastime found, Hurling the javelin and the quoit upon the levelled ground,—
601. But Ithaca hath no wide runs, &c.
"Haud male Telemachus, proles patientis Ulixi:
Non est aptus equis Ithaca locus, ut neque planis
Porrectus spatiis, neque multæ prodigus herbæ :
Atride, magis apta tibi tua dona relinquam."—HOR. Ep., i. 7. 40.
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