by Daisy Dunn
And now in terror seek my former way,
Back to the Stygian waves: here, doom’d in Hell,
To feel a thirst he sees the means to quell,
Sad Tantalus remains; condemn’d by Jove,
For stealing nectar from the starry grove.
Why name the wretch, who scorn’d the gods’ control,
And now condemn’d a stone’s vast weight to roll,
Ceaseless complains? Here too those daughters stand;
Whom fierce Erinnis gave her vengeful brand,
Whose wond’rous pow’r impell’d these impious brides
To quench young Hymen’s torch in purple tides.
Full black the crime! yet fair as day, compar’d
With those fell deeds, that shameless Colchis dar’d
Whose bursting rage in twain her bosom rent,
And ’gainst her offspring all its fury bent.
And now I hear Pandion’s daughters sing
Their mournful notes. With these, Bistonia’s king,
A bird in semblance, wings his airy flight.
And here fell discord hurls the flames of fight
Mid Cadmus’ train; with ire the brothers burn,
And, each on each, their kindred weapons turn;
Eternal labor!—Now compell’d to fly,
Th’ infernal powers in distant prospect lie;
Now born afar, along th’ Elysian tide,
Where Ceres’ daughter, Pluto’s gloomy bride,
Still urges on her train. Absolv’d from care,
The fair Alcestis roves rewarded there;
Proof of unbounded love! her life she gave,
To save her spouse, Admetus, from the grave.
And here is seen, the grace of womankind,
Ulisses’ wife: and, ling’ring far behind,
Transfix’d with spears, the daring suitor train.
Mourn, Orpheus, mourn! here, rack’d with grief and pain,
Curs’d by that fatal lovesick look from thee,
Thy bride remains! All-daring sure was he,
Who hop’d for mercy from the gods of Hell,
Who strove to stop the keeper’s horrid yell;
Who dar’d with mortal strength to pierce the gloom,
Where none may go, but those whom Minos doom:
Who trod mid realms of ruin, fire, and blood,
And view’d with living eyes the burning flood.
All this did Orpheus! Mid the fury-throng,
Secure he pass’d; so great the pow’r of song!
Lo, in his train ev’n list’ning beasts appear,
And rapid rivers stay their floods to hear;
Vast oaks, in rapture, hear his heav’nly strains,
Spring from their roots, and leave their native plains:
The lofty forests wave their heads around,
While their tough rinds receive the potent sound.
The monthly maid, along the starry sphere,
Pleas’d with the notes, inclin’d her steeds to hear;
Hell’s mighty mother own’d the matchless strain,
And willing gave what force could ne’er obtain;
Ev’n back to life sad Orpheus’ bride she gave,
Long try’d with griefs beyond the Stygian wave.
Yet by these ties constrain’d; if, in their flight,
Their eyes reverted to the realms of night;
If mortal voice profan’d the shades below,
Back to her bonds the forfeit bride should go.
Ah, mournful Orpheus! cruel love prevail’d,
And thro’ that love thy glorious labor fail’d.
If but one crime Hell’s iron lips could move
To speak in pardon, sure that crime were Love.
Yet, constant pair, th’ Elysian fields are thine;
Where from afar immortal heroes shine.
Blest in their father, Jove’s official son,
Here Peleus stands and virtuous Telamon;
This, by a slave of modest worth caress’d,
That, with her charms immortal Thetis bless’d.
In equal place the youth unshaken stands,
Whose mighty arm repell’d the flaming brands,
With tenfold fury mid the Phrygian bands.
What tongue unborn shall not the tale employ,
The ten years labor and the fall of Troy?
When all her fields and rivers ran with blood,
And fair Sigeum drank the vital flood;
When raging Hector, with his valiant train,
Mid Argos’ fleet bade fire and slaughter reign.
Ev’n mother Ida pour’d her pitchy store
’Gainst the tall barks, along the Trojan shore.
Here, dauntless Ajax fought thro’ fields of blood;
There, Troy’s first honor swell’d the purple flood,
Both fierce in war; their pond’rous armour rung,
While vivid lightning on their falchions hung.
With flaming brands here Hector strove to burn
Their lofty fleet, and stop the Greeks’ return;
There, fiercer Ajax rais’d his sword on high,
Hurl’d back their brands, and bade the Trojans fly.
Next, fam’d Pelides flying Hector slew,
And round Troy’s walls in cruel triumph drew.
Sad will of Fate! Pelides press’d the ground,
By Paris’ hand: his doom great Ajax found,
In that sly chief, by whom, at midnight slain,
Here Dolon lay, there Rhesus press’d the plain.
He too from Troy their great Palladium bore,
And drove the Cicons from their native shore:
’Twas his to pass along the roaring waves,
Where, bound with dogs, the fatal Scylla raves;
Where the rough seas of loud Charybdis swell;
The land of Cyclops, and the shades of Hell.—
Here Atreus’ son is seen, the next in place,
The pride of Greece, and honor of his race,
He taught the flames o’er Ilium’s walls to rise,
Climb the high tow’rs and seek the distant skies,
But he alas! a mournful tribute gave
To falling Troy, in Asia’s fatal wave.
Trust not too far the smile that fortune lends,
Nor blindly follow wheresoe’er she tends:
He, who, elate, some giddy height would gain;
Thrown from that height shall oft lament in vain.
So, flush’d with spoils, from Troy the Grecian bands
Launch’d their tall barks, and sought their native lands:
Now gentle breezes bear them on their way,
And guardian sea nymphs round their vessels play.
When (Fate so will’d, or so some baleful star,)
Waves war with winds, and spurn old ocean’s bar:
Now floods on floods in sounding contest rise,
Toss their tall heads, and threat the lofty skies.
Earth echoes back the sound; the Grecians tost,
So late victorious, now forever lost,
Sink in the whelming flood, along the shores,
Where ’gainst Caphareus sounding ocean pours.
Wide o’er the waves the floating relicks fly,
Here, shatter’d ships, there, Trojan treasures lie.—
Here, mid th’ Elysian fields, a martial band,
The pride of Rome, in equal honor stand.
Here brave Horatius, and the Fabian name;
And great Camillus, crown’d with deathless fame.
With these the Decii, and that youth, who gave
His life, devoted to the gaping grave,
His country’s freedom and her name to save.
Here too is he, who bore the raging flame,
And bade Porsenna dread the Roman name.
With these Flaminius, heir of endless praise,
Who boldly rush’d amid the fatal blaze.
Here faithful Curius: here t
hose heroes dwell,
By whom the walls of Libyan Carthage fell.
Wide o’er the plain the valiant bands extend,
And round their brows perpetual laurels bend.
Ah wretched fate! compell’d to seek my way,
Mid regions banish’d from the smiles of day:
Where Hell’s grim lakes the mazy paths enclose,
And burning floods my fearful steps oppose.
Here mighty Minos high enthron’d appears,
And ev’ry shade from him it’s sentence hears.
Around the judge th’ infernal furies stand,
My life’s whole tenor and my death demand.
But you, the cause of all my sorrows here,
Nor grace my shade; nor pay the fun’ral tear;
While endless griefs within my bosom burn,
Fate calls me hence, and Fate forbids return.
Shepherd, farewell! enjoy your peaceful seats,
Your cooling fountains, and your green retreats.
Still live content, mid flow’ry fields reclin’d,
While these sad words are lost in empty wind.
Thus to the swain the gnat lamenting said,
Then from his sight in silent sorrow fled.—
Now, long by slumber’s galling chains oppress’d,
The shepherd rose, grief heavy at his breast.
Fresh in his mind the gnat’s pale form he view’d,
And his long tale of endless wo renew’d.
Now with what strength his aged limbs retain’d,
(Which o’er the Hydra’s force victorious reign’d,)
To clear a spot the mindful swain began,
Where mid the grove a secret river ran.
To raise the turf an iron haft he found,
And drew an orb’s fair figure on the ground.
Still on his task intent, the ground he rear’d,
Till the fair mound in symmetry appear’d.
Next round the spot a marble line he drew,
And sow’d the place with flowr’s of various hue.
Here the red rose and rough acanthus bloom,
And fragrant vi’lets flourish round the tomb.
With these the myrtle noble Sparta yields;
And golden crocus of Cilician fields.
Here hyacinths and sacred laurels grow;
And here Nonacria’s sweetest odors blow.
Here the chrysanthus and buphthalmus spring,
And Bocchus, mindful still of Libya’s king.
Here ivies twine; here grows that flow’r of fire,
Whose beauteous form inflam’d with self-desire.
Here amaranths and flow’ring pines appear,
And each fair season spreads it’s odor here.
Last o’er the tomb a stone the shepherd rear’d,
Where rudely grav’d these silent lines appear’d.
Poor little gnat, these funeral rites receive,
What thou deserv’st, and all the swain can give.
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
Georgics, Book IV
Virgil
Translated by James Rhoades, 1881
This is the story of Orpheus, a proud musician who lost his wife Eurydice to a snakebite and tried to rescue her from the Underworld. Within Virgil’s poem the tale is told by Proteus, a shape-shifting seer from the sea, to Aristaeus, a son of the god Apollo, who sought from him the reasons for his recent lack of good fortune. It transpires that Aristaeus had been lustily pursuing Eurydice through a forest when she stumbled upon the snake and died. Orpheus is allowed to enter the Underworld but can lead Eurydice free of it only if he resists the urge to look behind him to check she is still following him. In his poignant telling of the myth, Virgil focuses on the depth of Orpheus’ sorrow.
When Proteus seeking his accustomed cave
Strode from the billows: round him frolicking
The watery folk that people the waste sea
Sprinkled the bitter brine-dew far and wide.
Along the shore in scattered groups to feed
The sea-calves stretch them: while the seer himself,
Like herdsman on the hills when evening bids
The steers from pasture to their stall repair,
And the lambs’ bleating whets the listening wolves,
Sits midmost on the rock and tells his tale.
But Aristaeus, the foe within his clutch,
Scarce suffering him compose his aged limbs,
With a great cry leapt on him, and ere he rose
Forestalled him with the fetters; he natheless,
All unforgetful of his ancient craft,
Transforms himself to every wondrous thing,
Fire and a fearful beast, and flowing stream.
But when no trickery found a path for flight,
Baffled at length, to his own shape returned,
With human lips he spake, “Who bade thee, then,
So reckless in youth’s hardihood, affront
Our portals? or what wouldst thou hence?”—But he,
“Proteus, thou knowest, of thine own heart thou knowest;
For thee there is no cheating, but cease thou
To practise upon me: at heaven’s behest
I for my fainting fortunes hither come
An oracle to ask thee.” There he ceased.
Whereat the seer, by stubborn force constrained,
Shot forth the gray light of his gleaming eyes
Upon him, and with fiercely gnashing teeth
Unlocks his lips to spell the fates of heaven:
“Doubt not ’tis wrath divine that plagues thee thus,
Nor light the debt thou payest; ’tis Orpheus’ self,
Orpheus unhappy by no fault of his,
So fates prevent not, fans thy penal fires,
Yet madly raging for his ravished bride.
She in her haste to shun thy hot pursuit
Along the stream, saw not the coming death,
Where at her feet kept ward upon the bank
In the tall grass a monstrous water-snake.
But with their cries the Dryad-band her peers
Filled up the mountains to their proudest peaks:
Wailed for her fate the heights of Rhodope,
And tall Pangaea, and, beloved of Mars,
The land that bowed to Rhesus, Thrace no less
With Hebrus’ stream; and Orithyia wept,
Daughter of Acte old. But Orpheus’ self,
Soothing his love-pain with the hollow shell,
Thee his sweet wife on the lone shore alone,
Thee when day dawned and when it died he sang.
Nay to the jaws of Taenarus too he came,
Of Dis the infernal palace, and the grove
Grim with a horror of great darkness—came,
Entered, and faced the Manes and the King
Of terrors, the stone heart no prayer can tame.
Then from the deepest deeps of Erebus,
Wrung by his minstrelsy, the hollow shades
Came trooping, ghostly semblances of forms
Lost to the light, as birds by myriads hie
To greenwood boughs for cover, when twilight-hour
Or storms of winter chase them from the hills;
Matrons and men, and great heroic frames
Done with life’s service, boys, unwedded girls,
Youths placed on pyre before their fathers’ eyes.
Round them, with black slime choked and hideous weed,
Cocytus winds; there lies the unlovely swamp
Of dull dead water, and, to pen them fast,
Styx with her ninefold barrier poured between.
Nay, even the deep Tartarean Halls of death
Stood lost in wonderment, the Eumenides,
Their brows with livid locks of serpents twined;
E’en Cerberus held his triple jaws agape,
And, the wind hushed, Ixion’s wheel stood still.
And now with homeward footst
ep he had passed
All perils scathless, and, at length restored,
Eurydice to realms of upper air
Had well-nigh won, behind him following—
So Proserpine had ruled it—when his heart
A sudden mad desire surprised and seized—
Meet fault to be forgiven, might Hell forgive.
For at the very threshold of the day,
Heedless, alas! and vanquished of resolve,
He stopped, turned, looked upon Eurydice
His own once more. But even with the look,
Poured out was all his labour, broken the bond
Of that fell tyrant, and a crash was heard
Three times like thunder in the meres of hell.
“Orpheus! what ruin hath thy frenzy wrought
On me, alas! and thee? Lo! once again
The unpitying fates recall me, and dark sleep
Closes my swimming eyes. And now farewell:
Girt with enormous night I am borne away,
Outstretching toward thee, thine, alas! no more,
These helpless hands.” She spake, and suddenly,
Like smoke dissolving into empty air,
Passed and was sundered from his sight; nor him
Clutching vain shadows, yearning sore to speak.
Thenceforth beheld she, nor no second time
Hell’s boatman lists he pass the watery bar.
What should he do? fly whither, twice bereaved?
Move with what tears the Manes, with what voice
The Powers of darkness? She indeed e’en now
Death-cold was floating on the Stygian barge!
For seven whole months unceasingly, men say,
Beneath a skyey crag, by thy lone wave,
Strymon, he wept, and in the caverns chill
Unrolled his story, melting tigers’ hearts,
And leading with his lay the oaks along.
As in the poplar-shade a nightingale
Mourns her lost young, which some relentless swain,
Spying, from the nest has torn unfledged, but she
Wails the long night, and perched upon a spray
With sad insistence pipes her dolorous strain,
Till all the region with her wrongs o’erflows.
No love, no new desire, constrained his soul:
By snow-bound Tanais and the icy north,
Far steppes to frost Rhipaean for ever wed,
Alone he wandered, lost Eurydice
Lamenting, and the gifts of Dis ungiven.
Scorned by which tribute the Ciconian dames,
Amid their awful Bacchanalian rites
And midnight revellings, tore him limb from limb,
And strewed his fragments over the wide fields.
Then too, e’en then, what time the Hebrus stream,
