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It had been easy to compel the gods

To its accomplishment. My art has power
When of one man the constellations press

The speedy death, to compass a delay;
And mine it is, though every star decrees

A ripe old age, by mystic herbs to shear
The life midway. But should some purpose set

From the beginning of the universe,
And all the labouring fortunes of mankind,

Be brought in question, then Thessalian art
Bows to the power supreme. But if thou be

Content to know the issue pre-ordained,
That shall be swiftly thine; for earth and air

And sea and space and Rhodopaean crags
Shall speak the future. Yet it easiest seems

Where death in these Thessalian fields abounds
To raise a single corpse. From dead men's lips

Scarce cold, in fuller accents falls the voice;
Not from some mummied flame in accents shrill

Uncertain to the ear."
Thus spake the hag

And through redoubled night, a squalid veil
Swathing her pallid features, stole among

Unburied carcases. Fast fled the wolves,
The carrion birds with maw unsatisfied

Relaxed their talons, as with creeping step
She sought her prophet. Firm must be the flesh

As yet, though cold in death, and firm the lungs
Untouched by wound. Now in the balance hung

The fates of slain unnumbered; had she striven
Armies to raise and order back to life

Whole ranks of warriors, the laws had failed
Of Erebus; and, summoned up from Styx,

Its ghostly tenants had obeyed her call,
And rising fought once more. At length the witch

Picks out her victim with pierced throat agape
Fit for her purpose. Gripped by pitiless hook

O'er rocks she drags him to the mountain cave
Accursed by her fell rites, that shall restore

The dead man's life.
Close to the hidden brink

The land that girds the precipice of hell
Sinks towards the depths: with ever falling leaves

A wood o'ershadows, and a spreading yew
Casts shade impenetrable. Foul decay

Fills all the space, and in the deep recess
Darkness unbroken, save by chanted spells,

Reigns ever. Not where gape the misty jaws
Of caverned Taenarus, the gloomy bound

Of either world, through which the nether kings
Permit the passage of the dead to earth,

So poisonous, mephitic, hangs the air.
Nay, though the witch had power to call the shades

Forth from the depths, 'twas doubtful if the cave
Were not a part of hell. Discordant hues

Flamed on her garb as by a fury worn;
Bare was her visage, and upon her brow

Dread vipers hissed, beneath her streaming locks
In sable coils entwined. But when she saw

The youth's companions trembling, and himself
With eyes cast down, with visage as of death,

Thus spake the witch: "Forbid your craven souls
These fears to cherish: soon returning life

This frame shall quicken, and in tones which reach
Even the timorous ear shall speak the man.

If I have power the Stygian lakes to show,
The bank that sounds with fire, the fury band,

And giants lettered, and the hound that shakes
Bristling with heads of snakes his triple head,

What fear is this that cringes at the sight
Of timid shivering shades?"

Then to her prayer.
First through his gaping bosom blood she pours

Still fervent, washing from his wounds the gore.
Then copious poisons from the moon distils

Mixed with all monstrous things which Nature's pangs
Bring to untimely birth; the froth from dogs

Stricken with madness, foaming at the stream;
A lynx's entrails: and the knot that grows

Upon the fell hyaena; flesh of stags
Fed upon serpents; and the sucking fish

Which holds the vessel back (38) though eastern winds
Make bend the canvas; dragon's eyes; and stones

That sound beneath the brooding eagle's wings.
Nor Araby's viper, nor the ocean snake

Who in the Red Sea waters guards the shell,
Are wanting; nor the slough on Libyan sands

By horned reptile cast; nor ashes fail
Snatched from an altar where the Phoenix died.

And viler poisons many, which herself
Has made, she adds, whereto no name is given:

Pestiferous leaves pregnant with magic chants
And blades of grass which in their primal growth

Her cursed mouth had slimed. Last came her voice
More potent than all herbs to charm the gods

Who rule in Lethe. Dissonant murmurs first
And sounds discordant from the tongues of men

She utters, scarcearticulate: the bay
Of wolves, and barking as of dogs, were mixed

With that fell chant; the screech of nightly owl
Raising her hoarsecomplaint; the howl of beast

And sibilant hiss of snake -- all these were there;
And more -- the waft of waters on the rock,

The sound of forests and the thunder peal.
Such was her voice; but soon in clearer tones

Reaching to Tartarus, she raised her song:
"Ye awful goddesses, avenging power

Of Hell upon the damned, and Chaos huge
Who striv'st to mix innumerable worlds,

And Pluto, king of earth, whose weary soul
Grieves at his godhead; Styx; and plains of bliss

We may not enter: and thou, Proserpine,
Hating thy mother and the skies above,

My patrongoddess, last and lowest form (39)
Of Hecate through whom the shades and I

Hold silent converse; warder of the gate
Who castest human offal to the dog:

Ye sisters who shall spin the threads again; (40)
And thou, O boatman of the burning wave,

Now wearied of the shades from hell to me
Returning, hear me if with voice I cry

Abhorred, polluted; if the flesh of man
Hath ne'er been absent from my proffered song,

Flesh washed with brains still quivering; if the child
Whose severed head I placed upon the dish

But for this hand had lived -- a listening ear
Lend to my supplication! From the caves

Hid in the innermost recess of hell
I claim no soul long banished from the light.

For one but now departed, lingering still
Upon the brink of Orcus, is my prayer.

Grant (for ye may) that listening to the spell
Once more he seek his dust; and let the shade

Of this our soldier perished (if the war
Well at your hands has merited), proclaim

The destiny of Magnus to his son."
Such prayers she uttered; then, her foaming lips

And head uplifting, present saw the ghost.
Hard by he stood, beside the hated corpse

His ancient prison, and loathed to enter in.
There was the yawning chest where fell the blow

That was his death; and yet the gift supreme
Of death, his right, (Ah, wretch!) was reft away.

Angered at Death the witch, and at the pause
Conceded by the fates, with living snake

Scourges the moveless corse; and on the dead
She barks through fissures gaping to her song,

Breaking the silence of their gloomy home:
"Tisiphone, Megaera, heed ye not?

Flies not this wretched soul before your whips
The void of Erebus? By your very names,

She-dogs of hell, I'll call you to the day,
Not to return; through sepulchres and death

Your gaoler: from funereal urns and tombs
I'll chase you forth. And thou, too, Hecate,

Who to the gods in comely shape and mien,
Not that of Erebus, appearst, henceforth

Wasted and pallid as thou art in hell
At my command shalt come. I'll noise abroad

The banquet that beneath the solid earth
Holds thee, thou maid of Enna; by what bond

Thou lov'st night's King, by what mysterious stain
Infected, so that Ceres fears from hell

To call her daughter. And for thee, base king,
Titan shall pierce thy caverns with his rays

And sudden day shall smite thee. Do ye hear?
Or shall I summon to mine aid that god

At whose dread name earth trembles; who can look
Unflinching on the Gorgon's head, and drive

The Furies with his scourge, who holds the depths
Ye cannot fathom, and above whose haunts

Ye dwell supernal; who by waves of Styx
Forswears himself unpunished?"

Then the blood
Grew warm and liquid, and with softening touch

Cherished the stiffened wounds and filled the veins,
Till throbbed once more the slow returning pulse

And every fibre trembled, as with death
Life was commingled. Then, not limb by limb,

With toil and strain, but rising at a bound
Leaped from the earth erect the living man.

Fierce glared his eyes uncovered, and the life
Was dim, and still upon his face remained

The pallid hues of hardly parted death.
Amazement seized upon him, to the earth

Brought back again: but from his lips tight drawn
No murmur issued; he had power alone

When questioned to reply. "Speak," quoth the hag,
"As I shall bid thee; great shall be thy gain

If but thou answerest truly, freed for aye
From all Haemonian art. Such burial place

Shall now be thine, and on thy funeral pyre
Such fatal woods shall burn, such chant shall sound,

That to thy ghost no more or magic song
Or spell shall reach, and thy Lethaean sleep

Shall never more be broken in a death
From me received anew: for such reward

Think not this second life enforced in vain.
Obscure may be the answers of the gods

By priestess spoken at the holy shrine;
But whose braves the oracles of death



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