With
hunger press'd, devours the
pleasing bait.
Long draughts of sleep his
monstrous limbs enslave;
He reels, and, falling, fills the
spacious cave.
The
keeper charm'd, the chief without delay
Pass'd on, and took th' irremeable way.
Before the gates, the cries of babes new born,
Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn,
Assault his ears: then those, whom form of laws
Condemn'd to die, when traitors judg'd their cause.
Nor want they lots, nor judges to review
The wrongful
sentence, and award a new.
Minos, the
strict inquisitor, appears;
And lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears.
Round in his urn the blended balls he rolls,
Absolves the just, and dooms the
guilty souls.
The next, in place and
punishment, are they
Who prodigally throw their souls away;
Fools, who, repining at their
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wretched state,
And loathing
anxious life, suborn'd their fate.
With late
repentance now they would retrieve
The bodies they
forsook, and wish to live;
Their pains and
poverty desire to bear,
To view the light of heav'n, and breathe the vital air:
But fate forbids; the Stygian floods oppose,
And with circling streams the
captive souls inclose.
Not far from
thence, the Mournful Fields appear
So call'd from lovers that
inhabit there.
The souls whom that
unhappy flame invades,
In secret
solitude and
myrtle shades
Make endless moans, and, pining with desire,
Lament too late their unextinguish'd fire.
Here Procris, Eriphyle here he found,
Baring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound
Made by her son. He saw Pasiphae there,
With Phaedra's ghost, a foul incestuous pair.
There Laodamia, with Evadne, moves,
Unhappy both, but loyal in their loves:
Caeneus, a woman once, and once a man,
But
ending in the sex she first began.
Not far from these Phoenician Dido stood,
Fresh from her wound, her bosom bath'd in blood;
Whom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
Obscure in shades, and with a
doubtful view,
(Doubtful as he who sees, thro' dusky night,
Or thinks he sees, the moon's
uncertain light,)
With tears he first approach'd the
sullen shade;
And, as his love inspir'd him, thus he said:
"Unhappy queen! then is the common breath
Of rumor true, in your reported death,
And I, alas! the cause? By Heav'n, I vow,
And all the pow'rs that rule the realms below,
Unwilling I
forsook your friendly state,
Commanded by the gods, and forc'd by fate-
Those gods, that fate, whose unresisted might
Have sent me to these regions void of light,
Thro' the vast empire of
eternal night.
Nor dar'd I to
presume, that, press'd with grief,
My
flight should urge you to this dire relief.
Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows:
'T is the last
interview that fate allows!"
In vain he thus attempts her mind to move
With tears, and pray'rs, and late-repenting love.
Disdainfully she look'd; then turning round,
But fix'd her eyes unmov'd upon the ground,
And what he says and swears, regards no more
Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
But whirl'd away, to shun his
hateful sight,
Hid in the forest and the shades of night;
Then sought Sichaeus thro' the shady grove,
Who answer'd all her cares, and equal'd all her love.
Some pious tears the pitying hero paid,
And follow'd with his eyes the flitting shade,
Then took the forward way, by fate ordain'd,
And, with his guide, the farther fields attain'd,
Where, sever'd from the rest, the
warrior souls remain'd.
Tydeus he met, with Meleager's race,
The pride of armies, and the soldiers' grace;
And pale Adrastus with his
ghastly face.
Of Trojan chiefs he view'd a num'rous train,
All much lamented, all in battle slain;
Glaucus and Medon, high above the rest,
Antenor's sons, and Ceres'
sacred priest.
And proud Idaeus, Priam's charioteer,
Who shakes his empty reins, and aims his airy spear.
The gladsome ghosts, in circling troops, attend
And with unwearied eyes behold their friend;
Delight to hover near, and long to know
What bus'ness brought him to the realms below.
But Argive chiefs, and Agamemnon's train,
When his refulgent arms flash'd thro' the shady plain,
Fled from his
well-known face, with wonted fear,
As when his thund'ring sword and
pointed spear
Drove
headlong to their ships, and glean'd the routed rear.
They rais'd a
feeble cry, with trembling notes;
But the weak voice deceiv'd their gasping throats.
Here Priam's son, Deiphobus, he found,
Whose face and limbs were one continued wound:
Dishonest, with lopp'd arms, the youth appears,
Spoil'd of his nose, and shorten'd of his ears.
He scarcely knew him, striving to disown
His blotted form, and blushing to be known;
And
therefore first began: "O Tsucer's race,
Who durst thy
faultless figure thus deface?
What heart could wish, what hand
inflict, this dire disgrace?
'Twas fam'd, that in our last and fatal night
Your single
prowess long sustain'd the fight,
Till tir'd, not forc'd, a
glorious fate you chose,
And fell upon a heap of slaughter'd foes.
But, in
remembrance of so brave a deed,
A tomb and fun'ral honors I decreed;
Thrice call'd your manes on the Trojan plains:
The place your armor and your name retains.
Your body too I sought, and, had I found,
Design'd for burial in your native ground."
The ghost replied: "Your piety has paid
All needful rites, to rest my wand'ring shade;
But cruel fate, and my more cruel wife,
To Grecian swords betray'd my
sleeping life.
These are the monuments of Helen's love:
The shame I bear below, the marks I bore above.
You know in what deluding joys we pass'd
The night that was by Heav'n decreed our last:
For, when the fatal horse, desc
ending down,
Pregnant with arms, o'erwhelm'd th'
unhappy town
She feign'd nocturnal orgies; left my bed,
And, mix'd with Trojan dames, the dances led
Then, waving high her torch, the signal made,
Which rous'd the Grecians from their ambuscade.
With watching overworn, with cares oppress'd,
Unhappy I had laid me down to rest,
And heavy sleep my weary limbs possess'd.
Meantime my
worthy wife our arms mislaid,
And from beneath my head my sword convey'd;
The door unlatch'd, and, with
repeated calls,
Invites her former lord within my walls.
Thus in her crime her confidence she plac'd,
And with new treasons would
redeem the past.
What need I more? Into the room they ran,
And meanly murther'd a
defenseless man.
Ulysses, basely born, first led the way.
Avenging pow'rs! with justice if I pray,
That fortune be their own another day!
But answer you; and in your turn relate,
What brought you, living, to the Stygian state:
Driv'n by the winds and errors of the sea,
Or did you Heav'n's superior doom obey?
Or tell what other chance conducts your way,
To view with
mortal eyes our dark retreats,
Tumults and torments of th'
infernal seats."
While thus in talk the flying hours they pass,
The sun had finish'd more than half his race:
And they, perhaps, in words and tears had spent
The little time of stay which Heav'n had lent;
But thus the Sibyl chides their long delay:
"Night rushes down, and
headlong drives the day:
'T is here, in different paths, the way divides;
The right to Pluto's golden palace guides;
The left to that
unhappy region tends,
Which to the depth of Tartarus descends;
The seat of night
profound, and punish'd fiends."
Then thus Deiphobus: "O
sacred maid,
Forbear to chide, and be your will obey'd!
Lo! to the secret shadows I retire,
To pay my
penance till my years expire.
Proceed, auspicious
prince, with glory crown'd,
And born to better fates than I have found."
He said; and, while he said, his steps he turn'd
To secret shadows, and in silence mourn'd.
The hero, looking on the left, espied
A lofty tow'r, and strong on ev'ry side
With
treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds,
Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds;
And, press'd betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds
Wide is the fronting gate, and, rais'd on high
With adamantine columns, threats the sky.
Vain is the force of man, and Heav'n's as vain,
To crush the pillars which the pile sustain.
Sublime on these a tow'r of steel is rear'd;
And dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward,
Girt in her
sanguine gown, by night and day,
Observant of the souls that pass the
downward way.
From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains
Of sounding lashes and of dragging chains.
The Trojan stood astonish'd at their cries,
And ask'd his guide from
whence those yells arise;
And what the crimes, and what the tortures were,
And loud laments that rent the
liquid air.
She thus replied: "The
chaste and holy race
Are all
forbidden this polluted place.
But Hecate, when she gave to rule the woods,
Then led me trembling thro' these dire abodes,
And taught the tortures of th' avenging gods.
These are the realms of unrelenting fate;
And awful Rhadamanthus rules the state.
He hears and judges each committed crime;
Enquires into the manner, place, and time.
The
consciouswretch must all his acts reveal,
(Loth to
confess,
unable to conceal),
From the first moment of his vital breath,
To his last hour of unrepenting death.
Straight, o'er the
guilty ghost, the Fury shakes