While in your world I drew the vital air!

E’en I, who from the Lord of Thunders rose,

Bore toils and dangers, and a weight of woes;

To a base monarch still a slave confined,

(The hardest bondage to a generous mind!)

Down to these worlds I trod the dismal way,

And dragg’d the three-mouth’d dog to upper day

E’en hell I conquer’d, through the friendly aid

Of Maia’s offspring, and the martial maid.


“Thus he, nor deign’d for our reply to stay,

But, turning, stalk’d with giant-strides away.


“Curious to view the kings of ancient days,

The mighty dead that live in endless praise,

Resolved I stand; and haply had survey’d

The godlike Theseus, and Pirithous’ shade;

But swarms of spectres rose from deepest hell,

With bloodless visage, and with hideous yell.

They scream, they shriek; and groans and dismal sounds

Stun my scared ears, and pierce hell’s utmost bounds.

No more my heart the dismal din sustains,

And my cold blood hangs shivering in my veins;

Lest Gorgon, rising from the infernal lakes,

With horrors arm’d, and curls of hissing snakes,

Should fix me stiffen’d at the monstrous sight,

A stony image, in eternal night!

Straight from the direful coast to purer air

I speed my flight, and to my mates repair.

My mates ascend the ship; they strike their oars;

The mountains lessen, and retreat the shores;

Swift o’er the waves we fly; the freshening gales

Sing through the shrouds, and stretch the swelling sails.”


BOOK XII.


ARGUMENT.

THE SIRENE, SCYLLA, AND CHARYBDIS.


He relates how, after his return from the shades, he was sent by Circe on his

voyage, by the coast of the Sirens, and by the strait of Scylla and Charybdis:

the manner in which he escaped those dangers: how, being cast on the island

Trinacria, his companions destroyed the oxen of the Sun: the vengeance that

followed; how all perished by shipwreck except himself, who, swimming on the