Of flowing tears, and thus with sighs replied:


“‘Fliest thou, loved shade, while I thus fondly mourn!

Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn!

Is it, ye powers that smile at human harms!

Too great a bliss to weep within her arms?

Or has hell’s queen an empty image sent,

That wretched I might e’en my joys lament?’


“‘O son of woe,’ the pensive shade rejoin’d;

‘O most inured to grief of all mankind!

‘Tis not the queen of hell who thee deceives;

All, all are such, when life the body leaves:

No more the substance of the man remains,

Nor bounds the blood along the purple veins:

These the funereal flames in atoms bear,

To wander with the wind in empty air:

While the impassive soul reluctant flies,

Like a vain dream, to these infernal skies.

But from the dark dominions speed the way,

And climb the steep ascent to upper day:

To thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell,

The woes, the horrors, and the laws of hell.’


“Thus while she spoke, in swarms hell’s empress brings

Daughters and wives of heroes and of kings;

Thick and more thick they gather round the blood,

Ghost thronged on ghost (a dire assembly) stood!

Dauntless my sword I seize: the airy crew,

Swift as it flash’d along the gloom, withdrew;

Then shade to shade in mutual forms succeeds,

Her race recounts, and their illustrious deeds.


“Tyro began, whom great Salmoneus bred;

The royal partner of famed Cretheus’ bed.

For fair Enipeus, as from fruitful urns

He pours his watery store, the virgin burns;

Smooth flows the gentle stream with wanton pride,

And in soft mazes rolls a silver tide.

As on his banks the maid enamour’d roves,

The monarch of the deep beholds and loves;

In her Enipeus’ form and borrow’d charms

The amorous god descends into her arms:

Around, a spacious arch of waves he throws,

And high in air the liquid mountain rose;

Thus in surrounding floods conceal’d, he proves

The pleasing transport, and completes his loves.