Around their lord my sad companions mourn,

Each breast beats homeward, anxious to return:

If but a moment parted from thy eyes,

Their tears flow round me, and my heart complies.’


“‘Go then (she cried), ah go! yet think, not I,

Not Circe, but the Fates, your wish deny.

Ah, hope not yet to breathe thy native air!

Far other journey first demands thy care;

To tread the uncomfortable paths beneath,

And view the realms of darkness and of death.

There seek the Theban bard, deprived of sight;

Within, irradiate with prophetic light;

To whom Persephone, entire and whole,

Gave to retain the unseparated soul:

The rest are forms, of empty ether made;

Impassive semblance, and a flitting shade.’


“Struck at the word, my very heart was dead:

Pensive I sate: my tears bedew’d the bed:

To hate the light and life my soul begun,

And saw that all was grief beneath the sun:

Composed at length the gushing tears suppress’d,

And my toss’d limbs now wearied into rest.

‘How shall I tread (I cried), ah, Circe! say,

The dark descent, and who shall guide the way?

Can living eyes behold the realms below?

What bark to waft me, and what wind to blow?’


“‘Thy fated road (the magic power replied),

Divine Ulysses! ask no mortal guide.

Rear but the mast, the spacious sail display,

The northern winds shall wing thee on thy way.

Soon shalt thou reach old Ocean’s utmost ends,

Where to the main the shelving shore descends;

The barren trees of Proserpine’s black woods,

Poplars and willows trembling o’er the floods:

There fix thy vessel in the lonely bay,

And enter there the kingdoms void of day,

Where Phlegethon’s loud torrents, rushing down,

Hiss in the flaming gulf of Acheron;

And where, slow rolling from the Stygian bed,

Cocytus’ lamentable waters spread:

Where the dark rock o’erhangs the infernal lake,

And mingling streams eternal murmurs make.

First draw thy falchion, and on every side