THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF HOMER'S ODYSSEYS. THE ARGUMENT.

ULYSSES' way to Hell appears; Where he the grave Tiresias hears; Enquires his own and others' fates; His mother sees, and th' after states In which were held by sad decease Heroes, and Heroesses, A number, that at Troy waged war; As Ajax that was still at jar With Ithacus, for th' arms he lost; And with the great Achilles' ghost.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT.

.... Ulysses here Invokes the dead. The lives appear Hereafter led.

RRIVED now at our ship, we launch'd, and set

Our mast up, put forth sail, and in did get Our late-got cattle. Up our sails, we went, My wayward fellows mourning now th' event. A good companion yet, a foreright wind, Circe (the excellent utterer of her mind) Supplied our murmuring consorts with, that was Both speed and guide to our adventurous pass. All day our sails stood to the winds, and made Our voyage prosp'rous. Sun then set, and shade All ways obscuring, on the bounds we fell Of deep Oceanus, where people dwell Whom a perpetual cloud obscures outright, To whom the cheerful sun lends never light, Nor when he mounts the star-sustaining heaven, Nor when he stoops earth, and sets up the even, But night holds fix'd wings, feather'd all with banes, Above those most unblest Cimmerians. Here drew we up our ship, our sheep withdrew, And walk'd the shore till we attain'd the view Of that sad region Circe had foreshow'd; And then the sacred offerings to be vow'd Eurylochus and Persimedes bore. When I my sword drew, and earth's womb did gore Till I a pit digg'd of a cubit round, Which with the liquid sacrifice we crown'd, First honey mix'd with wine, then sweet wine neat, Then water pour'd in, last the flour of wheat. Much I importuned then the weak-neck'd dead, And vow'd, when I the barren soil should tread Of cliffy Ithaca, amidst my hall To kill a heifer, my clear best of all, And give in off'ring, on a pile composed Of all the choice goods my whole house enclosed. And to Tiresias himself, alone, A sheep coal-black, and the selectest one Of all my flocks. When to the Powers beneath, The sacred nation that survive with death, My prayers and vows had done devotions fit, I took the off'rings, and upon the pit Bereft their lives. Out gush'd the sable blood, And round about me fled out of the flood The souls of the deceas'd. There cluster'd then Youths, and their wives, much-suffering aged men, Soft tender virgins that but new came there By timeless death, and green their sorrows were. There men at arms, with armours all embrew'd, Wounded with lances, and with faulchions hew'd, In numbers, up and down the ditch, did stalk, And threw unmeasured cries about their walk, So horrid that a bloodless fear surprised My daunted spirits. Straight then I advised My friends to flay the slaughter'd sacrifice, Put them in fire, and to the Deities, Stern Pluto and Persephone, apply Exciteful prayers. Then drew I from my thigh My well-edged sword, stept in, and firmly stood Betwixt the prease of shadows and the blood, And would not suffer any one to dip Within our offering his unsolid lip, Before Tiresias that did all controul. The first that press'd in was Elpenor's soul, His body in the broad-way'd earth as yet Unmourn'd, unburied by us, since we swet With other urgent labours. Yet his smart I wept to see, and rued it from my heart, Enquiring how he could before me be That came by ship? He, mourning, answer'd me: 'In Circe's house, the spite some spirit did bear, And the unspeakable good liquor there, Hath been my bane; for, being to descend A ladder much in height, I did not tend My way well down, but forwards made a proof To tread the rounds, and from the very roof Fell on my neck, and brake it; and this made My soul thus visit this infernal shade. And here, by them that next thyself are dear, Thy wife, and father, that a little one Gave food to thee, and by thy only son At home behind thee left, Telemachus, Do not depart by stealth, and leave me thus, Unmourn'd, unburied, lest neglected I Bring on thyself th' incensed Deity. I know that, sail'd from hence, thy ship must touch On th' isle Ææa; where vouchsafe thus much, Good king, that, landed, thou wilt instantly Bestow on me thy royal memory To this grace, that my body, arms and all, May rest consumed in fiery funeral; And on the foamy shore a sepulchre Erect to me, that after times may hear Of one so hapless. Let me these implore, And fix upon my sepulchre the oar With which alive I shook the aged