Persephone he seeks, and him who reigns
O’er ghosts, and hell’s uncomfortable plains.
Arrived, he, tuning to his voice his strings,
Thus to the king and queen of shadows sings:
“Ye powers, who under earth your realms extend,
To whom all mortals must one day descend,
If here ’tis granted sacred truth to tell,
I come not curious to explore your hell,
Nor come to boast (by vain ambition fired)
How Cerberus at my approach retired;
My wife alone I seek, for her loved sake
These terrors I support, this journey take:
She, luckless wandering, or by fate misled,
Chanced on a lurking viper’s crest to tread;
The vengeful beast, inflamed with fury, starts,
And through her heel his deathful venom darts.
Thus was she snatch’d untimely to her tomb.
Her growing years cut short, and springing bloom.
Long I my loss endeavour’d to sustain,
And strongly strove; but strove, alas! in vain:
At length I yielded, won by mighty love;
Well known is that omnipotence above:
But here, I doubt, his unfelt influence fails;
And yet a hope within my heart prevails,
That here, ev’n here, he has been known of old,
At least if truth be by tradition told.
If fame of former loves belief may find,
You both by love, and love alone, were join’d.
Now, by the horrors which these realms surround,
By the vast chaos of these depths profound,
By the sad silence, which eternal reigns
O’er all the waste of these wide-stretching plains,
Let me again Eurydice receive,
Let fate her quick-spun thread of life reweave.
All our possessions are but loans from you,
And soon or late you must be paid your due;
Hither we haste to humankind’s last seat,
Your endless empire, and our sure retreat.
She too, when ripen’d years she shall attain,
Must, of avoidless right, be yours again.
I but the transient use of that require,
Which soon, too soon, I must resign entire.
But if the destinies refuse my vow,
And no remission of her doom allow,
Know, I’m determined to return no more;
So both retain, or both to life restore.”
Thus, while the bard melodiously complains,
And to his lyre accords his vocal strains,
The very bloodless shades attention keep,
And silent seem compassionate to weep;
Ev’n Tantalus his flood unthirsty views,
Nor flies the stream, nor he the stream pursues,
Ixion’s wondering wheel its whirl suspends,
And the voracious vulture, charm’d, attends;
No more the Belides their toil bemoan,
And Sisyphus, reclined, sits listening on his stone.
Then first, (’tis said,) by sacred verse subdued,
The furies felt their cheeks with tears bedew’d.
Nor could the rigid king or queen of hell
The impulse of pity in their hearts repel.
Now, from a troop of shades that last arrived,
Eurydice was call’d, and stood revived:
Slow she advanced, and halting, seem’d to feel
The fatal wound yet painful in her heel.
Thus he obtains the suit so much desired,
On strict observance of the terms required;
For if, before he reach the realms of air,
He backward cast his eyes to view the fair,
The forfeit grant, that instant, void is made,
And she for ever left a lifeless shade.
Now through the noiseless throng their way they bend,
And both with pain the rugged road ascend:
Dark was the path, and difficult, and steep,
And thick with vapours from the smoky deep.
They wellnigh now had pass’d the bounds of night,
And just approach’d the margin of the light,
When he, mistrusting lest her steps might stray,
And gladsome of the glimpse of dawning day,
His longing eyes impatient backward cast
To catch a lover’s look, but look’d his last;
For, instant dying, she again descends,
While he to empty air his arm extends:
Again she died, nor yet her lord reproved:
What could she say but that too well he loved?
One last farewell she spoke, which scarce he heard;
So soon she dropp’d, so sudden disappear’d.
All stunn’d he stood when thus his wife he view’d,
By second fate and double death subdued;
Not more amazement by that wretch was shown
Whom Cerberus beholding turn’d to stone;
Nor Olenus could more astonish’d look,
When on himself Lethea’s fault he took;
His beauteous wife, who, too secure, had dared
Her face to vie with goddesses, compared;
Once join’d by love, they stand united still,
Turn’d to contiguous rocks on Ida’s hill.
Now to repass the Styx in vain he tries;
Charon, averse, his pressing suit denies.
Seven days entire, along the infernal shores
Disconsolate, the bard Eurydice deplores;
Defiled with filth his robe, with tears his cheeks;
No sustenance, but grief and cares he seeks;
Of rigid fate incessant he complains,
And hell’s inexorable gods arraigns.
This ended, to high Rhodope he hastes,
And Haemus mountain, bleak with northern blasts
And now his yearly race the circling sun
Had thrice complete through watery Pisces run,
Since Orpheus fled the face of womankind,
And all soft union with the sex declined.
Whether his ill success this change had bred,
Or binding vows made to his former bed,
Whate’er the cause, in vain the nymphs contest,
With rival eyes, to warm his frozen breast;
For every nymph with love his lays inspired,
But every nymph, repulsed, with grief retired.
A hill there was, and on that hill a mead,
With verdure thick, but destitute of shade;
Where, now, the muse’s son no sooner sings,
No sooner strikes his sweet-resounding strings,
But distant groves the flying sounds receive,
And listening trees their rooted stations leave;
Themselves transplanting, all around they grow,
And various shades their various kinds bestow:
Here, tall Chaonian oaks their branches spread,
While weeping poplars, there, erect their head;
The foodful esculus here shoots his leaves;
That turf, soft lime-tree, this, fat beech, receives:
Here, brittle hazels; laurels, here, advance;
And there, tough ash, to form the hero’s lance:
Here, silver firs, with knotless trunks, ascend;
There, scarlet oaks beneath their acorns bend:
That spot admits the hospitable plane;
On this, the maple grows with clouded grain:
Here, watery willows are with lotus seen;
There, tamarisk, and box, for ever green:
With double hue, here, myrtles grace the ground,
And laurustines with purple berries crown’d;
With pliant feet, now, ivies this way wind,
Vines yonder rise, and elms with vines entwined;
Wild ornus now, the pitch-tree next, takes root,
And arbutus adorn’d with blushing fruit;
Then easy-bending palms, the victor’s prize,
And pines erect with bristly tops arise;
For Rhea grateful still, the pine remains,
For Atys still some favour she retains;
He once in human shape her breast had warm’d,
And now is cherish’d, to a tree transform’d.
Fable of Cyparissus
Cyparissus by accident kills a favourite stag, which affects him with so much grief, that he pines away, and is changed into a
