Part 4

“Far from me, were I able, to express Agonies of the Lost, their hopelessness! Enough their names who sinned;— here, hurled to Dis By lightning at bottom of the abyss Roll Earth’s sons the Titans; and I saw there The Aloeid Twins, who scaled upper air, Piling mount on mount; by brute strength alone Tried to storm Olympus, and Jove dethrone Salmoneus too, and the price his pride Cost him, for choosing impious to ride Mimicking lightnings’ flash, the thunder’s roar Fool! to ape Jove with his steeds as they bore His car through Elis, torches as they cast Their smoky gleams, trumpets’ quavering blast. Brief the trickeries of that crazed career, Joy for man on Earth’s stage to act God’s peer; And swift climax when, amid storms, there fell Bolts that drove the pretender down to Hell! Near him Earth’s nursling, Tityus, I saw, Stretched o’er nine acres, with, to fill its maw, A hook-beaked vulture clawing at his breast For the liver e’er eaten, ne’er at rest; Since growing ever, putting on new flesh; So, the Thing gropes for dainties ever fresh. Myriad Crime’s forms—Dis for all has room. Kinship that should nurse kindness, rings its doom; Virtues that have turned strangers into friends, Oft change brothers and sisters into fiends. Children, instead of vying to maintain Parents, have beaten them, and even slain. A traitor to human nature and hearth Seduces her who owes to him her birth. Lawyers, snapping ties sacred as of blood, Have spun about their clients webs of fraud. Misers have gone on hatching gold from gold— A host of them—refusing to withhold Grains from the hoard, although it were to save Nearest that should be dearest from the grave. Guests—till schooled here—have thought theft of a wife Well worth the risk of forfeiture of life. Liegemen, loved, aggrandized, have drawn the sword, Himself had girded on, to stab their Lord. Statesmen have abused a fond people’s trust, To sell and tread its freedom in the dust. Others, having dammed law-making at the source, Opened, closed locks as gapes or shuts a purse. The course of life cannot be ruled so straight, Homes so pure, opportunities so great, Reasons so full and plain for doing well, But that they may be used as roads to Hell. ”Penalties”?— As manifold, various. The Lapithæ know it, Pirithous, Tantalus, Ixion. I have held my breath At black rock threatening, not, welcome Death, But—for Shadows may feel—mangled, crushed bones, Dragging eternally over jagged stones.— That, in act to fall, ever seemed in air.— And I have seen Hell’s cooks a feast prepare; Spread couches with purple, and on gold-rests. Then—dainties in view—as the famished guests Seated themselves in hungry haste to sup, The eldest Fury, screaming, started up From where she lay, and, waving torch alight Swept banquet, banqueters, into cold night. On some the doom to push a mass up hill, And, when it slips, as slip it ever will, Still push; for some, e’en worse, the Wheel; and then— Limbs healed—to be broken again, again. There hapless Theseus sits, and will aye sit; Phlegyas there, whose cry—might I deaden it!— Is in mine ears: ‘Men, be warned! Scorn not Heav’n; Never is sin against the Gods forgiv’n!’”

“More”? Yea; had I a hundred mouths; in each A tongue of iron to give forth my speech; And thou weeks to listen, I could not tell Of all the guilt, its chastisements in Hell. Enough for thee to know all there have dared To break God’s laws, and in like kind have fared. The deeds have been done; and now, fast shut in, The doers take the wages of their sin. But time presses; hasten, wouldst thou fulfil Duties charged by Heaven’s grace, thy own good-will. Courage; for we have left behind the Pit Of sin and torture, and are soon to quit Even the melancholy Precincts, where The dead still mourn the Past, the Future fear. Already I see the walls Cyclopian, built To shut off lands of misery and guilt From the happier one to which we wend. Lo the Arch! there must thou thy Branch suspend!”

Crossing the intervening twilight space, They stood ’neath the vault of the gate in face. Then, sprinkled with fresh water from a spring, Æneas hung up his gold offering. Elysium’s doors opened; he was free, Having paid her due to its Deity.

ELYSIUM

A land for joyance made; blest for the blest; Happy in being chosen for their rest; For nowhere greener lawns, more bow’ry glades Inviting into more reposeful shades Of arched romantic groves, with, ev’rywhere, Steeped in a purple glow, a larger air Than Earth’s; for the lower world owes no debt To sun or stars with which our skies are set; It has them of its own, as real as ours. Real too its grass, the fragrance of its flow’rs; Real they to Spirit as to them It seems, Though for mortals unsubstantial as are dreams. On turf or yellow sand some test the skill, That earned them fame in life; and is theirs still. The woods are full of revellers, who beat Time to gay dancers and their flying feet; Or banqueting sit, garlanded with bays, Singing in chorus legends of old days; While others proud of battle-fields afar Conduct a mimic spectacle of war; Spears waiting to be snatched, and the broad shield To be slung, chargers harnessed for the field;— Shadows to terrestrial men, who call Earthly things real, when shadows most of all;— Shadows these of the busy lives they led On earth, which pursue them now they are dead; Nought palpable, unless that through a grove Eridanus rolls to the world above. Here ignorantly happy dwell in joy Princes like Dardanus who founded Troy; With Teucer father of a royal race, Gallant as noble, and most fair of face; Ilus, Assaracus, of blood divine, Through whom Æneas proudly traced his line. Here stood showing glorious wounds a band Of heroes fall’n to save its native land; Though other arts could equal entrance gain,— To give life charm, or steal a pang from pain. Priests too, who as they at the altar stood Offered pure lives as well as victims’ blood: And seers, who ne’er falsified Heav’n’s truth, But spoke as they heard from Apollo’s mouth:— A various tribe, yet all alike in this, That, having served, they have deserved their bliss. The Maid led where the white-filleted throng Was thickest; for Musæus’s the song, Responsive to the lyre’s seven sweet chords, That vied with all the magic of the words. High he by head and shoulders o’er the ring Around. The Sibyl, when he ceased to sing, Besought him of his courtesy to tell Where might Anchises in that blest land dwell; Their search for him had many labours cost; Dread sights been seen, perilous rivers crossed; Their grace was brief, they must not longer bide; How, clogged with flesh, find him without a guide? Quick answer made the sage: “We count no home As you on earth; wheresoever we roam At home are we; for our repose at noon, Or eve, no couch can equal with its down A meadow bank, that rills unfailing heap With flow’rs wooing irresistible sleep. But flesh and blood aye move the heart and will, And ye are here their purpose to fulfil; So, follow me beyond this hanging peak, And I will point your path to him you seek.”

Under his lead they climbed the height, and thence Down into a wide, smiling champaign, whence Opened a wooded valley: in a glade Anchises stood, and deep in thought surveyed A host of hurrying Shades. As he gazed, He heard steps, his Son’s! Eagerly he raised, Both hands, while eyes and heart joined in the burst Of love and joy; each struggling to be first Its welcome to express: “Dearest! at last I see Thee; at what cost of perils passed! Yet never feared I that the utmost pow’rs Of Earth and Hell could bar a love like ours From meeting, as in old times, face to face, In full converse, however brief the space. With trust undoubting traced I to its goal Thy devious course; for well I knew thy soul; Each stage I numbered; tempests on what seas; Unfriendly lands; kindnesses worse than these!” “And could’st Thou,” cried Æneas “more repine, Missing my presence than I longed for thine? Thy image warned me on the island shore, To ask thy counsels, as, on earth, of yore, So, I am here! Once more to feel thy heart Beating to my own!— Nay; my Father, why, When I would clasp hands, kiss thy face, deny The embrace I dared Hell’s alarms to gain?” Of no avail his prayers, tears; all vain; Thrice in his arms the image melted away— As flutter of breeze; dream at break of day.

Near where Anchises and Æneas stood Shades swarmed, dense, ever denser, in a wood Which rustled all its bushes with the press— As of a migrant nation numberless— Of Spirits emulous to be the first To reach grey Lethe’s edge, and quench their thirst— —Thus, in languorous stillness of noontide, Sudden the slumb’rous calm is swept aside By an inrush of bees; in wild descent, Like pirates from the main, on nothing bent But spoil they seem; yet each has its own flow’r, To which sure instinct guides it hour by hour,— Æneas saw the haste, knew not th’ excuse; For him it seemed to be Hell broken loose. Even when he heard the marvellous tale That the myriads gathered in that vale Were no unwilling, mourning outcasts there, Condemned to breathe once more the upper air, But after their secular repose full fain Flesh to resume, links in an endless chain, The world-worn hero shuddered none the less It might be his to count it happiness To exchange the peace of the myrtle grove For stark sunshine and gross body above; To be of those whom Lethe should wash clear Of all they once had been, and all they were:— That Elysium’s a waiting-room for life; Life a dust-heap for trials, failures, strife That men are Shadows all, expecting doom, Whether flesh, or to shift it in a tomb. “Forbear,” replied Anchises, old and wise, “To measure laws of Fate by earthly eyes. From the beginning of the sky and land, The stars where once the Titans held command, The sun and moon that share the day and night, Air’s liquid fields;—all owe their charm and light To eternal Spirit. That feeds the whole, Breathes into bodies, lifeless else, a soul. Mankind and beasts, winged Things, and monster strange, That ’neath the level plains of Ocean range, Draw hence their fire, the instinct of a birth Elsewhere;—alas! for the burdensome bulk Of limbs diseased, and joints that creak and sulk For the foul lusts they stir, the scares, affrights, The cowardly griefs, and as vain delights, The Dark through which flesh stumbles, halt and blind The dungeon where it keeps shut close the Mind, Lest at one breath of air it should in scorn Of earth fly back to Heaven where ’twas born. Meanwhile an evil partnership for both!— Spirit incorporate, however loth To be associate with sores and blains, Vice’s parasites, must bear fleshly pains To be cleansed; for death is itself no cure; Body, Soul with it, share in the Impure. Some, carcasses, swing, split open, for breeze To scour and wring, to bleach, and scorch, or freeze For some a mill-stream whirls a crime about, Or a furnace roars a rich baseness out. Just the Judgment, every judgment true; Each of us bears no more than is his due; High as the merits of our kith and kin, None but himself can carry his own sin. Blest the sharp ordeal for the few who thence Pass, not in sheer spiritual innocence, But in no worse than such affections dressed As leave the pure celestial spark at rest, And free in these fair fields to dream away Any chance taint surviving from earth’s clay To dull the sereneness of the fire giv’n To infants, that they may remember Heav’n.”

“And now behold the final stage:— this rout, Its cycle—a thousand years—being out— Called by God’s Messenger of Life and Death, Descends where Lethe, in the cleft beneath, Will make it, drinking of the troubled flood, Conscious it once was clothed with flesh and blood. And yearn to take them back, and to return Rude air to breathe, and feel a rude sun burn. Nearer now draw with me, that from this bank Thou mayest watch the comers rank by rank; Read, as I point, the future in each face; See, as I see, the glory of our race— Great as it was, and greater still to be, Graft on Troy’s stock, the bud of Italy. Mark him who leans upon a bloodless spear; ’Tis thy own son; but look upon him here; On earth Thou wilt not; for, when thy long life Is all but spent, Lavinia thy Wife Shall conceive a child, and in full time bear Silvius in the woods to be thy heir; King of Alba, like many of his line, As Procas and Æneas, namesake thine. And still kings come—I cannot number them, Each adding to old a fresh diadem! But stay! who advances crested like to Mars— For whom Jove keeps a place among the stars? Romulus—City maker? Tenfold more! From him Earth’s arbiter, matchless in war, With no limits to empire but the Pole, And none below Olympus to the soul!— —As Joys Cybele to have peopled Heav’n, Rome boasts a breed to which Earth is giv’n! Turn thy eyes; regard this Company; know What a full tide of grandeur is to flow Hence of thy name; how from Thyself, and from Iulus, in time shall Julius come, And one as great, long destined to be born By Fate’s decree—else were Fate’s self forsworn— That, where King Saturn reigned in days of yore, Augustus shall the Golden Age restore. Marches still; already his edicts sway Where our day is night, and our night is day; Among the Gætuli; beyond them; far Outside the orbit, light, of any star; Outside track of Sun and dancing Hours, where Atlas swings the world’s axis, with its gear. Rumours of his approaching overwhelm Quaking Mæotis and the Caspian realm; While sevenfold Nile offers fealty, Trembling for what the Master shall decree. Have we not heard in legends or romance How God or Hero has made his advance, Victor throughout Earth?— Of him who laid low Lerna’s fire-breathing Dragon with his bow, Shot the brazen-footed Hind, and stilled the roar In Arcady of Erymanthian boar!— Of Bacchus in tipsy triumph, a yoke Of spotted tigers in his chariot, broke To obey, for reins, tendrils of a vine— His Mænads leaping down the long incline Of Nysa, wildly singing, their locks curled With vine leaves, following to win a world? Yet what in tales of Gods and men can match For scorn of space, and ardour of despatch, Delight in braving peril, grasp of mind, Our Cæsar’s progress to the verge of Ind! Wilt, Son, in view of all thy future Rome, With her chiefs destined from thyself to come, And while ancestral fire of Troy burns high In thy own veins, put off the hour to try Valour in act, and hesitate to prove Thy right to lordship given Thee by Jove?”

“Observe, as they pass by us, one by one, Those who will glorify thy Rome, my Son. Illegible to them, for us the whole Of their careers is writ as on a scroll, See, the grey-bearded King, the Priest, the Sage, Of many years, though not bowed down with age, Whose laws devised to rule a petty town Will fit it when into an empire grown; Next, Tullus, warrior-prince, and Ancus, near, Boasting his wit to catch the popular ear: Then the proud Tarquins; and, of soul as proud, Brutus, grudging not Freedom his sons’ blood— Careless if fainter hearts, a feebler time Brand a patriot’s sacrifice as crime! Ah! changes—leaps and bounds—so fast surprise Brains, toned here to calm, that my aged eyes Are dazzled as forms pass, and then repass, And straight are lost—reflections in a glass. No smoother course for this, thy Rome to be, Than now, my Son, for Thee in Italy. A whirl of arms ere the fair land will deign To grant thy offspring’s right divine to reign; An age-long wrestle; yet a rope of sand Makes a poor rival of an iron band.— Hide from my sight those lictors, and a Son! But they tell how Latium shall be won.— A will inflexible, a discipline Making a religion of a straight line, A consuming, passionate, red-hot force Never prisoned in its volcanic source— Pride in the City of the Seven Hills— Will merge all other passions, heal all ills. These the fire inspired, that in fateful war Gave Cossus and Jove arms of Tuscan Lar. Maligned and banned Camillus their first call Brought as through air to save Rome from the Gaul Fabricius taught the Epirot King Thus, that Rome wounded rises on the wing. From them Serranus learned the art to guide The State, and victor o’er the billows ride As straight as he his furrow erewhile ploughed. Regard these visages serene and proud To do whate’er is Rome’s behest, content To go whithersoever they are sent. See, war’s twin thunderbolts, the Scipios, Their oracle Rome, their one mark her foes. See them to whom Achaia bows the head, With Macedon’s monarch in triumph led;— Avenging on Mycenæ, and the race Of Atreus, on Achilles, the disgrace They heaped upon Troy, and the outraged shrine Of Pallas, their own patroness Divine. Nor fail note that old man, heeding no jeer, No hint of blood slow and sluggish, e’en fear: Resolved throughout of one thing—ne’er, from haste In clutching popular applause, to waste A chance on Fortune’s wheel for his Rome’s Shield To foil War’s cross-eyed Master in the field; And, near to him, in Britomart’s royal spoils,— Like a brave boar, trapped in a huntsman’s toils, Unconquerable else—the battle’s lord— Confess it, Gaul, Carthage, and Syracuse—Rome’s Sword! But who is this, Thou askest, in the pride Of arms and youth, advancing by his side? Thou mark’st the likeness; well might he be son: From the same stock he springs, a noble one. Strange, in the changeless calm of these blest groves The shadow of a brooding sorrow moves.... Well might I weep, if Spirit could, the fate Of good as fair, and not more good than great. Earth will have but seen to lose him! Heaven, Wert thou jealous, lest, thinking him given To this our mighty Rome, not just on loan, But to live her life, be her very own, She would wax overweening? Yet the woe Must surely wake thy pity, when, below, Thou hear’st the wails numberless for such charms Borne to their pyre upon the Field of Arms; And Thou, old Tiber, as thou flowest by The tomb in which the loved One’s ashes lie, Wilt not forget how thou hast seen him play Oft on thy banks young, beautiful, and gay. Never will hope be raised so high by boy Blending the blood of Latium and Troy; And, when shall our earth ever find again Such loyalty and faith in living men— A right hand so approved in every art, On horse, or foot, to do a soldier’s part? I pity, praise, love! Arrest but the chain Of Fate; and lo! Marcellus come again! —Armfuls of lilies bring; for Soul as sweet! Spread crimson flow’rs, fit carpet for his feet! —Grief for a Shadow, from a Shadow grief; Yet Shadows find a Shadow of relief For boundless loss in Shadows e’en of grief!”

“But now for the near future—I will show How to surmount, and how to bear with, woe; Faint not, endure, and earn renown! On Earth, What, without store of fame, is living worth! Weigh not the toils and snares, that, I foresee, Impend, ere Thou shalt reign in Italy. Remember thy reward, the noble end Tow’rds which thy trials and thy hardships tend. Teach a world-empire how its Founder bears The load of war, and, worse, intestine cares; For these must be, though I spare Thee the sight Of brothers against brothers armed for fight— Decii, Drusi, Gracchi—each House moved By jealous passion for the Rome all loved. And when the All-Conquering shall have hurled Her legions to the confines of the world, Lo! Chiefs—allied by blood, and leagued to share Two continents between them—arm to tear Their country’s entrails piecemeal! Baleful strife! Will not one victim serve—Great Cato’s life? Joy! God grants my prayer! There is brave steel Of double virtue, both to wound and heal; And of that heav’nly temper, Youth, is thine, Second founder of the Julian line! Hail to Olympian Cæsar! Who would Not guard dear life at cost of Roman blood; And ere—too soon—he parts, will choose an heir Of skill divine the ship of State to steer Clear of the breakers; Kind and keen to know His fellow Romans, with the rush and flow, The genius for sovereignty; their fate To be Earth’s lords, and Earth’s to stand and wait! Let others wile the furnace with its heat To warm the heart within the bronze to beat, Cunningly lift th’ imprisoning stone away, And lead nymphs forth to blush in rosy day; Dissemble truth with nimble tongues; and call Stars by their names; tell when they rise and fall. Others Rome’s Arts;— To speak her mistress will: Fight if it please her; bid the world keep still! See that her vassals nowhere suffer wrong; —Make Pride her Right; be Valiant, and be Strong!”

Death, and her brother, Sleep, rule side by side Realms that shadowy boundaries divide, Yet none can cross but through gates twain; and these Are in the charge of Death, who keeps the keys. Now and again a Spirit will repair For love or hate back to the upper air, To commune with Spirit, so far as whole Can become two parts, Soul be just a Soul. Of dull, dun horn the gate such use; hard by Gleams the other, perfect of ivory. Thence from the Under-world Imps float above Freaks that in spite or idlesse they have wove, To raid and wilder slumber, let it close Men’s eyes, and cheat their senses of repose. Anchises, for whom Space and Time were nought, Had through the gate of horn Æneas sought By night on the Etruscan sea; he now With last words, and many a longing vow Of love, confessed his child was due to part— Though truer no Son, kinder no Sire’s heart— By the ivory door; the horn gate stood Fast locked and sealed against all flesh and blood. Though soul there—a thistle-down Man, wind-tost With life; a night-mare; less real than a ghost!

Virgil to the Unknown God

Æneidos, Bk. IV. vv. 576-577

_Sequimur te, Sarnie Deorum, Quisquis es_

Thou camest in the Darkness, and the Darkness Light became— Not a word was ever spoken, and yet I heard Thy name, I care not whither I must go; to worship at what shrine; I know but that Thy servant I; that Thou art Master mine. No Priest I need to lead me; for when Thou goest before, How can I aught but follow, to love Thee, and to adore! Who can ever fail to find Thee, or miss of Thy abode? For where Thou art is Holiness,—and Holiness is God!

The Gates

Æneidos, Bk. VI. vv. 893-898

Sleep, and his Sister, Death; Twins ever with Us; and theirs the keys Of Past and Present, the Above, and the Beneath; And, as Brother and Sister please, Forth flutter Falsehood. Truth, Changed, according as they pass the Gate Of Horn or of Ivory into Joy or Ruth, Even dreamed kindness into Hate!

Ghosts

_Ibid._

Ah! We at the behest, Poor human mortals! of numberless shadowy hosts Weaving Men’s dooms to amuse the tedium of Rest! And nought abides but Ghosts!

Euryalus and Pallas

Æneidos, Bk. IX. vv. 455-457; Bk. XI. vv. 68-71