And now with homeward footstep he had passed All perils scathless, and, at length restored, Eurydice to realms of upper air Had well-nigh won, behind him following-So Proserpine had ruled it- when his heart A sudden mad desire surprised and seized-Meet fault to be forgiven, might Hell forgive.
For at the very threshold of the day, Heedless, alas! and vanquished of resolve, He stopped, turned, looked upon Eurydice His own once more. But even with the look, Poured out was all his labour, broken the bond Of that fell tyrant, and a crash was heard Three times like thunder in the meres of hell.
'Orpheus! what ruin hath thy frenzy wrought On me, alas! and thee? Lo! once again The unpitying fates recall me, and dark sleep Closes my swimming eyes. And now farewell:
Girt with enormous night I am borne away, Outstretching toward thee, thine, alas! no more, These helpless hands.' She spake, and suddenly, Like smoke dissolving into empty air, Passed and was sundered from his sight; nor him Clutching vain shadows, yearning sore to speak, Thenceforth beheld she, nor no second time Hell's boatman brooks he pass the watery bar.
What should he do? fly whither, twice bereaved?
Move with what tears the Manes, with what voice The Powers of darkness? She indeed even now Death-cold was floating on the Stygian barge!
For seven whole months unceasingly, men say, Beneath a skyey crag, by thy lone wave, Strymon, he wept, and in the caverns chill Unrolled his story, melting tigers' hearts, And leading with his lay the oaks along.
As in the poplar-shade a nightingale Mourns her lost young, which some relentless swain, Spying, from the nest has torn unfledged, but she Wails the long night, and perched upon a spray With sad insistence pipes her dolorous strain, Till all the region with her wrongs o'erflows.
No love, no new desire, constrained his soul:
By snow-bound Tanais and the icy north, Far steppes to frost Rhipaean forever wed, Alone he wandered, lost Eurydice Lamenting, and the gifts of Dis ungiven.
Scorned by which tribute the Ciconian dames, Amid their awful Bacchanalian rites And midnight revellings, tore him limb from limb, And strewed his fragments over the wide fields.
Then too, even then, what time the Hebrus stream, Oeagrian Hebrus, down mid-current rolled, Rent from the marble neck, his drifting head, The death-chilled tongue found yet a voice to cry 'Eurydice! ah! poor Eurydice!'
With parting breath he called her, and the banks From the broad stream caught up 'Eurydice!'"
So Proteus ending plunged into the deep, And, where he plunged, beneath the eddying whirl Churned into foam the water, and was gone;But not Cyrene, who unquestioned thus Bespake the trembling listener: "Nay, my son, From that sad bosom thou mayst banish care:
Hence came that plague of sickness, hence the nymphs, With whom in the tall woods the dance she wove, Wrought on thy bees, alas! this deadly bane.
Bend thou before the Dell-nymphs, gracious powers:
Bring gifts, and sue for pardon: they will grant Peace to thine asking, and an end of wrath.
But how to approach them will I first unfold-Four chosen bulls of peerless form and bulk, That browse to-day the green Lycaean heights, Pick from thy herds, as many kine to match, Whose necks the yoke pressed never: then for these Build up four altars by the lofty fanes, And from their throats let gush the victims' blood, And in the greenwood leave their bodies lone.
Then, when the ninth dawn hath displayed its beams, To Orpheus shalt thou send his funeral dues, Poppies of Lethe, and let slay a sheep Coal-black, then seek the grove again, and soon For pardon found adore Eurydice With a slain calf for victim."
No delay:
The self-same hour he hies him forth to do His mother's bidding: to the shrine he came, The appointed altars reared, and thither led Four chosen bulls of peerless form and bulk, With kine to match, that never yoke had known;Then, when the ninth dawn had led in the day, To Orpheus sent his funeral dues, and sought The grove once more. But sudden, strange to tell A portent they espy: through the oxen's flesh, Waxed soft in dissolution, hark! there hum Bees from the belly; the rent ribs overboil In endless clouds they spread them, till at last On yon tree-top together fused they cling, And drop their cluster from the bending boughs.
So sang I of the tilth of furrowed fields, Of flocks and trees, while Caesar's majesty Launched forth the levin-bolts of war by deep Euphrates, and bare rule o'er willing folk Though vanquished, and essayed the heights of heaven.
I Virgil then, of sweet Parthenope The nursling, wooed the flowery walks of peace Inglorious, who erst trilled for shepherd-wights The wanton ditty, and sang in saucy youth Thee, Tityrus, 'neath the spreading beech tree's shade.
