Complete works of willia.., p.638
Complete Works of William Morris, page 638
Away from the land of our fathers. Then I awoke withal,
And within my heart the blameless twifold the thought did fall,
Whether casting myself from a-shipboard I should die there down in the
Or abide the thing in silence, and yet mid the living to be. [sea,
So I bore and abode, and hidden adown in the ship I lay.
But the ships by an evil whirl-blast of the wind were borne away,
And back to the isle ^Eolian; and our folk bewailed them sore.
“There then upon earth we gat us, and drew water on the shore,
And the shipmen gat to their victuals by the ships’ side fair and fleet;
But thereafter when they had tasted of the drink and of the meat
Then I chose me out a herald, and one with him to go
To AEolus’ house the glorious; and when we came thereto,
Still feasting by his helpmate and his children him we found.
So we went to the house and sat us ‘twixt the doorposts on the ground,
And their souls were filled with wonder, and they asked how it might be.
“How comest thou here, Odysseus? What ill-God grieveth thee?
Since in heedful wise we sped thee, that thou at last might’st gain
Thy fatherland and thine homestead, if therefor thine heart were fain.’
“So they spake, and thereto I answered, though needs my heart must wail:’
’Tis the scathe of evil fellows, and idle slumber’s bale.
But now, O friends, do ye heal it, as ye have might to do.’
“So I spake, and with words soft-spoken besought them thereunto;
But the others sat in silence, while a word did their father give:
‘ Begone in haste from the island, thou wretch amongst all that live!
For unrighteous it were to cherish or speed upon his way
Such a man as thou, so hated by the Gods of the happy day.
Begone! since unto the Deathless thou art so loathed a thing.’
“And with that word he sent me from the house sore sorrowing.
So there we sailed right onward with hearts oppressed with woe,
And outworn were the souls of the shipmen with the toilsome need to row,
For all our vain endeavour; since no speeding wind there came.
“Six days our way we wended, by day and night the same,
But we made the burg on the seventh of Lamos builded high,
Wide compassed, Laestrygonian; where herd to herd doth cry
As he wendeth afield, and his fellow thence coming him doth hear.
And foisooth a twofold hire might the sleepless win him there,
And one spell the neat be herding, and one the sheep-kind white;
For there anigh to each other are the ways of day and of night
“So we came unto the haven, a fair and glorious one,
Where a rock-wall high, unbroken, all round about is done;
And sheer out-thrusting nesses each other hold in face
At the mouth thereof, and narrow is the entry of the place.
“Therein laid all the others their ships the curved and fair,
And in the hollow haven close-set they moored them there.
For thereinto no billow from the outer sea might fall,
Nay neither great nor little; white calm was over all.
But I alone of all men my black ship held without,
To a rock of the outer crag-wall my hawser binding about
Tlien up to a peak I gat me, a craggy place and high,
And no tillage of neat or of manfolk from thence could I espy:
Nay, nought but smoke proceeding from under the earth could I see.
So I chose out two of our fellows, and a third their herald to be,
And sent them as our forerunners, that they might ask and heed
What men these were of menfolk on the earth’s face eating bread.
“So they went and fared on a highway whereby the wains come down
That fetch from the lofty mountains the timber toward the town;
And they came upon a damsel drawing water nigh the gate,
Of Antiphates the Laestrygon the daughter fair and great.
For unto the well Artacia fair-flowing had she come down,
Whence folk were wont to be drawing the water for the town;
So coming nigh unto her they asked her of the thing
What man was lord among them, and who o’er the folk was king.
So her father’s dwelling she showed them, the house high-roofed and fair.
And they came to that glorious dwelling and found a woman there,
Huge, high as the tops of the mountains; and they loathed her utterly.
Then straight she called from the market her lord and brought him anigh,
Antiphates the mighty, who devised them woeful bane;
For he snatched up one and arrayed him as meat for his dinner’s gain.
But his fellows fled from before him, and gat to the ships and the sea.
Then the king sent his cry through the city, and they heard him presently,
Those Laestrygons the mighty, and flockmeal came they then
From all around, unnumbered, more giant-like than men;
And stones each one a man-load from the rocks they cast on those.
And the clamour and cry of evil from around the ship-host rose,
And the sound of men a-dying with the crashing ships was blent,
As with men like fishes spitted to their loathly feast they went
“But while within the haven and the deep place these did die,
I pulled forth the whetted edges, and drew the sword from my thigh,
And therewith I sheared the hawser of my ship of the prow dark-blue,
And bade my fellows hasten, and egged them on to do,
And lay out over the oar-hefts that we might ‘scape the bane.
So they their death-day dreading cast the salt-sea up amain,
And fain was I, as seaward to the deep from the rock-wall sheer
My ship fled: for the ship-host, the others, perished there.
“Forth then we sailed and onward, our hearts with evil worn,
Yet fain of the flight from the death-day; of our fellows all forlorn.
But we came to the isle ^Eaea, where the fair-tressed Circe dwells,
And she the awful Goddess in man-speech talks and tells.
But the very sister is she of ^Eaetes fell and wise,
For they both of the Sun were begotten that lighteth all men’s eyes
From one mother, and she was Perse”, the maid that Ocean gat.
“So we made the shore in our keel, and in silence came thereat,
And into the ship-fast haven, and some God led the way.
Then on the dry land going two days and nights we lay,
Eating our hearts with labour and the burden of our ill.
But when the fair-tressed Dawning the third day did fulfil
Then, taking my spear of battle and my sword the sharp and keen, [seen
Straight up from the ship I wended to a place whence the land might be
If perchance I might see men’s tillage or the voice of men might hear;
So a rocky height I clambered, and I stood on the topmost there,
And saw the reek uprising from the wide-waved earth below,
As up from the house of Circe through the thicket did it go.
Therewith I fell to pondering, in my heart and in my mind,
If where the dark reek I was seeing I should go to seek and find.
But as I thought it over it seemed the better to me
That first aback I should hie me to the swift ship and the sea,
To give my mates their supper and send them forth to espy.
“But as my ways I wended, and the curved ship drew anigh,
Then one of the Gods had pity on me the wender apart;
For across my path he sent me’a huge high-antlered hart,
Who had come to drink of the river adown from his woodland mead,
For the might of the high sun’s burning compelled him with its need.
Then him as he went from the water amidst the back I smote [out,
By the spine; and the spear brass-headed passed through and through and
And he cried, and his soul went from him as he fell in the dust of the ground.
And therewith did I set foot on him, and drew out the spear from the wound,
And the spear, on the earth I laid it and let it be thereby,
While I plucked me twigs and withies and twined them evenly
Into a rope well twisted throughout, a fathom long,
Wherewith I bound together the feet of the beast the strong;
Which thus on my neck a-laying to the black ship did I flit
As I steadied myself with my spear-shaft; for I might not shoulder it,
And with one hand hold it on me; for it was a mighty deer.
So I cast him adown by the ship-side, and my fellows did I stir
With words that were soft and pleasant, by each one standing anigh:
“‘ Not yet, O friends, shall we wend us for all our misery
Adown to the House of Hades till the fateful day befal;
So while in our ship the speedy there is meat and drink for all
Of victual be we heedful, lest our lives with hunger wear.’
“So I said, and straight they heeded what I bespake them there,
And with all their heads uncovered on the shore of the untilled sea
On the hart they looked and wondered, for a mighty deer was he; i So
But when their eyes they had pleasured with looking on the beast
They washed their hands and arrayed them to hold a noble feast.
So there all day were we sitting, till the sun went nigh to sink,
To eat of the flesh unfailing and of honied wine to drink.
But when the sun sank under and the night upon us crept,
Then there on the side of the salt-sea we laid us down and slept
“But when the Mother of Morning, Rose-fingered Dawn, shone bright,
I arrayed the Meeting of Menfolk, and to all I spake outright:
‘ Hearken, O friends and fellows, who bear such weight of woe!
Of the place of the Dark and the Dawning no longer now we know,
Nor where the Sun man-lighting beneath the earth doth sink,
Nor where he riseth upward: so let us be speedy to think,
If yet there be aught of counsel, as I believe is none.
For I climbed to a craggy hill-top and looked on the isle adown,
And saw that the limitless sea-flood begirdled it all about,
And all plain it lay: but mine eyes beheld the reek rise out
From the woodland and the thicket amidmost of it there.’
“So I spake, but now all broken were their hearts beloved and dear,
When of that Antiphates’ doings, the Laestrygon, they thought;
And the rage of the stark man-eater, and the deeds which the Cyclops wrought;
And plenteous tears were they weeping and loud lament they made,
Though nought availed their weeping, nor might their mourning aid
“Then my well-greaved fellows I numbered into two companies,
And a leader I appointed to be o’er each of these;
And I led the one, and the other godlike Eurylochus Ie
Then in a brazen helmet the shuffled lots we sped,
And therefrom the lot of Eurylochus the great of heart did go.
So he went his ways, and with him were fellows twenty and two;
And they wept as they went and left us, and sorrow sore we made.
“Now they came on the house of Circe well builded down in a glade,
And all of smooth stone fashioned in a place seen far and near:
And about it were wolves of the mountain, and lions haunted there;
And she herself had tamed them with the help of herbs of ill:
Nor fell they upon our fellows, though they thronged about them still,
But fawning there upon them their long tails wagged withal.
And as dogs will fawn on their master when he comes from the feastful hall,
Because he is wont to bring them things that their hearts deem good,
Round these the wolves the strong-clawed, and the’lions fawning stood,
And they feared when they beheld them, the creatures fierce and great.
“But there was the house of the Goddess, and there they stood in the gate,
And Circe heard they singing in a lovely voice within,
As she wove on the web undying, such works as the Godfolk win,
Such works as are all-glorious, and delicate and fair.
“Then the chief of men, Polites, bespake his fellows there,
A man who to me was dearest, and the heedfullest of all:
‘ O friends, there is some wight weaving a great web there in the hall,
And singing so fair that the pavement is echoing all about
A goddess or a woman? but to her let us haste to cry out’
“So he spake, and they cried aloud, and their voices toward her cast,
And she, straight coming outwards, through the shining doorway passed,
And called them, and they followed, so witless was their mood;
But Eurylochuj dreaded treason, and without the door abode.
So she led them in and set them on bench and lordly seat,
And a mess of cheese, and meal and honey pale and sweet
With Pramnian wine she mingled; and she blended therewithal
Ill herbs, that the land of their fathers might clean from their memories fall.
But when she had given thereof, and they had drunk of the wine,
With a staff she smote them, and shut them within the sty of the swine;
And swine-shape they had, and the voice and the bristles and head of the boar;
But ever their minds abided e’en such as they were before.
So there were they styed up weeping, and Circe presently
Cast to them mast, and acorns, and nuts of the cornel tree,
Whereof the swine earth-wallowing are wont to make their meat
“But aback Eurylochus hastened to the ship black-wrought and fleet,
To tell tidings of his fellows and their unseemly doom;
But though for speech he was striving yet never a word would come,
So sore his heart was smitten; and his eyes with tears were filled,
And nought but lamentation the soul within him willed.
But when all we in wonder were asking of his tale,
Then at last of our other fellows he told the woe and the bale.
‘ We wended, O noble Odysseus, the way whereas ye bade,
And came on a house through the thicket fair builded in a glade,
Of polished wall-stones fashioned in a place seen far and near;
Where a great web one was weaving and singing shrilly-clear;
A goddess or a woman? So aloud on her we cried,
And through the doorway gleaming straightway to us she hied,
And called us; and they followed because of their witless mind,
But treason I foreboded, and abided there behind.
And all they vanished together; nor ever any one
Came back again, though a long while I sat and watched alone.’
“So he spake; but the great blade brazen o’er my shoulders did I throw,
Yea, my war-sword silver-hilted, and about me did my bow.
And I bade him straightly lead me by the way he went with these:
But he caught ahold upon me, and clung to both my knees,
And amidst of lamentation sent winged words to me.
‘ Nay, drive me not unwilling, Zeus-bred! here let me be!
For I know that neither thou shalt come back, nor bring back one
Of our fellows. Nay, but with these that are here let us swiftly begone
And flee; if yet mayhappen we may ‘scape our evil day.’
“So he spake: but thereto I answered and spake to him straightway:
Eurylochus, thou if thou willest shalt here in thy place abide,
And here be eating and drinking by the black ship’s hollow side;
But for me, now am I departing for stark need is weighing on me.’
“So I spake, and my ways I wended from the ship-side and the sea;
But when through the holy glades I now was drawing anigh
The mighty house of Circe, who of herbs hath mastery,
Lo, the God of the Golden Wand, e’en Hermes, met me there,
As toward the house I wended, as a young man shapen fair
When first his beard is sprouting in the loveliest tide of youth;
Then he took my hand and named me, and spake a word of sooth:
“‘ Whither away, unlucky, dost thou wander through the wold,
Unwotting of the country? while Circe’s house doth hold
Thy fellows in their swine-shape, and in stark lairs there they lie.
And comest thou hither to loose them? then thereof thus say I,
That for thee shall be no returning but there with the rest shalt thou bide.
And yet from these ills shall I loose thee, and save thee on this tide.
Lo, here a herb full crafty! take this when thou comest thy way
Unto Circe’s house, and its might shall stave off thine evil day.
But now shall I tell thee of Circe and the baleful guile she shall win,
For a potion shall she mix thee, and shall cast the venom therein,
But shall not avail to bewitch thee because of the herb of might
Which now I give unto thee; and all things shall I show thee aright.
For whenas Circe would smite thee with a staff exceeding long,
Then from thy thigh be drawing thy sword the sharp and strong,
And fall upon her fiercely as though thou wouldst have her to die,
Then shall she cower before thee and bid thee with her to lie;
And then shalt thou in nowise the bed of the Goddess gainsay,
So that she may loose thy fellows, and speed thee on thy way.
But the oath of the happy Gods, the Great Oath, shalt thou bid her to take,
That nothing more of evil against thee she shall wake,
Lest she make thee naked of might, a foul and unmanned thing.’
“So spake the Bane of Argus, and forth the herb did he bring,
Having dug it up out of the earth; and he showed me its make and its
