 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rebecca Dittman, Liverpool United Kingdom. Web address, MercurialSpirit.co.uk The Adventures of Ulysses by Charles Lamb Preface. This work is designed as a supplement to the Adventures of Telemachus. It treats of the conduct and sufferings of Ulysses, the father of Telemachus. The picture which it exhibits is that of a brave man struggling with adversity. By the wise use of events and with an inimitable presence of mind under difficulties, forcing out a way for himself through the severest trials to which human life can be exposed, with enemies natural and preternatural surrounding him on all sides. The agents in this tale, besides men and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens, things which denote external force or internal temptations, the twofold danger which a wise fortitude must expect to encounter in its course through this world. The fictions contained in it will be found to comprehend some of the most admired inventions of Grecian mythology. The groundwork of the story is as old as the odyssey, but the moral and the colouring are comparatively modern. By avoiding the prolixity which marks the speeches and the descriptions in Homer, I have gained a rapidity to the narration which I hope will make it more attractive and give it more the air of a romance to young readers. Though I am sensible that by the curtailment I have sacrificed in many places the manners to the passion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interest of the story. The attempt is not to be considered as seeking a comparison with any of the direct translations of the odyssey, either in prose or verse, though if I were to state the obligations which I have had to one obsolete version, I should run the hazard of depriving myself of the very slender degree of reputation which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like the present undertaking. End of Preface Chapter 1 This history tells of the wanderings of Ulysses and his followers in their return from Troy after the destruction of that famous city of Asia by the Grecians. He was inflamed with the desire of seeing again, after ten years absence, his wife and native country, Ithaca. He was king of a barren spot and a poor country in comparison of the fruitful plains of Asia which he was leaving or the wealthy kingdoms which he touched upon his return. Yet wherever he came he could never see a soil which appeared in his eyes half so sweet or desirable as his country earth. This made him refuse the offers of the goddess Calypso to stay with her and partake of her immortality in the delightful island and this gave him the strength to break from the enchantments of Cersei, the daughter of the sun. From Troy, ill winds cast Ulysses and his fleet upon the coast of the Psycons, a people hostile to the Grecians. Landing his forces he laid siege to their chief city Ismarus which he took and with it much spoil and slew many people. But success proved fatal to him for his soldiers elated with the spoil and the good store of provisions which they found in that place fell to eating and drinking, forgetful of their safety till the Psycons who inhabited the coast had time to assemble their friends and allies from the interior who, mustering in prodigious force, set upon the Grecians while they negligently reveled and feasted and slew many of them and recovered the spoil. They, dispirited and thinned in their numbers with difficulty made their retreat good to the ships. Thence they set sail sad at heart yet something cheered that with such fearful odds against them they had not all been utterly destroyed. A dreadful tempest ensued which for two nights and two days tossed them about but the third day the weather cleared and they had hopes of a favorable gale to carry them to Ithaca. But as they doubled the cape of Malia suddenly a north wind arising drove them back as far as Scythera. After that for the space of nine days contrary winds continued to drive them in an opposite direction to the point to which they were bound and the tenth day they put in at ashore where a race of mendwell that are sustained by the fruit of the lotus tree. Here Ulysses sent some of his men to land for freshwater who were met by certain of the inhabitants that gave them some of their country food to eat not with any ill intention toward them though in the event it proved banditious for having eaten of this fruit so pleasant it proved to their appetite that they in a minute quite forgot all thoughts of home or of their countrymen or of ever returning back to the ships to give an account of what sort of inhabitants dwelt there but they would need stay and live among them and eat of that precious food forever and when Ulysses sent other of his men to look for them and to bring them back by force they strove and wept and would not leave their food for heaven itself so much the pleasure of that enchanting fruit had bewitched them but Ulysses caused them to be bound hand and foot and cast under the hatches and set sail with all possible speed from that baneful coast lest others after them might taste the lotus which had such strange qualities to make men forget their native country and the thoughts of home. Coasting on all that night by unknown and out of the way shores they came by daybreak to the land where the cyclops dwell a sort of giant shepherds that neither sow nor plow but the earth untilled produces for them rich wheat and barley and grapes yet they have neither bread nor wine nor know the arts of cultivation nor care to know them for they live each man to himself without law or government or anything like a state or kingdom but their dwellings are in caves on the steep heads of mountains every man's household governed by his own caprice or not governed at all their wives and children are lawless as themselves none caring for others but each doing as he or she thinks good ships or boats they have none nor artificers to make them no trade or commerce or wish to visit other shores yet they have convenient places for harbours and for shipping here Ulysses with a chosen party of twelve followers landed to explore what sort of men dwelt there whether hospitable and friendly to strangers or altogether wild and savage for as yet no dwellers appeared in sight the first sign of habitation which they came to was a giant's cave rudely fashioned but of a size which betokened the vast proportions of its owner the pillars which supported it being the bodies of huge oaks or pines in the natural state of the trees and all about showed more marks of strength and skill in whoever built it Ulysses entering it admired the savage contrivances and artless structures of the place and longed to see the tenet of so outlandish a mansion but well conjecturing that gifts would have more avail in extracting courtesy than strength would succeed enforcing it from such a one as he expected to find the inhabitant he resolved to flatter his hospitality with a present of Greek wine of which he had store in twelve great vessels so strong that no one ever drank it without an infusion of twenty parts of water to one of wine yet the fragrance of it even then so delicious that it would have vexed a man who smelled it to abstain from tasting it but whoever tasted it it was able to raise his courage to the height of heroic deeds taking with them a goat skin flag and full of this precious liquor they ventured into the recesses of the cave here they pleased themselves a whole day with beholding the giant's kitchen where the flesh of sheep and goats lay strewed his dairy where goat milk stood ranged in troughs and peyors his pens where he kept his live animals but those he had driven forth to pasture with him when he went out in the morning while they were feasting their eyes with a sight of these curiosities their ears were suddenly deafened with a noise like the falling of a house it was the owner of the cave who had been abroad all day feeding his flock as his custom was in the mountains and now drove them home in the evening from pasture he threw down a pile of firewood which he had been gathering against suppertime before the mouth of the cave which occasioned the crash they heard the Gritians hid themselves in the remote parts of the cave at the site of the uncouth monster it was Polyphemus the largest and savagest of the Cyclops who boasted himself to be the son of Neptune he looked more like a mounting crag than a man and to his brutal body he had a brutish mind answerable he drove his flock all that gave milk to the interior of the cave but left the rams and the he goats without then taking up a stone so massy that twenty oxen could not have drawn it he placed it at the mouth of the cave to defend the entrance and sat him down to milk his use at his goats which done he lastly kindled a fire and throwing his great eye round the cave for the Cyclops have no more than one eye and that placed in the midst of their forehead by the glimmering light he discerned some of Ulysses' men Ho guests, what are you? merchants or wandering thieves he bellowed out in a voice which took from them all power of reply it was so astounding only Ulysses summoned Resolution to answer that they came neither for plunder nor traffic but were Grecians who had lost their way returning from Troy which famous city under the conduct of Agamemnon the renowned son of Atreus they have sacked and laid level to the ground yet now they prostrated themselves humbly before his feet whom they acknowledged to be mightier than they and besought him that he would bestow the rights of hospitality upon them for that Jove was the Avenger of wrongs done to strangers and would fiercely resent any injury which they might suffer full said the Cyclop to come so far to preach to me the fear of the gods we Cyclops care not for your Jove whom you fabled to be nursed by a goat nor any of your blessed ones we are stronger than they and dare bid open battle to Jove himself though you and all your fellows of the earth join with him and he bade them tell him where their ship was in which they came and whether they had any companions but Ulysses with wise caution made answer that they had no ship or companions who were unfortunate men who the sea splitting their ship in pieces had dashed upon his coast and they alone had escaped he replied nothing but gripping two of the nearest of them as if they had been no more than children he dashed their brains out against the earth and shocking to relate tore in pieces their limbs and devoured them yet warm and trembling making a lion's meal of them lapping the blood for the Cyclops are man-eaters an esteemed human flesh to be a delicacy far above goats or kids though by reason of their abhorred customs few men approach their coast except some stragglers or now and then a shipwrecked mariner at a sight so horrid Ulysses and his men were like distracted people he when he had made an end to his wicked supper drained a draught of goats milk down his prodigious throat and lay down and slept among his goats then Ulysses drew his sword and half resolved to thrust it with all his might in at the bosom of the sleeping monster but wiser thoughts restrained him else they had there without help or perished for none but Polyphemus himself could have removed that massive stone which he had placed to guard the entrance so they were constrained to abide all that night in fear when day came the Cyclop awoke and kindling a fire made his breakfast of two other of his unfortunate prisoners then milked his goats as he was accustomed and pushing aside the vast stone and shutting it again when he had done upon the prisoners with as much ease as a man opens and shuts a quiver's lid he let out his flock and drove them before him with whistlings as sharp as winds in storm to the mountains then Ulysses of whose strength and cunning the Cyclop seems to have had as little heed as of an infant's being left alone with the remnant of his men which the Cyclop had not devoured gave manifest proof how far manly wisdom excels brutish force he chose a stake from among the wood which the Cyclop had piled up for firing in length and thickness like a mast which he sharpened and hardened in the fire and selected four men and instructed them what they should do with this stake and made them perfect in their parts when the evening was come the Cyclop drove home his sheep and as fortune directed it either of purpose or that his memory was overruled by the gods to his hurt as in the issue it proved he drove the males of his flock contrary to his custom along with the dams into the pens then shutting to the stone of the cave he fell to his horrible supper when he had dispatched two more of the Grecians Ulysses waxed bold with the contemplation of his project and took a bowl of Greek wine and merrily dared the Cyclop to drink Cyclop he said take a bowl of wine from the hand of your guest it may serve to digest the man's flesh that you have eaten and show what drink our ship held before it went down all I ask in recompense if you find it good is to be dismissed in a whole skin truly you must look to have few visitors if you observe this new custom of eating your guests the brute took and drank and vehemently enjoyed the taste of wine which was new to him and swirled again at the flagon and entreated for more and prayed Ulysses to tell him his name that he might bestow a gift upon the man who had given him such brave liquor the Cyclops he said had grapes but this rich juice he swore was simply divine again Ulysses plighted him with the wine and the fool drank it as fast as he poured out and again he asked the name of his benefactor which Ulysses cunningly dissembling said my name is no man my kindred and friends in my own country call me no man then said the Cyclop this is the kindness I will show thee no man I will eat thee last of all thy friends he had scarce expressed his savage kindness when the fumes of the strong wine overcame him and he reeled down upon the floor and sank into a dead sleep Ulysses watched his time while the monster lay insensible and heartening up his men they placed the sharp end of the stake in the fire till it was heated red hot and some god gave them a courage beyond that which they were used to have and the four men with difficulty bored the sharp end of the huge stake which they had heated red hot right into the eye of the drunken cannibal Ulysses helped to thrust it in with all his might still father and father with effort as men bore with an auger till the scalded blood gushed out and the eyeball smoked and the strings of the eye cracked as the burning raft had broken it and the eye hissed as hot iron hisses when it is plunged into water he, waking, roared with the pain so loud that all the cavern broke into clats like thunder they fled and dispersed into corners he plucked the burning stake from his eye and hurled the wood madly about the cave then he cried out with a mighty voice for his brethren, the Cyclops that dwelt hard by in the caverns upon hills they, hearing the terrible shout came flocking from all parts to inquire what ale polyphemus and what cause he had for making such horrid clamours in the night time to break their sleeps if his fright proceeded from any mortal if strength or craft had given him his death's blow he made answer from within that no man had hurt him no man had killed him no man was with him in the cave they replied if no man has hurt thee and no man is with thee then thou art alone and the evil that afflicts thee is in the hand of heaven which none can resist or help so they left him and went their way thinking that some disease troubled him he, blind and ready to split with the anguish of the pain went groaning up and down in the dark to find the doorway which when he found he removed the stone and sat in the threshold if he could lay hold on any man going out with the sheep which, the day now breaking were beginning to issue forth to their accustomed pastures but Ulysses, whose first artifice in giving himself that ambiguous name had succeeded so well with the cyclop was not of a wit so gross to be caught by that palpable device but casting about in his mind all the ways which he could contrive for escape although less than all their lives depending on the success at last he thought of this expedient he made knots of the osier twigs upon which the cyclop commonly slept with which he tied the fatist and the fleeciest of the rams together three in a rank and under the belly of the middle ram he tied a man and himself last wrapping himself fast with both his hands with which wool of one the fairest of the flock and now the sheep began to issue forth very fast the males went first the females, unmilked stood by, bleating and requiring the hand of their shepherd in vain to milk them their full bags saw with being unempted but he much saw with the loss of sight still, as the males passed he felt the backs of those fleecy fools never dreaming that they carried his enemies under their bellies so they passed on till the last ram came loaded with his wool and Ulysses together he stopped that ram and felt him and had his hand once in the hair of Ulysses yet knew it not and he chid the lamb for being last and spoke to it as if it understood him and asked it whether it did not wish that its master had his eye again which that abominable no man with his excruble route had put out when they had got him down with wine and he willed the ram to tell him whereabouts in the cave his enemy lurked that he might dash his brains and strew them about to ease his heart of that tormenting revenge which rankled in it after a deal of such foolish talk to the beast he let it go when Ulysses found himself free he let go his hold and assisted in disengaging his friends the rams which had befriended them they carried off with them to the ships where their companions with tears in their eyes received them as men escaped from death they plied their oars and set their sails and when they got as far off from shore as a voice could reach Ulysses cried out to the Cyclop Cyclop, thou shouldst not have so much abuse thy monstrous strength as to devour thy guests Jove by my hand sends thee requital to pay thy savage in humanity the Cyclop heard and came forth enraged and in his anger he plucked a fragment of a rock and threw it with blind fury at the ships it narrowly escaped lighting upon the bark in which Ulysses sat but with the fall it raised so fierce an ebb as bore back the ship till it almost touched the shore Cyclop said Ulysses if any ask thee who imposed on thee that unsightly blemish in thine eye say it was Ulysses, son of Laertes the king of Ithaca am I called the waster of cities then they crowded sail and beat the old sea and forth they went with a forward gale sad for four past losses yet glad to have escaped at any rate till they came to the isle where Aeolus reigned who is god of the winds here Ulysses and his men were courteously received by the monarch who showed him his twelve children which have ruled over the twelve winds a month they stayed and feasted with him and at the end of the month he dismissed them with many presents and gave to Ulysses at parting an ox's hide in which were enclosed all the winds only he left abroad the western wind to play upon their sails and waft them gently home to Ithaca this bag bound in a glittering silver band so close that no breath could escape Ulysses hung up at the mast his companions did not know its contents but guess that the monarch had given him some treasures of gold or silver nine days they sailed smoothly favoured by the western wind and by the tenth they approached so nigh as to discern lights kindled on the shores of their country earth when by ill fortune Ulysses overcome with fatigue of watching the helm fell asleep the mariners seized the opportunity and one of them said to the rest a fine time has this leader of ours whenever he goes he is sure of presence when he come away empty handed and see what Kin Aeolus has given him store no doubt of gold and silver a word was enough to those covetous wretches who quick as thought untied the bag and instead of gold out rushed the mighty noise all the winds Ulysses with the noise awoke and saw their mistake but too late for the ship was driven with all the winds back far from Ithaca far as to the island of Aeolus from which they had parted in one hour measuring back what in nine days they had scarcely tracked and in sight of home too up he flew amazed and raving doubted whether he should not fling himself into the sea for grief of his bitter disappointment at last he hit himself upon the hatches for shame and scarce could he be prevailed upon when he was told he was arrived again in the harbour of King Aeolus and to go himself or send to that monarch for a second sucker so much the disgrace of having misused his royal bounty though it was the crime of his followers and not his own weighed upon him and when at last he went and took a herald with him and came where the god sat on his throne feasting with his children he would not thrust in among them at their meat but set himself down like one unworthy in threshold indignation seized Aeolus to behold him in that manner returned and he said, Ulysses what has brought you back are you so tired of your country or did not our present please you we thought we had given you a kingly passport Ulysses made answer my men have done this ill mischief to me they did it while I slept wretch said Aeolus avant and quit our shores it fits not us to convey men whom the gods hate and will have perish forth they sailed but with far different hopes than when they had left the same harbour the first time with all the winds confined only the west winds suffered to play upon their sails to waft them in gentle murmurs to Ithaca they were now the sport of every gale that blew and is spared of ever seeing home more now those covetous mariners were cured of their surfeit for gold and would not have touched it if had lain in untold heaps before them six daves and nights they drove along and on the seventh day they put into Lamos a port of the Lystragonians so spacious this harbour was that it held with ease all their fleet which rode at anchor safe from any storms all but the ship in which Ulysses was embarked he, as if prophetic of the mischarch which followed kept still without the harbour making fast his bark to a rock at the land's point which he climbed with purpose to survey the country he saw a city with smoke ascending from the roofs but neither plows going nor oxen yoked nor any sign of agricultural works making choice of two men he sent them to the city to explore what sort of inhabitants dwelt there his messages had not gone far before they met a damsel of stature surpassing human who was coming to draw water from a spring they asked her who dwelt in that land she made no reply but led them in silence to her father's palace he was a monarch and named Antifas he and all his people were giants when they entered the palace a woman the mother of the damsel but far taller than she rushed abroad and called for Antifas he came and snatching up one of the two men made as if he would devour him the other fled Antifas raised a mighty shout and instantly this way and that multitudes of gigantic people issued out of the gates and making for the harbour tore up huge pieces of the rocks and flung them at the ships which lay there all which were utterly overwhelmed and sank and the unfortunate bodies of men which floated and which the sea did not devour these cannibals thrust through with harpoons like fishes and bore them off to their dire feast Ulysses with his single bark that had never entered the harbour escaped that bark which was now the only vessel left of all the gallant navy that had sailed with him from Troy he pushed off from the shore cheering the sad remnant of his men whom horror at the sight of their countrymen's fate had almost turned to marble End of chapter 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rebecca Dittman Liverpool United Kingdom Web address MercurialSpirit.co.uk The Adventures of Ulysses by Charles Lamb Chapter 2 On went the single ship till it came to the island of Aia where Cersei the dreadful daughter of the Sun dwelt she was deeply skilled in magic a haughty beauty and had hair like the Sun the Sun was her parent and begot her and her brother Aites such another as herself upon Percy, daughter of Oceanus Here a disputer rose among Ulysses's men which of them should go ashore to explore the country for there was a necessity that some should go to procure water and provisions their stock of both being nigh spent but their hearts failed them when they called to mind the shocking fate of their fellows whom the Lys-Dragonians had eaten and those which the foul cyclop Polyphemus had crushed between his jaws which moved them so tenderly in the recollection that they wept but tears yet supplied any man's wants this Ulysses knew full well and dividing his men all that were left into two companies at the head of one of which was himself and at the head of the other Euryclicus a man of tried courage he cast lots which of them should go up into the country and the lot fell upon Euryclicus and his company two and twenty in number who took their leave with tears of Ulysses and his men that stayed whose eyes wore the same wet badges of weak humanity for they surely thought never to see these their companions again but that on every coast where they should come they should find nothing but savages and cannibals Euryclicus and his party proceeded up the country till in a dale they described the house of Cersei built of bright stone by the roadside before her gate lay many beasts as wolves, lions, leopards which by her art of wild she had rendered tame these arose when they saw strangers and ramped upon their hindapause and formed when Euryclicus and his men who dreaded the effects of such monstrous kindness and staying at the gate they heard the enchantress within sitting at her loom such strains suspended all mortal faculties while she wove a web subtle and glorious and of a texture inimitable on earth as all the house wiferies of the deities are strains so ravishingly sweet provoked even the sagest and prudentest heads amongst the party to knock and call at the gate the shining gate the enchantress opened and bathed them come in and feast they unwise followed all but Euryclicus who stayed without the gate suspicious that some train was laid for them being entered she placed them in chairs of state and set before them meal and honey and smirner wine but mixed with baneful drugs of powerful enchantment when they had eaten of these and drunk of her cup she touched them with her charming rod and straight they were transformed into swine having the bodies of swine the bristles and snout and grunting noises of that animal only they still retained the minds of men which made them the more to lament their brutish transformation having changed them she shut them up in her sty with many more whom her wicked sorceries had formally changed and gave them swine's food mast and acorns and chestnuts to eat Euryclicus who had beheld nothing of these sad changes from where he was stationed without the gate only instead of his companions that entered who he thought had all vanished by witchcraft beheld a herd of swine hurried back to the ship to give an account of what he had seen but so frighted and perplexed that he could give no distinct report of anything only he remembered a palace and a woman singing at her work and gates guarded by lions but his companions he said were all vanished then Ulysses suspecting some foul witchcraft snatched his sword and his bow and commanded Euryclicus instantly to lead him to the place but Euryclicus fell down and embracing his knees besought him by the name of a man whom the gods had in their protection not to expose his safety and the safety of all of them to certain destruction do thou then stay Euryclicus answered Ulysses eat thou and drink in the ship in safety while I go alone upon this adventure necessity from whose law is no appeal compels me so saying he quitted the ship and went on shore accompanied by none none had the hardyhood to offer to partake that perilous adventure with him so much they dreaded the enchantments of the witch singly he pursued his journey till he came to the shining gates which stood before her mansion but when he has said to put his foot over her threshold he was suddenly stopped by the apparition of a young man bearing a golden rod in his hand who was the god Mercury he held Ulysses by the wrist to stay his entrance and wither wouldst thou go oh thou most earring of the sons of men knowest thou not that this is the house of the great Cersei where she keeps thy friends in a loathsome sty changed from the fair forms of men into the detestable and ugly shapes of swine art thou prepared to share their fate from which nothing can ransom thee but neither his words nor his coming from heaven could stop the daring foot of Ulysses whom compassion for the misfortune of his friends had rendered careless of danger which when the god perceived he had pity to see valor so misplaced and gave him the flower of the herb Mollie which is sovereign against enchantments the Mollie is a small, unsightly root it's virtue's little known and in low estimation the dull shepherd treads on it every day with his clouted shoes but it bears a small white flower which is medicinal against charms, blights, mildews and damps take this in thy hand said Mercury and with it boldly enter her gates when she shall strike thee with her rod thinking to change thee as she has changed thy friends boldly rush in upon her with thy sword and extort from her the dreadful oath of the gods that she will use no enchantments against thee when force her to restore thy abused companions he gave Ulysses the little white flower and instructing him how to use it vanished when the god was departed Ulysses with loud knockings beat at the gate of the palace the shining gates were opened as before and great Cersei with hospitable cheer invited in her guest she placed him on a throne with more distinction than that used to his fellows she mingled wine in a costly bowl and he drank of it mixed with those poisonous drugs when he had drunk she struck him with her charming rod and to thy stye she cried out swine mingle with your companions but those powerful words were not proof against the preservation which Mercury had given to Ulysses he remained unchanged as the god had directed him boldly charged the witch with his sword as if he meant to take her life which when she saw and perceived that her charms were weak against the antidote which Ulysses bore about him she cried out and bent her knees beneath his sword embracing his and said who or what manner of man art thou never drank any man before thee of this cup but he repented it in some brute's form thy shape remains unaltered as thy mind thou canst be none other than Ulysses renowned all the world for wisdom whom the fates have long since decreed that I must love this haughty bosom bends to thee O Ithacan a goddess woos thee to her bed O Cersei he replied how canst thou treat of love or marriage with one whose friends have been turned into beasts and now offers him thy hand in wedlock only that thou mightst have him in thy power to live the life of a beast with thee naked, effeminate, subject to thy will perhaps to be advanced in time to the honour of place in thy style what pleasure canst thou promise which may tempt the soul of a reasonable man thy meat spiced with poison or thy wines drugged with death thou must swear to me that thou wilt never attempt against me the treasons which thou hast practised upon my friends the enchantress, one by the terror of his threats or by the violence of that new love which she felt kindling in her veins for him swore by sticks the great oath of the gods that she mediated no injury to him then Ulysses made show of gentler treatment which gave her hopes of inspiring him with a passion equal to that which she felt she called her handmaids four that served her in chief who were daughters to her silver fountains to her sacred rivers and to her consecrated woods to deck her apartments to spread rich carpets and set out her silver tables with dishes of the purest gold and meat as precious as that which the gods eat to entertain her kests one brought water to wash his feet and one brought wine to chase away with a refreshing sweetness the sorrows that had come of late so thick upon him and hurt his noble mind they strewed perfumes on his head and after he had bathed in a bath of the choicest aromatics they brought him rich and costly apparel to put on then he was conducted to a throne of massy silver and a regale fit for jove when he banquets was placed before him but the feast which Ulysses desired was to see his friends the partners of his voyage once more in the shapes of men and the food which could give him nourishment must be taken in at his eyes because he missed this sight he sat melancholy and thoughtful and would taste of none of the rich delicacies placed before him which when Cersei noted she easily defined the cause of his sadness and leaving the seat in which she sat thrown went to her sty and let abroad his men who came in like swine and filled the ample hall where Ulysses sat with gruntings hardly had he time to let his sad eye run over their altered forms and brutal metamorphosis when with an ointment which he smeared over them suddenly their bristles fell off and they started up in their own shapes men as before they knew their leader again and clung about him with joy of their late restoration and some shame for their late change and wept so loud blubbering out their joy in broken accents that the palace was filled with the sound of pleasing mourning and the witch herself, great Cersei was not unmoved at the sight to make her atonement complete she sent for the remnant of a Ulysses's men who stayed behind at the ship giving up their great commander for lost who when they came and saw him again alive circled with their fellows no expression can tell what joy they felt they even cried out with rapture and to have seen their frantic expressions of mirth a man might have supposed that they were just in sight of their country earth the cliffs of rocky Ithaca only Euryclicus would hardly be persuaded to enter that palace of wonders for he remembered with a kind of horror how his companions had vanished from his sight then great Cersei spake and gave order that there should be no more sadness among them nor remembering of past sufferings for as yet they feared like men that are exiles from their country and if a gleam of mirth shot among them it was suddenly quenched with the thought of their helpless and homeless condition her kind persuasions wrought upon Ulysses and the rest that they spent twelve months in all manner of delight with her in her palace for Cersei was a powerful magician and could command the moon from her sphere or unroot the solid oak from its place to make it dance for their diversion and by the help of her illusions she could vary the taste of pleasures and contrive delights, recreations and jolly pastimes to fetch the day about from sun to sun and rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream at length Ulysses awoke from the trance of the faculties into which her charms had thrown him and the thought of home returned with tenfold vigor to goad and sting him that home where he had left his virtuous wife Penelope and his young son Telemachus one day when Cersei had been lavish of her caresses and was in her kindest humour he moved her subtly and as it were a far off the question of his home return to which he answered firmly oh Ulysses it is not in my power to detain one whom the gods have destined to further trials but leaving me before you pursue your journey home you must visit the house of Aedes or death to consult the shade of Tiresias the Tibetan prophet to whom alone of all the dead Prosopene, Queen of Hell has committed the secret of future events it is he that must inform you whether you shall ever see again your wife and country oh Cersei he cried that is impossible who shall steer my course to Pluto's kingdom never ship has strength to make that voyage seek no guide she replied but raise you your mast and hoist your white sails and sit in your ship in peace the north wind shall waft you through the seas till you shall cross the expanse of the ocean and come to where grow the poplar groves and willows pale of Prosoprene where Pyrrhe fleggigon and cockatus and acaron mingle their waves cockatus is an arm of sticks the forgetful river here dig a pit and make it a cubit broad and a cubit long and pour in milk and honey and wine and the blood of a ram and the blood of a black you and turn away thy face while thou pourest in and the dead shall come flocking to taste the milk and the blood but suffer none to approach thy offering till thou hast inquired of Tiresias all which thou wishest to know he did as great Cersei had appointed he raised his mast and hoisted his white sails and sat in his ship in peace the north wind wafted him through the seas till he crossed the ocean and came to the sacred woods of Prosoprene he stood at the confluence of the three floods and dig to pit as she had given directions and poured in his offering the blood of a ram the blood of a black you milk and honey and wine and the dead came to his banquet aged men and women and youths and children who died in infancy but none of them would he suffer to approach and dip their thin lips in the offering till Tiresias was served not though his own mother was among the number whom now for the first time he knew to be dead for he had left her living when he went to Troy and she had died since his departure and the tidings never reached him though it irked his soul to use constraint upon her yet in compliance with the injunction of great Cersei he forced her to retire along with the other ghosts then Tiresias who bore a golden scepter came and lapped of the offering and immediately he knew Ulysses and began to prophesy he denounced woe to Ulysses woe, woe and many sufferings through the anger of Neptune for the putting out of the eye of the sea god sun yet there was safety after suffering if they could abstain from slaughtering the oxen of the sun after they landed in the triangular island for Ulysses the gods had destined him from a king to become a beggar and to perish by his own guests unless he slew those who knew him not this prophesy, ambiguously delivered was all that Tiresias was empowered to unfold or else there was no longer place for him for now the souls of the other dead came flocking in such numbers tumultuously demanding the blood that freezing horror seized the limbs of the living Ulysses to see so many and all dead and he the only one alive in that region now his mother came and lapped the blood without restraint from her son and now she knew him to be her son and inquired of him why he had come alive to their comfortless habitations and she said that affliction for Ulysses his long absence had prayed upon her spirits and brought her to the grave Ulysses' soul melted at her moving narration and forgetting the state of the dead and that the airy texture of disembodied spirits does not admit of the embraces of flesh and blood he threw his arms about her to clasp her the poor ghost melted from his embrace and looking mournfully upon him vanished away then he saw other females Tyro who when she lived was the paramour of Neptune and by him had Pelias and Neelius Antiope who bore two like sons to Jove Ampheon and Cethus, founders of Thebes Alcena, the mother of Hercules with her fair daughter afterwards her daughter-in-law, Megara there also Ulysses saw Jacasta the unfortunate mother and wife of Oedipus who ignorant of kin wedded with her son and when she had discovered the unnatural alliance for shame and grief hanged herself he continued to drag a wretched life above the earth haunted by the dreadful furies there was Leda, the wife of Tindarus the mother of the beautiful Helen and of the two brave brothers, Castor and Pollux who obtained his grace from Jove that being dead they should enjoy life alternately living in pleasant places under the earth for Pollux had prayed that his brother Castor who was subject to death as the son of Tindarus should partake of his own immortality which he derived from an immortal sire this the fates denied therefore Pollux was permitted to divide his immortality with his brother Castor dying and living alternatively there was Iphimedia who bore two sons to Neptune that were giants Otus and Effialtes earth in her prodigality never nourished bodies to such portentous size and beauty as these two children were of except Orion at nine years old they had imaginations of climbing to heaven to see what the gods were doing they thought to make stairs of mountains and were for piling ossa upon Olympus and setting Pellion upon that and had perhaps performed it if they had lived till they were striplings but they were cut off by death in the infancy of their ambitious project Fidra was there Amprocris and Ariadne mournful of Theseus's desertion Ammira and Climini and Eryphil who preferred gold before wedlock faith but now came a mournful ghost that late was Agamemnon the son of Atreus the mighty leader of all the host of Greece and their confederate kings that warred against Troy he came with the rest to sip a little of the blood at that uncomfortable banquet Ulysses was moved with compassion to see him among them and asked him what untimely fate had brought him there if storms had overwhelmed him coming from Troy or if he had perished in some mutiny by his own soldiers at a division of the prey By none of these, he replied, did I come to my death but slain at a banquet to which I was invited by Agisthus after my return home he conspiring with my adulterous wife they laid a scheme for my destruction training me forth to a banquet as an ox goes to the slaughter and there surrounding me they slew me with all my friends about me Climonestra, my wicked wife forgetting the vows which she swore to me in wedlock would not lend a hand to close my eyes in death but nothing is so heaped with impiates as such a woman who would kill her spouse that married her a maid when I brought her home to my house a bride I hoped in my heart that she would be loving to me and to my children now her black treacheries have cast a foul aspersion on her whole sex blessed husbands will have their loving wives in suspicion for her bad deeds Alas, said Ulysses, there seems to be a fatality in your royal house of Atreus and that they are hated of Jo for their wives for Helen's sake your brother Menelaus' wife what multitudes fell in the wars of Troy Agamemnon replied for this cause be not thou more kind than wise to any woman let not thy words express to her at any time all that is in thy mind keep still some secrets to thyself but thou by any bloody contrivances of thy wife never needs fear to fall exceeding wise she is and to her wisdom she has a goodness as eminent Icarus' daughter Penelope the Chaste we left her a young bride when we parted from our wives to go to the wars her first child suckling at her breast the young Telemachus whom you shall see grown up to manhood on your return and he shall greet his father with befitting welcomes my Orestes my dear son I shall never see again his mother has deprived his father of the sight of him and perhaps will slay him as she slew his sire it is now no world to trust a woman in but what says fame is my son yet alive lives he in Orcamen or in Pylos or is he resident in Sparta in his uncle's court as yet I see divine Orestes is not here with me to this Ulysses replied he had received no certain tidings where Orestes abode only some uncertain rumours which he could not report for truth while they held this sad conference with kind tears striving to render unkind fortunes more palatable the soul of greater killies joined them what desperate of venture has brought Ulysses to these regions said the killies to see the end of dead man and their foolish shades Ulysses answered him that he had come to consult Tiresias respecting his voyage home but thou O son of Thetis he said why dost thou disparage the state of the dead seeing that as alive thou didst surpass all men in glory thou must needs retain thy preeminence here below so greatest killies triumphs over death but killies made reply that he had much rather be a pleasant slave upon the earth than reign over all the dead so much did the inactivity and slothful condition of that state displease his unquenchable and restless spirit only he inquired of Ulysses if his father Pellius were living and how his son Neoptolemus conducted himself of Pellius Ulysses could tell him nothing but of Neoptolemus he thus bore witness from Skyros I can void your son by sea to the Greeks where I can speak of him for I knew him he was chief in council and in the field when any question was proposed so quick was his conceit in the forward apprehension in any case that he ever spoke first and was heard with more attention than the older heads only myself and aged Nestor could compare with him in giving advice in battle I cannot speak his praise unless I could count all that fell by his sword I will only mention one instance of his manhood when he sat hid in the belly of the wooden horse in the ambush which deceived the Trojans to their destruction I who had the management of that stratagem still shifted my place from side to side to note the behaviour of our men in some I marked their hearts trembling through all the pains which they took to appear valiant and in others tears that in spite of manly courage would gush forth and to say truth it was an adventure of high enterprise and as perilous a stake as was ever played in war's game but in him I could not observe the least sign of weakness no tears nor tremblings but his hand stood on his good sword and ever urging me to set open the machine and let us out before the time was come for doing it and when we salad out he was still first in that fierce destruction and bloody midnight desolation of King Priam city this made the soul of Achilles to tread a swifter pace high raised feet as he vanished away for the joy which he took in his son being applauded by Ulysses a sad shade stalked by which Ulysses knew to be the ghost of Ajax his opponent when living in that famous dispute about the right of succeeding to the arms of the deceased Achilles they being adjudged by the Greeks to Ulysses as the prize of wisdom above bodily strength the noble Ajax in despite went mad and slew himself the sight of his rival turned to a shade by his dispute so subdued the passion and emulation in Ulysses that for his sake he wished that judgment in that controversy had been given against himself rather than so illustrious a chief should have perished for the desire of those arms which is prowess second only to Achilles in fight so eminently had deserved Ajax he cried all the Greeks mourn for thee as much as they lamented for Achilles let not thy wrath burn forever great son of Telemann Ulysses seeks peace with thee and will make any atonement to thee that can appease thy hurt spirit but the shade stalked on and would not exchange a word with Ulysses though he prayed it with many tears and many earnest entreaties he might have spoke to me said Ulysses since I spoke to him but I see the resentments of the dead are eternal then Ulysses saw a throne on which was placed a judge distributing sentence he that sat on the throne was Minos and he was dealing out just judgments to the dead he it is that assigns them their place in bliss or woe then came by a thundering ghost the large-limbed Orion the mighty hunter who was hunting there the ghosts of the beasts which he had slaughtered in the desert hills upon the earth for the dead delight in the occupations which pleased them in the time of their living upon the earth there was Titius suffering eternal pains because he had sought to violate the honour of Latona as she had passed from Pytho into Panapias two vultures sat perpetually preying upon his liver with their cooked beaks which as fast as they devoured it forever renewed nor can he fray them away with his great hands there was Tantalus played for his great sins standing up to his chin in water which he can never taste but still as he bows his head thinking to quench his burning thirst instead of water he licks up unsavory dust all fruits pleasant to the sight and of delicious flavour hang in ripe clusters about his head seeming as though they offered themselves to be plucked by him but when he reaches out his hand some wind carries them far out of his sight into the clouds so he is starved in the midst of plenty by the righteous doom of Jove in memory of that inhuman banquet at which the sun turned pale when the unnatural father served up the limbs of his little son in a dish as meat for his divine guests there was Sisyphus that sees no end to his labours his punishment is to be forever rolling up a vast stone to the top of a mountain when it gets to the top falls down with a crushing weight and all his work is to begin again he was bathed all over in sweat that reeked out a smoke which covered his head like a mist his crime had been the revealing of state secrets there Ulysses saw Hercules not that Hercules who enjoys immortal life in heaven among the gods and is married to Hebe or youth but his shadow which remains below about him the dead flocked as thick as bats hovering around and cuffing at his head he stands with his dreadful bow ever in the act to shoot there also might Ulysses have seen and spoken with the shades of Theseus and Pyrethos and the old heroes but he had conversed enough with horrors therefore covering his face with his hands that he might see no more spectres he resumed his seat in his ship and pushed off the bark moved itself without the help of any all and soon brought him out of the regions of death into the cheerful quarters of the living and to the island of Aya once he had set forth End of chapter 2 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rebecca Dittman Liverpool United Kingdom Web address MercurialSpirit.co.uk The Adventures of Ulysses by Charles Lamb Chapter 3 Unhappy man who at thy birth was appointed twice to die Others shall die once but thou besides that death that remains for thee common to all men hast in thy lifetime visited the shades of death thee, Scylla, thee, Sharibdis, expect thee the deathful sirens lie in wait for that taint the minds of whoever listened to them with their sweet singing whosoever shall but hear the call of any siren he will so despise both wife and children through their sorceries that the stream of his affection never again shall set homewards nor shall he take joy in wife or children thereafter or they in him With these prophetic greetings Great Cersei met Ulysses on his return he besought her to instruct him in the nature of the sirens and by what method their baneful allurements were to be resisted They are sisters three, she replied that sit in a mead by which your ship must needs pass circled with dead men's bones These are the bones of men whom they have slain after with forning invites they have enticed them into their fenn Yet such is the celestial harmony of their voice accompanying the persuasive magic of their words that knowing this you shall not be able to withstand their enticements Therefore when you are to sail by them you shall stop the ears of your companions with wax that they may hear no note of that dangerous music but for yourself that you may hear and yet live give them strict command to bind you hand and foot to the mast and in no case to set you free till you are out of danger of the temptation though you should entreat it and implore it ever so much but to bind you rather the more for your requesting to be loosed so shall you escape that snare Ulysses then prayed her that she would inform him what Scylla and Chariptus were which she had taught him by name to fear She replied sailing from Aya to Trinacria you must pass at an equal distance between two fatal rocks incline never so little either to the one side or to the other and your ship must meet with certain destruction no vessel ever yet tried that pass without being lost but the Argo which owed her safety to the sacred freight she bore the fleece of the golden-backed ram which could not perish the biggest of these rocks which you shall come to Scylla Hath in charge there in a deep whirlpool at the foot of the rock the abhorred monster shrouds her face who if she were to show her full form no eye of man or god could endure the sight then she stretches out all her six long necks peering and diving to suck up fish dolphins, dogfish and whales whole ships and their men whatever comes within her raging gulf the other rock is lesser and of less ominous aspect but there dreadful sheribdis sits supping the black deeps thrice a day she drinks her pits dry and thrice a day again she belches them all up but when she is drinking come not nigh for being once caught the force of Neptune cannot redeem you from her swallow better trust to Scylla for she will but have for her six necks six men sheribdis in her insatiate draught will ask all then Ulysses inquired in case he should escape sheribdis whether he might not assail that other monster with his sword to which she replied that he must not think that he had an enemy subject to death or wounds to contend with for Scylla could never die therefore his best safety was in flight and to invoke none of the gods but gratis who is Scylla's mother and might perhaps forbid her daughter to devour them for his conduct after he arrived at Trinacria she referred him to the admonitions which had been given him by Tiresius Ulysses having communicated her instructions as far as related to the Sirens to his companions who had not been present at that interview but concealing them from the rest as he had done the terrible predictions of Tiresius that they might not be deterred by fear from pursuing their voyage the time for departure being come they set their sails and took a final leave of great Cersei who by her art calmed the heavens and gave them smooth seas and a right forewind the seamen's friend to bear them on their way to Ithica they had not sailed past a hundred leagues before the breeze which Cersei had lent them suddenly stopped it was stricken dead all the sea lay in prostrate slumber not a gasp of air could be felt the ship stood still Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far off and that they had charmed the air so with their devilish singing therefore he made him cakes of wax as Cersei had instructed him and stopped the ears of his men with them then, causing himself to be bound hand and foot he commanded the rowers to ply their oars and row as fast as speed could carry them past that fatal shore they soon came within sight of the Sirens who sang in Ulysses' hearing come here, thou worthy of the world of praise that thus so high the Grecian glory raise Ulysses, stay thy ship and that song here that none passed ever but it bent his ear but left him ravished and instructed more by us than ever heard before for we know all things whatsoever were in wide Troy laboured whatsoever there the Grecians and the Trojans both sustained by those high issues that the gods ordained and whatsoever all the earth can show to inform a knowledge of dessert we know these were the words but the celestial harmony of the voices which sang them no tongue can describe it took the ear of Ulysses with ravishment he would have broken his bonds to rush after them and threatened, wept, sued and treated commanded crying out with tears and passionate implications conjuring his men by all the ties of peril's past which they had endured in common by fellowship and love and the authority which he retained among them to let him loose but at no rate would they obey him and still the Sirens sang Ulysses made signs, motions, gestures promising mountains of gold if they would set him free but their oars only moved faster and still the Sirens sang and still the more he adjured them to set him free the faster with cords and ropes they bound him till they were quite out of hearing of the Sirens note whose effect great Cersei had so truly predicted and well she might speak of them for often she has joined her own enchanting voice to theirs while she has sat in the flowery meads mingled with the sirens and the water nymphs gathering their potent herbs and drugs of magic quality their singing altogether has made the gods stoop and heaven drowsy with the harmony escaped that peril they had not sailed yet a hundred leagues farther when they heard a roar a far off which Ulysses knew to be the barking of Silla's dogs which surround her waist and bark incessantly coming nearer they beheld a smokersend with a horrid murmur which arose from that other whirlpool to which they made nair approaches than to Silla through the furious eddy which is in that place the ship stood still as a stone for there was no man to lend his hand to an awe the dismal roar of Silla's dogs at a distance and the nearer clamours of Sharibdis where everything made an echo quite taking from them the power of exertion Ulysses went up and down encouraging his men one by one giving them good words telling them that they were in great perils when they were blocked up in the Cyclops's cave yet heaven assisting his councils he had delivered them out of that extremity that he could not believe but they remembered it and wished them to give the same trust to the same care which he had now for their welfare that they must exert all the strength and wit which they had and try if Jove would not grant them an escape even out of this peril in particular he cheered up the pilot who sat at the helm and told him that he must show more firmness than other men as he had more trust committed to him and had sole management by his skill of the vessel in which all their safeties were embarked that a rock lay hid within those boiling whirlpools which he saw on the outside of which he must steer if he would avoid his own destruction and the destruction of them all they heard him and like men took to the oars but little knew what opposite danger in the shunning that rock they must be thrown upon for Ulysses had concealed from them the wounds never to be healed which Scylla was to open their terror would else have robbed them all of all care to steer or move an all and have made them hide under the hatches for fear of seeing her where he and they must have died an idle death but even then he forgot the precautions which Cersei had given him to prevent harm to his person who had willed him not to arm or show himself once to Scylla but disdaining not to venture life for his brave companions he could not contain but armed in all points and taking a lance in either hand he went up to the foredeck and looked when Scylla would appear she did not show herself as yet and still the vessel steered closer by her rock as it sought to shun that other more dreaded for they saw how horribly Chariptus' black throat drew into her all the whirling deep which she disgorged again that all about her boiled like a kettle and the rock roared with troubled waters which when she sucked it again all the bottom turned up and disclosed far under shore the swat sands naked whose whole stern sight frayed the startled blood from their faces made Ulysses turn to view the wonder of the whirlpools which when Scylla saw from out her black den she darted out her six long necks and swooped up as many of his friends whose cries Ulysses heard and saw them too late with their heels turned up and their hands thrown to him for succour who had been their help in all extremities but could not deliver them now and he heard them shriek out as she tore them and to the last they continued to throw their hands out to him for sweet life in all his sufferings he never had beheld a sight so full of miseries escaped from Scylla and Chariptus but with a diminished crew Ulysses and the sad remains of his followers reached the Trinacrian shore here landing he beheld oxen grazing of such surpassing size and beauty that both from them and from the shape of the island having three promontaries jutting out into the sea he judged rightly that he had come to the triangular island and the oxen of the sun of which Tiresias had forewarned him so great was his terror lest through his own fault or that of his men any violence or profanation should be offered to the holy oxen that even then tired as they were with the perils and fatigues of the day past and unable to stir an all or use any exertion and though night was fast coming on he would have had them re-embark immediately and make the best of their way from that dangerous station but his men with one voice resolutely opposed it and even the two cautious Euryclicus himself withstood the proposal so much did the temptation of a little ease and refreshment ease tenfold sweet after such labours prevail over the Sages' councils and the apprehension of certain evil outweigh the prospect of contingent danger they expostulated that the nerves of Euryces seemed to be made of steel and his limbs not liable to lassitude like other men's that waking or sleeping seemed indifferent to him but that they were men not gods and felt the common appetites for food and sleep that in the night time all the winds most destructive to ships are generated that black night still required to be served with meat and sleep and quiet havens and ease that the best sacrifice to the sea was in the morning with such sailor-like sayings and mutinous arguments which the majority have always ready to justify disobedience to their betters they forced Euryces to comply with their requisition and against his will to take up his night quarters on shore but he first exacted from them an oath that they would neither maim nor kill any of the cattle which they saw grazing but content themselves with such food as Cersei had stowed their vessel with when they had parted from Aeaea this they man by man severally promised imprecating the heaviest curses on whoever should break it and mooring their bark within a creek they went to supper contenting themselves that night with such food as Cersei had given them not without many sad thoughts of their friends whom Scylla had devoured the grief of which kept them great part of the night waking in the morning Euryces urged them again to a religious observance of the oath that they had sworn not in any case to attempt the blood of those fair herds which they saw grazing but to content themselves with the ship's food for the God who owned those cattle sees and hears all they faithfully obeyed and remained in that good mind for a month during which they were confined to that station by contrary winds till all the wine and the bread were gone which they had brought with them when their vitals were gone necessity compelled them to stray in quest of whatever fish or fowl they could snare which that coast did not yield in any great abundance then Euryces prayed to all the gods that dwelt in bountiful heaven that they would be pleased to yield them some means to stay their hunger without having recourse to profane and forbidden violations but the ears of heaven seemed to be shut for at midday when he should chiefly have been vigilant and watchful to prevent mischief a deep sleep fell upon the eyes of Euryces during which he lay totally insensible of all the past in the world and what his friends or what his enemies might do for his welfare or destruction then Euryclicus took his advantage he was the man of most authority with them after Euryces he represented to them all the misery of their condition how that every death is hateful and grievous to mortality but of all deaths famine is attended with the most painful loathsome and humiliating circumstances that the subsistence which they could hope to draw from fowling or fishing was too precarious to be depended upon that there did not seem to be any choice of the winds changing to favour their escape but that they must inevitably stay there and perish if they let an irrational superstition deter them from the means which nature offered to their hands that Euryces might be deceived in his belief that these oxen had any sacred qualities above other oxen and even admitting that they were the property of the gods of the sun as he said they were the sun did neither eat nor drink and the gods were best served not by a scrupulous conscience but by a thankful heart which took freely what they as freely offered with these and such like persuasions he prevailed on his half famished and half mutinous companions to begin the impious violation of their oath by the slaughter of seven of the fairest of these oxen which were grazing part they roasted and ate and part they offered in sacrifice to the gods particularly to Apollo, god of the sun vowing to build a temple to his godhead when they should arrive in Ithaca and deck it with magnificent and numerous gifts vain men and superstition worse than that which they so lately derided to imagine that prospective penitence can excuse a present violation of duty and that the pure natures of the heavenly powers will admit of compromise or dispensation for sin but to their feast they fell dividing the roasted portions of the flesh savoury and pleasant meat to them but a sad sight to the eyes and a savor of death in the nostrils of the waking eulises who just woken time to witness but not soon enough to prevent their rash and sacrilegious banquet he had scarce time to ask what great mischief was this which they had done unto him when behold a prodigy the ox hides which they had stripped began to creep as if they had life and the roasted flesh bellowed as the ox used to do when he was living the hair of eulises stood up on end with a fright at these omens but his companions like men whom the gods had infatuated to their destruction persisted in their horrible banquet the son from his burning chariot saw how eulises' men had slain his oxen and he cried to his father jove revenge me upon these impious men who have slain my oxen which it did me good to look upon when I walked my heavenly round in all my daily courses I never saw such bright and beautiful creatures as those my oxen were the father promised that ample retribution should be taken to those accursed men which was fulfilled shortly after when they took their leaves of the fatal island six days they feasted in spite of the signs of heaven and on the seventh the wind changing they set their sails and left the island and their hearts were cheerful with the banquets they had held all but the heart of eulises which sank within him as with wet eyes he beheld his friends and gave them for lost as men devoted to divine vengeance which soon overtook them for they had not gone many leagues before a dreadful tempest arose which burst their cables down came their mast crashing the skull of the pilot in its form off he fell from the stern into the water and the bark wanting his management drove along at the wind's mercy thunders, roared and terrible lightnings of jove came down first a bolt struck Euryclicus then another and then another till all the crew were killed and their bodies swam about like sea mus and the ship was split in pieces only eulises survived and he had no hope of safety but in tying himself to the mast where he sat riding upon the waves like one that in no extremity would yield to fortune nine days he was floating about with all the motions of the sea with no other support than the slender mast under him till the tenth night cast him all spent and weary with toil upon the friendly shores of the island Ogigia End of Chapter 3 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rebecca Dittman Liverpool United Kingdom Web address mercuriospirit.co.uk The Adventures of Eulises by Charles Lamb Chapter 4 Henceforth the adventures of the single eulises must be pursued Of all those faithful partakers of his toil who have with him left Asia laden with the spoils of Troy now not one remains but all are prey to the remorseless waves and food for some great fish their gallant navy reduced to one ship and that finally swallowed up and lost where now are all their anxious thoughts of home that perseverance with which they went through the severest sufferings and the hardest labours to which poor seafarers were ever exposed that their toils at last might be crowned with the sight of their native shores and the wives at Ithaca Eulises is now on the Isle of Ogigia called the Delightful Island the poor shipwrecked chief the slave of all the elements is once again raised by the Caprice of Fortune into a shadow of prosperity he that has cast naked upon the shore bereft of all his companions has now a goddess to attend upon him and his companions are the nymphs which never die who has not heard of Calypso her grove crowned with alders and poplars her grotto against which the luxuriant vine laid forth his purple grapes her ever-new delights, crystal fountains running brooks, meadows flowering with sweet balm gentle and with violets blue violets which like veins enamel the smooth breasts of each fragrant mead it were useless to describe over again what has been so well told already or to relate those soft arts of courtship which the goddess used to detain Eulises the same in kind which she afterwards practised upon his less wary son whom Minerva in the shape of Mentor hardly preserved from her snares when they came to the Delightful Island together in search of the scarce departed Eulises a memorable example of married love and a worthy instance how dear to every good man his country is was exhibited by Eulises if Cersei loved him sincerely Calypso loves him with tenfold more warmth and passion she can deny him nothing but his departure she offers him everything even to a participation of her immortality if he will stay and share in her pleasures he shall never die but death with glory has greater charms for a heroic mind than a life that shall never die with shame and when he pledged his vows to his Penelope he reserved no stipulation that he would forsake her whenever a goddess should think him worthy of her bed but they had sworn to live and grow old together and he would not survive her if he could no, meanly share in immortality itself from which she was excluded these thoughts kept impensive and melancholy in the midst of pleasure his heart was on the seas making voyages to Ithaca twelve months had worn away when Minerva from heaven saw her favourite how he sat still pining on the seashores his daily custom wishing for a ship to carry him home she, who is wisdom herself was indignant that so wise and brave a man as the Ulysses should be held in effeminate bondage by an unworthy goddess and at her request her father Jove ordered Mercury to go down to earth to command Calypso to dismiss her guest the divine messenger tied fast to his feet his winged shoes which bear him over land and seas and took in his hand his golden rod the end sign of his authority then wheeling in many an airy round he stayed not till he alighted on the firm top of the mountain Pyria thence he fetched a second circuit over the seas kissing the waves in his flight with his feet as light as any sea-mew fishing dips her wings till he touched the isle Ogigia and soared up from the blue sea to the grotto of the goddess to whom his errand was ordained his message struck a horror checked by love through all the faculties of Calypso she replied to it incensed you gods are insatiate past all that live in all things which you affect which makes you so envious and grudging it afflicts you to the heart when any goddess seeks the love of a mortal man in marriage though you yourselves without scruple link yourselves to women of the earth it fared with you when the delicious-fingered morning shared Orion's bed you could never satisfy your hate and your jealousy till you had incensed the chastity-loving dame Diana who leads the precise life to come upon him by stealth in Ortigia and pierce him through with her arrows and when rich-haired Ceres gave the reins to her affections and took Yeson well worthy to her arms the secret was not so cunningly kept but Jove had soon noticed of it and the poor mortal paid for his felicity with death struck through with lightnings and now you envy me the possession of a wretched man whom tempests have cast upon my shores making him lawfully mine whose ship Jove rent in pieces with his hot thunderbolts killing all his friends him I have preserved loved, nourished made him mine by protection my creature by every tie of gratitude mine have vowed to make him deathless like myself him you will take from me but I know your power and that it is vain for me to resist tell your king that I obey his mandates with that ill grace Calypso promised to fulfill the commands of Jove and Mercury departing she went to find Ulysses where he sat outside the grotto not knowing of the heavenly message drowned in discontent not seeing any human probability of his ever returning home she said to him unhappy man no longer afflict yourself with pining after your country but build you a ship with which you may return home since it is the will of the gods who doubtless as they are greater in power than I are greater in skill and best can tell what is fittest for man but I call the gods and my inward conscience to witness that I have no thought but what stood with thy safety nor would have done or counseled anything against thy good I persuaded thee to nothing which I should not have followed myself in an extremity for my mind is innocent and simple oh, if thou newest what dreadful sufferings thou must yet endure before ever thou reachest thy native land thou wouldest not esteem so hardly of a goddess's offer to share her immortality with thee nor for a few years of enjoyment of a perishing penelope refuse an imperishable and never dying life with Calypso he replied ever honored great Calypso let it not displease thee that I, a mortal man, desire to see and converse again with a wife that is mortal human objects are best fitted to human infirmities I well know how far in wisdom in feature, in stature, proportion, beauty in all the gifts of the mind thou exceedest my penelope she is immortal and subject to decay thou immortal ever growing yet never old yet in her sight all my desires terminate all my wishes in the sight of her and of my country earth if any god envious of my return shall lay his dreadful hand upon me as I pass the seas I submit for the same powers have given me a mind not to sink under oppression in wars and waves my sufferings have not been small she heard his pleaded reasons and of force she must assent so to her nymphs she gave in charge from her sacred woods to cut down timber to make Ulysses a ship they obeyed though in a work unsuitable to their soft fingers yet to obedience no sacrifice is hard and Ulysses busily bestowed himself laboring far more hard than they as was fitting till twenty tall trees driest and fittest for timber were felled then like a skillful shipwright he fell to joining the planks using the plane the axe and the auger with such expedition that in four days time a ship was made complete with all her decks hatches sideboards yards Calypso added linen for the sails and tackling and when she was finished she was a goodly vessel for a man to sail in alone or in company over the wide seas by the fifth morning she was launched and Ulysses furnished with store of provisions rich garments and gold and silver given him by Calypso took a last leave of her and of her nymphs and of the Isle of Gygir which had so befriended him End of chapter four The Adventures of Ulysses by Charles Lamb Chapter five At the stern of his solitary ship Ulysses sat and steered right artfully no sleep could cease his eyelids he beheld the pliads the bear which is by some called the wane that moves round about Orion and keeps still above the ocean and the slow-setting sign Boaties which some named the Wagoner Seventeen days he held his course and on the eighteenth the coast of Fysia was in sight the figure of the land as seen from the sea was pretty and circular and looked something like a shield Neptune returning from visiting his favourite Ethiopians from the mountains of the Solymy Ulysses plowing the waves his domain the sight of the man he so much hated for Polyphemus' sake his son whose eye Ulysses had put out set the gods heart on fire and snatching into his hand his horrid sea scepter the trident of his power he smoked the air and the sea and conjured up all his black storms calling down night from the cope of heaven and taking the earth into the sea as it seemed with clouds through the darkness and indistinctness which prevailed the billows rolling up before the fury of all the winds that contended together in their mighty sport then the knees of Ulysses bent with fear and then all his spirit was spent and he wished that he had been among the number of his countrymen who fell before Troy without their funerals celebrated by all the Greeks rather than to perish thus where no man could mourn him or know him as he thought these melancholy thoughts a huge wave took him and washed him overboard ship and all upset amidst the billows he struggling afar off clinging to her stern broken off which he yet held her mast cracking in two with the fury of that gust of mixed winds that struck it sails and sailyards fell into the deep and he himself was long drowned under water nor could he get his head above wave so met with wave as if they strove which should depress him most and the gorgeous garments given him by Calypso clung about him and hindered his swimming yet neither for this nor for the overthrow of his ship nor his own perilous condition would he give up his drenched vessel but wrestling with Neptune got at length hold of her again and then sat in her hull insulting over death which he had escaped and the salt waves which he gave the seas again to give to other men his ship striving to live floated at random cuffed from wave to wave hurled to and fro by all the winds now Borias tossed it to notice notice passed it to Eurus and Eurus to the west wind who kept up the horrid tennis them in their mad sport I know Lucothea beheld I know Lucothea now a sea goddess but once a mortal and the daughter of Cadmus she with pity beheld Eulises the mark of their fierce contention and rising from the waves alighted on the ship in the shape like a sea bird which is called a cormorant and in her beak she held a wonderful girdle made of seaweeds which grow at the bottom of the ocean which he dropped at his feet and the bird spake to Eulises and countered him not to trust any more to that fatal vessel against which God Neptune had leveled his furious wrath nor to those ill befriending garments which Calypso had given him but to quit both it and them and trust for his safety to swimming and here said the seeming bird take this girdle and tie it about your middle which has virtue to protect the wearer at sea and you shall safely reach the shore but when you have landed cast it far from you back into the sea he did as the sea bird instructed him he stripped himself naked and fastening the wondrous girdle about his middle cast himself into the sea to swim the bird dive past his sight into the fathomless abyss of the ocean two days and two nights he spent in struggling with the waves though sore buffeted and almost spent never giving up himself for lost the confidence he had in that charm which he wore about his middle and in the words of that divine bird but the third morning the winds grew calm and all the heavens were clear then he saw himself Nyland which he knew to be the coast of the Phaeacians a people good to strangers and abounding in ships by whose favour he doubted not that he should soon obtain a passage to his own country such joy he conceived in his heart as good sons have that esteem their father's life dear when long sickness has held him down to his bed and wasted his body and they see at length health return to the old man with restored strength and spirits in reward of their many prayers to the gods for his safety so precious was the prospect of home return to Ulysses that he might restore health to his country as a better parent that had long languished as full of distempers in his absence and then for his own safety's sake he had joy to see the shores, the woods so nigh and within his grasp as they seemed and he laboured with all the might of hands and feet to reach with swimming that nigh seeming land but when he approached near a horrid sound of a huge sea beating against rocks he informed him that here was no place for landing nor any harbour for man's resort but though the weeds and the foam which the sea belched up against the land he could dimly discover the rugged shore all bristled with flints and all that part of the coast one impending rock that seemed impossible to climb and the water all about so deep that not a sand was there for any tired foot to rest upon every moment he feared lest some wave more cruel than the rest should crush him against a cliff rendering worse than vain all his landing and should he swim to seek a more commodious haven farther on he was fearful lest weak and spent as he was the winds would force him back a long way off into the main where the terrible god Neptune for wrath that he had so nearly escaped his power having gotten him again into his domain would send out some great whale of which those seas breed a horrible number to swallow him up alive with such malignity he still pursued him while these thoughts distracted him with diversity of dangers one bigger wave drove against a sharp rock his naked body which it gashed and tore and wanted little of breaking all his bones so rude was the shock but in this extremity prompted him that never failed him at need Minerva who is wisdom itself put it into his thoughts no longer to keep swimming off and on as one dallying with danger but boldly to force the shore that threatened him and to hug the rock that had torn him so rudely which with both hands he clasped wrestling with extremity to the rage of that billow which had driven him upon it was past then again the rock drove back that wave so furiously that it reft him of his hold sucking him with it in its return and the sharp rock his cruel friend to which he clung for sucker rent the flesh so sore from his hands in parting that he fell off and could sustain no longer quite underwater he fell and past the help of fate there had the hapless eulises lost all portion that he had in this life if Minerva had not prompted his wisdom in that peril to essay another course and to explore some other shelter ceasing to attempt that landing place she guided his wearied and nigh exhausted limbs to the mouth of the fair river Calico which not far from thence dispersed its watery tribute to the ocean here the shores were easy and accessible the rocks which rather adorned than defended its banks so smooth that they seemed polished of purpose to invite the landing of our sea wanderer and to atone for the uncurtious treatment which those less hospitable cliffs had afforded him and the god of the river as if in pity stayed his current and smoothed his waters to make his landing more easy for sacred to the ever living deities of the fresh waters be they mountain stream river or lake is the cry of earring mortals that seek their aid by reason that being inland bred they partake more of the gentle humanities of our nature than those marine deities who Neptune trains up in tempests in the unpitting recesses of his salt abyss so by the favour of the river's god eulises crept to land half drowned both his knees faltering his strong hands falling down through weakness from the excessive toils he had endured his cheeks and nostrils flowing with froth of the sea brine much of which he had swallowed in that conflict voice and breath spent down he sank as in death dead weary he was it seemed that the sea had soaked through his heart and the pains he felt in all his veins were little less than those which one feels that has endured the torture of the wrack but when his spirits came a little to themselves and his recollection by degrees began to return he rose up and unloosing from his waist the girdle of charm which the divine bird had given him and remembering the charge which he had received with it he flung it far from him into the river back it swam with the course of the ebbing stream till it reached the sea where the fair hands of Ainu Lukothia received it to keep it as a pledge of safety to any future shipwrecked mariner that, like eulises should wander in those perilous waves then he kissed the humble earth in token of safety and on he went by the side of that pleasant river till he came where a thicker shade of rushes that grew on its banks seemed to point out the place where he might rest his sea-weird limbs and here a fresh perplexity divided his mind whether he should pass the night, which was coming on in that place, where though he feared no other enemies the damps and frosts of the cheer sea air in that exposed situation might be death to him in his weak state or whether he had better climbed the next hill and pierced the depth of some shady wood in which he might find a warm and sheltered though insecure repose subject to the approach of any wild beast that roamed that way best did this last course appear to him though with some danger as that which was more honourable and savoured more of strife and self-exertion than to perish without a struggle the passive victim of cold and the elements so he bent his course to the nearest wood where entering in he found a thicket mostly of wild olives and such low trees yet growing so intertwined and knit together that the moist wind had not left to play through their branches nor the sun's scorching beams to pierce their recesses nor any shower to beat through they grew so thick and as it were folded each in the other here creeping in he made his bed of the leaves which were beginning to fall of which was such abundance that two or three men might have spread them ample coverings such as might shield them from the winter's rage though the air breathed steel and blew it as it would burst here creeping in he heaped up store of leaves all about him as a man would billets upon a winter fire and lay down in the midst rich seeds of virtue lying hid in poor leaves here Minerva soon gave him sound sleep and here all his long toils past seemed to be concluded and shut up within the little sphere of his refreshed and closed eyelids End of chapter 5