Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/184

148 didst thou come under the dark west? Thou hast come sooner, being on foot, than I with a black ship.'

"Thus I spoke; but he groaning answered me in discourse, ['O Jove-born son of Laertes, much-contriving Ulysses,] the evil destiny of the deity and the abundant wine hurt me. Lying down in the palace of Circe, I did not think to go down backwards, having come to the long ladder, but I fell downwards from the roof; and my neck was broken from the vertebræ, and my soul descended to Hades. Now, I entreat thee by those who are [left] behind, and not present, by thy wife and father, who nurtured thee when little, and Telemachus, whom thou didst leave alone in thy palace; for I know, that going hence from the house of Pluto, thou wilt moor thy well-wrought ship at the island of Ææa: there then, O king, I exhort thee to be mindful of me, nor, when thou departest, leave me behind, unwept for, unburied, going at a distance, lest I should become some cause to thee of the wrath of the gods: but burn me with whatever arms are mine, and build on the shore of the hoary sea a monument for me, a wretched man, to be heard of even by posterity; perform these things for me, and fix upon the tomb the oar with which I rowed whilst alive, being with my companions.'

"Thus he spoke; but I answering addressed him: 'O wretched one, I will perform and do these things for thee.'

"Thus we sat answering one another with bitter words; I indeed holding my sword off over the blood, but the image of my companion on the other side spoke many things. And afterwards there came on the soul of my deceased mother, Anticlea, daughter of magnanimous Autolycus, whom I left alive, on going to sacred Ilium. I indeed wept beholding her, and pitied her in my mind; but not even thus, although grieving very much, did I suffer her to go forward near to the blood, before I inquired of Tiresias. But at length the soul of Theban Tiresias came on, holding a golden sceptre, but me he knew and addressed:

[O Jove-born son of Laertes,] why, O wretched one, leaving the fight of the sun, hast thou come, that thou mayest see the dead and this joyless region? but go back from the