Then Macareus: “There reign’d a prince of fame
O’er Tuscan seas, and Aeolus his name.
A largess to Ulysses he consign’d,
And in a steer’s tough hide enclosed a wind;
Nine days before the swelling gale we ran,
The tenth to make the meeting land began,
When now the merry mariners, to find
Imagined wealth within, the bag unbind.
Forthwith outrush’d a gust, which backward bore
Our galleys to the Laestrygonian shore,
Whose crown Antiphates the tyrant wore.
Some few commission’d were with speed to treat;
We to his court repair; his guards we meet.
Two, friendly flight preserved, the third was doom’d
To be by those cursed cannibals consumed.
Inhumanly our hapless friends they treat;
Our men they murder, and destroy our fleet.
In time the wise Ulysses bore away,
And dropp’d his anchor in yon faithless bay.
The thoughts of perils past we still retain,
And fear to land, till lots appoint the men.
Polites true, Elpenor given to wine,
Eurylochus, myself, the lots assign.
Design’d for dangers, and resolved to dare,
To Circe’s fatal palace we repair.
“Before the spacious front a herd we find
Of beasts, the fiercest of the savage kind.
Our trembling steps with blandishments they meet,
And fawn, unlike their species, at our feet.
Within, upon a sumptuous throne of state,
On golden columns raised, the enchantress sate;
Rich was her robe, and amiable her mien,
Her aspect awful, and she look’d a queen;
Her maids not mind the loom, nor household care,
Nor wage in needlework a Scythian war,
But cull, in canisters, disastrous flowers,
And plants from haunted heaths, and fairy bowers,
With brazen sickles reap’d at planetary hours.
Each dose the goddess weighs with watchful eye,
So nice her art in impious pharmacy.
Entering, she greets us with a gracious look,
And airs, that future amity bespoke.
Her ready nymphs serve up a rich repast;
The bowl she dashes first, then gives to taste.
Quick, to our own undoing we comply;
Her power we prove, and show the sorcery.
“Soon, in a length of face, our head extends,
Our chine stiff bristles bears, and forward bends,
A breadth of brawn new burnishes our neck;
Anon we grunt, as we begin to speak.
Alone Eurylochus refused to taste,
Nor to a beast obscene the man debased.
Hither Ulysses hastes, (so fates command,
And bears the powerful moly in his hand,
Unsheaths his cimeter, assaults the dame,
Preserves his species, and remains the same.
The nuptial rite this outrage straight attends;
The dower desired is his transfigured friends.
The incantation backward she repeats,
Inverts her rod, and what she did defeats.
“And now our skin grows smooth, our shape upright,
Our arms stretch up, our cloven feet unite;
With tears our weeping general we embrace,
Hang on his neck, and melt upon his face.
Twelve silver moons in Circe’s court we stay,
While there they waste the unwilling hours away.
’Twas here I spied a youth in Parian stone,
His head a pecker bore, the cause unknown
To passengers. A nymph of Circe’s train
The mystery thus attempted to explain: