So saying, an odour of ambrosial dewShe sheds around, and all his frame therewithSteeps throughly; forth from his trim-combed locksBreathed effluence sweet, and a lithe vigour leaptInto his limbs. There is a cavern vastScooped in the mountain-side, where wave on waveBy the wind's stress is driven, and breaks far upIts inmost creeks—safe anchorage from of oldFor tempest-taken mariners: therewithin,Behind a rock's huge barrier, Proteus hides.Here in close covert out of the sun's eyeThe youth she places, and herself the whileSwathed in a shadowy mist stands far aloof.And now the ravening dog-star that burns upThe thirsty Indians blazed in heaven; his courseThe fiery sun had half devoured: the bladesWere parched, and the void streams with droughty jawsBaked to their mud-beds by the scorching ray,When Proteus seeking his accustomed caveStrode from the billows: round him frolickingThe watery folk that people the waste seaSprinkled the bitter brine-dew far and wide.Along the shore in scattered groups to feedThe sea-calves stretch them: while the seer himself,Like herdsman on the hills when evening bidsThe steers from pasture to their stall repair,And the lambs' bleating whets the listening wolves,Sits midmost on the rock and tells his tale.But Aristaeus, the foe within his clutch,Scarce suffering him compose his aged limbs,With a great cry leapt on him, and ere he roseForestalled him with the fetters; he nathless,All unforgetful of his ancient craft,Transforms himself to every wondrous thing,Fire and a fearful beast, and flowing stream.But when no trickery found a path for flight,Baffled at length, to his own shape returned,With human lips he spake, “Who bade thee, then,So reckless in youth's hardihood, affrontOur portals? or what wouldst thou hence?”—But he,“Proteus, thou knowest, of thine own heart thou knowest;For thee there is no cheating, but cease thouTo practise upon me: at heaven's behestI for my fainting fortunes hither comeAn oracle to ask thee.” There he ceased.Whereat the seer, by stubborn force constrained,Shot forth the grey light of his gleaming eyesUpon him, and with fiercely gnashing teethUnlocks his lips to spell the fates of heaven:
“Doubt not 'tis wrath divine that plagues thee thus,Nor light the debt thou payest; 'tis Orpheus' self,Orpheus unhappy by no fault of his,So fates prevent not, fans thy penal fires,Yet madly raging for his ravished bride.She in her haste to shun thy hot pursuitAlong the stream, saw not the coming death,Where at her feet kept ward upon the bankIn the tall grass a monstrous water-snake.But with their cries the Dryad-band her peersFilled up the mountains to their proudest peaks:Wailed for her fate the heights of Rhodope,And tall Pangaea, and, beloved of Mars,The land that bowed to Rhesus, Thrace no lessWith Hebrus' stream; and Orithyia wept,Daughter of Acte old. But Orpheus' self,Soothing his love-pain with the hollow shell,Thee his sweet wife on the lone shore alone,Thee when day dawned and when it died he sang.Nay to the jaws of Taenarus too he came,Of Dis the infernal palace, and the groveGrim with a horror of great darkness—came,Entered, and faced the Manes and the KingOf terrors, the stone heart no prayer can tame.Then from the deepest deeps of Erebus,Wrung by his minstrelsy, the hollow shadesCame trooping, ghostly semblances of formsLost to the light, as birds by myriads hieTo greenwood boughs for cover, when twilight-hourOr storms of winter chase them from the hills;Matrons and men, and great heroic framesDone with life's service, boys, unwedded girls,Youths placed on pyre before their fathers' eyes.Round them, with black slime choked and hideous weed,Cocytus winds; there lies the unlovely swampOf dull dead water, and, to pen them fast,Styx with her ninefold barrier poured between.Nay, even the deep Tartarean Halls of deathStood lost in wonderment, and the Eumenides,Their brows with livid locks of serpents twined;Even Cerberus held his triple jaws agape,And, the wind hushed, Ixion's wheel stood still.And now with homeward footstep he had passedAll perils scathless, and, at length restored,Eurydice to realms of upper airHad well-nigh won, behind him following—So Proserpine had ruled it—when his heartA sudden mad desire surprised and seized—Meet fault to be forgiven, might Hell forgive.For at the very threshold of the day,Heedless, alas! and vanquished of resolve,He stopped, turned, looked upon EurydiceHis own once more. But even with the look,Poured out was all his labour, broken the bondOf that fell tyrant, and a crash was heardThree times like thunder in the meres of hell. ‘Orpheus! what ruin hath thy frenzy wroughtOn me, alas! and thee? Lo! once againThe unpitying fates recall me, and dark sleepCloses my swimming eyes. And now farewell:Girt with enormous night I am borne away,Outstretching toward thee, thine, alas! no more,These helpless hands.’ She spake, and suddenly,Like smoke dissolving into empty air,Passed and was sundered from his sight; nor himClutching vain shadows, yearning sore to speak,Thenceforth beheld she, nor no second timeHell's boatman brooks he pass the watery bar.What should he do? fly whither, twice bereaved?Move with what tears the Manes, with what voiceThe Powers of darkness? She indeed even nowDeath-cold was floating on the Stygian barge!For seven whole months unceasingly, men say,Beneath a skyey crag, by thy lone wave,Strymon, he wept, and in the caverns chillUnrolled his story, melting tigers' hearts,And leading with his lay the oaks along.As in the poplar-shade a nightingaleMourns her lost young, which some relentless swain,Spying, from the nest has torn unfledged, but sheWails the long night, and perched upon a sprayWith sad insistence pipes her dolorous strain,Till all the region with her wrongs o'erflows.No love, no new desire, constrained his soul:By snow-bound Tanais and the icy north,Far steppes to frost Rhipaean forever wed,Alone he wandered, lost EurydiceLamenting, and the gifts of Dis ungiven.Scorned by which tribute the Ciconian dames,Amid their awful Bacchanalian ritesAnd midnight revellings, tore him limb from limb,And strewed his fragments over the wide fields.Then too, even then, what time the Hebrus stream,Oeagrian Hebrus, down mid-current rolled,Rent from the marble neck, his drifting head,The death-chilled tongue found yet a voice to cry‘Eurydice! ah! poor Eurydice!’With parting breath he called her, and the banksFrom the broad stream caught up ‘Eurydice!’”