\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\nAeneas goes to the Sibyl of Cumae and asks for entrance to the underworld so that he can see his deceased father one more time. He appeals to the examples of Orpheus, Herakles, and Theseus, who were all allowed to go down to the underworld and return. The Sibyl tells him how he can access the underworld, appease Persephone, queen of the dead, and potentially return again by using a golden bough. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nBKVI:156-182 THE FINDING OF MISENUS\u2019S BODY<\/strong><\/h3>\nBefore Aeneas can descend to the underworld, he must give a proper burial and funeral for this companion, Misenus, a fellow Trojan who has just died. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nBKVI:183-235 THE FUNERAL PYRE<\/strong><\/h3>\nAeneas and his men start to build the funeral pyre, when two doves, signs from Aeneas\u2019 mother, the goddess Venus, appear to guide him to the golden bough. The men perform the funeral rites for Misenus. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nBKVI:236-263 THE SACRIFICE TO HECATE<\/strong><\/h3>\nAeneas and the Sibyl approach the entrance to the underworld.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\nHere the priestess first of all tethered four black heifers,<\/p>\n
poured wine over their foreheads, and placed<\/p>\n
the topmost bristles that she plucked, growing<\/p>\n
between their horns, in the sacred fire, as a first offering,<\/p>\n
calling aloud to Hecate, powerful in Heaven and Hell.<\/p>\n
Others slit the victim\u2019s throats and caught the warm blood<\/p>\n
in bowls. Aeneas himself sacrificed a black-fleeced lamb<\/p>\n
to Night, mother of the Furies, and Earth, her mighty sister,<\/p>\n
and a barren heifer to you, Persephone.<\/p>\n
Then he kindled the midnight altars for the Stygian King,<\/p>\n
and placed whole carcasses of bulls on the flames,<\/p>\n
pouring rich oil over the blazing entrails.<\/p>\n
See now, at the dawn light of the rising sun,<\/p>\n
the ground bellowed under their feet, the wooded hills began<\/p>\n
to move, and, at the coming of the Goddess [Hecate], dogs seemed to howl<\/p>\n
in the shadows. \u2018Away, stand far away, O you profane ones,\u2019<\/p>\n
the priestess cried, \u2018absent yourselves from all this grove:<\/p>\n
and you now, Aeneas, be on your way, and tear your sword<\/p>\n
from the sheathe: you need courage, and a firm mind, now.\u2019<\/p>\n
So saying, she plunged wildly into the open cave:<\/p>\n
he, fearlessly, kept pace with his vanishing guide.<\/p>\n
BKVI:264-294 THE ENTRANCE TO HADES<\/strong><\/h3>\nThe Sibyl leads Aeneas into Dis through the entrance to the underworld.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nRight before the entrance, in the very jaws of Orcus,<\/p>\n
Grief and vengeful Care have made their beds,<\/p>\n
and pallid Sickness lives there, and sad Old Age,<\/p>\n
and Fear, and persuasive Hunger, and vile Need,<\/p>\n
forms terrible to look on, and Death and Pain:<\/p>\n
then Death\u2019s brother Sleep, and Evil Pleasure of the mind,<\/p>\n
and, on the threshold opposite, death-dealing War,<\/p>\n
and the steel chambers of the Furies, and mad Discord,<\/p>\n
her snaky hair entwined with blood-wet ribbons.<\/p>\n
In the centre a vast shadowy elm spreads its aged trunks<\/p>\n
and branches: the seat, they say, that false Dreams hold,<\/p>\n
thronging, clinging beneath every leaf.<\/p>\n
And many other monstrous shapes of varied creatures,<\/p>\n
are stabled by the doors, Centaurs and bi-formed Scylla,<\/p>\n
and hundred-armed Briareus, and the Lernean Hydra,<\/p>\n
hissing fiercely, and the Chimaera armed with flame,<\/p>\n
Gorgons, and Harpies, and the triple bodied shade, Geryon.<\/p>\n
At this, trembling suddenly with terror, Aeneas grasped<\/p>\n
his sword, and set the naked blade against their approach:<\/p>\n
and, if his knowing companion had not warned him<\/p>\n
that these were tenuous bodiless lives flitting about<\/p>\n
with a hollow semblance of form, he would have rushed at them,<\/p>\n
and hacked at the shadows uselessly with his sword.<\/p>\n
BKVI:295-336 THE SHORES OF ACHERON <\/strong><\/h3>\nFrom here there is a road that leads to the waters<\/p>\n
of Tartarean Acheron. Here thick with mud a whirlpool seethes<\/p>\n
in the vast depths, and spews all its sands into Cocytus.<\/p>\n
A grim ferryman watches over the rivers and streams,<\/p>\n
Charon, dreadful in his squalor, with a mass of unkempt<\/p>\n
white hair straggling from his chin: flames glow in his eyes,<\/p>\n
a dirty garment hangs, knotted from his shoulders.<\/p>\n
He poles the boat and trims the sails himself,<\/p>\n
and ferries the dead in his dark skiff,<\/p>\n
old now, but a god\u2019s old age is fresh and green.<\/p>\n
Here all the crowd streams, hurrying to the shores,<\/p>\n
women and men, the lifeless bodies of noble heroes,<\/p>\n
boys and unmarried girls, sons laid on the pyre<\/p>\n
in front of their father\u2019s eyes: as many as the leaves that fall<\/p>\n
in the woods at the first frost of autumn, as many as the birds<\/p>\n
that flock to land from ocean deeps, when the cold of the year<\/p>\n
drives them abroad and despatches them to sunnier countries.<\/p>\n
They stood there, pleading to be first to make the crossing,<\/p>\n
stretching out their hands in longing for the far shore.<\/p>\n
But the dismal boatman accepts now these, now those,<\/p>\n
but driving others away, keeps them far from the sand.<\/p>\n
Then Aeneas, stirred and astonished at the tumult, said:<\/p>\n
\u2018O virgin, tell me, what does this crowding to the river mean?<\/p>\n
What do the souls want? And by what criterion do these leave<\/p>\n
the bank, and those sweep off with the oars on the leaden stream?<\/p>\n
The ancient priestess spoke briefly to him, so:<\/p>\n
\u2018Son of Anchises, true child of the gods, you see<\/p>\n
the deep pools of Cocytus, and the Marsh of Styx,<\/p>\n
by whose name the gods fear to swear falsely.<\/p>\n
All this crowd, you see, were destitute and unburied:<\/p>\n
that ferryman is Charon: those the waves carry were buried:<\/p>\n
he may not carry them from the fearful shore on the harsh waters<\/p>\n
before their bones are at rest in the earth. They roam<\/p>\n
for a hundred years and flit around these shores: only then<\/p>\n
are they admitted, and revisit the pools they long for.\u2019<\/p>\n
The son of Anchises halted, and checked his footsteps,<\/p>\n
thinking deeply, and pitying their sad fate in his heart.<\/p>\n
He saw Leucaspis and Orontes, captain of the Lycian fleet,<\/p>\n
there, grieving and lacking honour in death, whom a Southerly<\/p>\n
overwhelmed, as they sailed together from Troy on the windswept<\/p>\n
waters, engulfing both the ship and crew in the waves.<\/p>\n
BKVI:384-416 CHARON THE FERRYMAN <\/strong><\/h3>\nSo they pursued their former journey, and drew near the river.<\/p>\n
Now when the Boatman saw them from the Stygian wave<\/p>\n
walking through the silent wood, and directing their footsteps<\/p>\n
towards its bank, he attacked them verbally, first, and unprompted,<\/p>\n
rebuking them: \u2018Whoever you are, who come armed to my river,<\/p>\n
tell me, from over there, why you\u2019re here, and halt your steps.<\/p>\n
This is a place of shadows, of Sleep and drowsy Night:<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not allowed to carry living bodies in the Stygian boat.<\/p>\n
Truly it was no pleasure for me to take Hercules on his journey<\/p>\n
over the lake, nor Theseus and Pirithous, though they may<\/p>\n
have been children of gods, unrivalled in strength.<\/p>\n
The first came for Cerberus the watchdog of Tartarus,<\/p>\n
and dragged him away quivering from under the king\u2019s throne:<\/p>\n
the others were after snatching our Queen from Dis\u2019s chamber.\u2019<\/p>\n
To this the prophetess of Amphrysian Apollo briefly answered:<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019s no such trickery here (don\u2019t be disturbed),<\/p>\n
our weapons offer no affront: your huge guard-dog<\/p>\n
can terrify the bloodless shades with his eternal howling:<\/p>\n
chaste Proserpine can keep to her uncle\u2019s threshold.<\/p>\n
Aeneas the Trojan, renowned in piety and warfare,<\/p>\n
goes down to the deepest shadows of Erebus, to his father.<\/p>\n
If the idea of such affection does not move you, still you<\/p>\n
must recognise this bough.\u2019 (She showed the branch, hidden<\/p>\n
in her robes.) Then the anger in his swollen breast subsided.<\/p>\n
No more was said. Marvelling at the revered offering,<\/p>\n
of fateful twigs, seen again after so long, he turned the stern<\/p>\n
of the dark skiff towards them and neared the bank.<\/p>\n
Then he turned off the other souls who sat on the long benches,<\/p>\n
cleared the gangways: and received mighty Aeneas<\/p>\n
on board. The seamed skiff groaned with the weight<\/p>\n
and let in quantities of marsh-water through the chinks.<\/p>\n
At last, the river crossed, he landed the prophetess and the hero<\/p>\n
safe, on the unstable mud, among the blue-grey sedge.<\/p>\n
BKVI:417-439 BEYOND THE ACHERON<\/strong><\/h3>\nThe Sibyl pacifies Cerberus with a drugged honey-cake.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\nImmediately a loud crying of voices was heard, the spirits<\/p>\n
of weeping infants, whom a dark day stole at the first<\/p>\n
threshold of this sweet life, those chosen to be torn<\/p>\n
from the breast, and drowned in bitter death.<\/p>\n
Nearby are those condemned to die on false charges.<\/p>\n
Yet their place is not ordained without the allotted jury:<\/p>\n
Minos, the judge, shakes the urn: he convenes the voiceless court,<\/p>\n
and hears their lives and sins. Then the next place<\/p>\n
is held by those gloomy spirits who, innocent of crime,<\/p>\n
died by their own hand, and, hating the light, threw away<\/p>\n
their lives. How willingly now they\u2019d endure<\/p>\n
poverty and harsh suffering, in the air above!<\/p>\n
Divine Law prevents it, and the sad marsh and its hateful<\/p>\n
waters binds them, and nine-fold Styx confines them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong>BKVI:535-627 THE SIBYL DESCRIBES TARTARUS <\/strong><\/h3>\nWhile they spoke Aurora and her rosy chariot had passed<\/p>\n
the zenith of her ethereal path, and they might perhaps<\/p>\n
have spent all the time allowed in such talk, but the Sibyl,<\/p>\n
his companion, warned him briefly saying:<\/p>\n
\u2018Night approaches, Aeneas: we waste the hours with weeping.<\/p>\n
This is the place where the path splits itself in two:<\/p>\n
there on the right is our road to Elysium, that runs beneath<\/p>\n
the walls of mighty Dis: but the left works punishment<\/p>\n
on the wicked, and sends them on to godless Tartarus.\u2019<\/p>\n
Deiphobus replied: \u2018Do not be angry, great priestess:<\/p>\n
I will leave: I will make up the numbers, and return to the darkness.<\/p>\n
Go now glory of our race: enjoy a better fate.\u2019<\/p>\n
So he spoke, and in speaking turned away.<\/p>\n
Aeneas suddenly looked back, and, below the left hand cliff,<\/p>\n
he saw wide battlements, surrounded by a triple wall,<\/p>\n
and encircled by a swift river of red-hot flames,<\/p>\n
the Tartarean Phlegethon, churning with echoing rocks.<\/p>\n
A gate fronts it, vast, with pillars of solid steel,<\/p>\n
that no human force, not the heavenly gods themselves,<\/p>\n
can overturn by war: an iron tower rises into the air,<\/p>\n
and seated before it, Tisiphone, clothed in a blood-wet dress,<\/p>\n
keeps guard of the doorway, sleeplessly, night and day.<\/p>\n
Groans came from there, and the cruel sound of the lash,<\/p>\n
then the clank of iron, and dragging chains.<\/p>\n
Aeneas halted, and stood rooted, terrified by the noise.<\/p>\n
\u2018What evil is practised here? O Virgin, tell me: by what torments<\/p>\n
are they oppressed? Why are there such sounds in the air?\u2019<\/p>\n
Then the prophetess began to speak as follows: \u2018Famous leader<\/p>\n
of the Trojans, it is forbidden for the pure to cross the evil threshold:<\/p>\n
but when Hecate appointed me to the wood of Avernus,<\/p>\n
she taught me the divine torments, and guided me through them all.<\/p>\n
Cretan Rhadamanthus rules this harshest of kingdoms,<\/p>\n
and hears their guilt, extracts confessions, and punishes<\/p>\n
whoever has deferred atonement for their sins too long<\/p>\n
till death, delighting in useless concealment, in the world above.<\/p>\n
Tisiphone the avenger, armed with her whip, leaps on the guilty immediately,<\/p>\n
lashes them, and threatening them with the fierce<\/p>\n
snakes in her left hand, calls to her savage troop of sisters.<\/p>\n
Then at last the accursed doors open, screeching on jarring hinges.<\/p>\n
You comprehend what guardian sits at the door, what shape watches<\/p>\n
the threshold? Well still fiercer is the monstrous Hydra inside,<\/p>\n
with her fifty black gaping jaws. There Tartarus itself<\/p>\n
falls sheer, and stretches down into the darkness:<\/p>\n
twice as far as we gaze upwards to heavenly Olympus.<\/p>\n
Here the Titanic race, the ancient sons of Earth,<\/p>\n
hurled down by the lightning-bolt, writhe in the depths.<\/p>\n
And here I saw the two sons of Aloeus, giant forms,<\/p>\n
who tried to tear down the heavens with their hands,<\/p>\n
and topple Jupiter from his high kingdom.<\/p>\n
And I saw Salmoneus paying a savage penalty<\/p>\n
for imitating Jove\u2019s lightning, and the Olympian thunder.<\/p>\n
Brandishing a torch, and drawn by four horses<\/p>\n
he rode in triumph among the Greeks, through Elis\u2019s city,<\/p>\n
claiming the gods\u2019 honours as his own, a fool,<\/p>\n
who mimicked the storm-clouds and the inimitable thunderbolt<\/p>\n
with bronze cymbals and the sound of horses\u2019 hoof-beats.<\/p>\n
But the all-powerful father hurled his lighting from dense cloud,<\/p>\n
not for him fiery torches, or pine-branches\u2019 smoky light<\/p>\n
and drove him headlong with the mighty whirlwind.<\/p>\n
And Tityus was to be seen as well, the foster-child<\/p>\n
of Earth, our universal mother, whose body stretches<\/p>\n
over nine acres, and a great vulture with hooked beak<\/p>\n
feeds on his indestructible liver, and his entrails ripe<\/p>\n
for punishment, lodged deep inside the chest, groping<\/p>\n
for his feast, no respite given to the ever-renewing tissue.<\/p>\n
Shall I speak of the Lapiths, Ixion, Pirithous,<\/p>\n
over whom hangs a dark crag that seems to slip and fall?<\/p>\n
High couches for their feast gleam with golden frames,<\/p>\n
and a banquet of royal luxury is spread before their eyes:<\/p>\n
nearby the eldest Fury, crouching, prevents their fingers touching<\/p>\n
the table: rising up, and brandishing her torch, with a voice of thunder.<\/p>\n
Here are those who hated their brothers, in life,<\/p>\n
or struck a parent, or contrived to defraud a client,<\/p>\n
or who crouched alone over the riches they\u2019d made,<\/p>\n
without setting any aside for their kin (their crowd is largest),<\/p>\n
those who were killed for adultery, or pursued civil war,<\/p>\n
not fearing to break their pledges to their masters:<\/p>\n
shut in they see their punishment. Don\u2019t ask to know<\/p>\n
that punishment, or what kind of suffering drowns them.<\/p>\n
Some roll huge stones, or hang spread-eagled<\/p>\n
on wheel-spokes: wretched Theseus sits still, and will sit<\/p>\n
for eternity: Phlegyas, the most unfortunate, warns them all<\/p>\n
and bears witness in a loud voice among the shades:<\/p>\n
\u201cLearn justice: be warned, and don\u2019t despise the gods.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s one who sold his country for gold, and set up<\/p>\n
a despotic lord: this one made law and remade it for a price:<\/p>\n
he entered his daughter\u2019s bed and a forbidden marriage:<\/p>\n
all of them dared monstrous sin, and did what they dared.<\/p>\n
Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,<\/p>\n
a voice of iron, could I tell all the forms of wickedness<\/p>\n
or spell out the names of every torment.\u2019<\/p>\n
BKVI:628-678 THE FIELDS OF ELYSIUM <\/strong><\/h3>\nWhen she had spoken of this, the aged priestess of Apollo said:<\/p>\n
\u2018But come now, travel the road, and complete the task set for you:<\/p>\n
let us hurry, I see the battlements that were forged<\/p>\n
in the Cyclopean fires, and the gates in the arch opposite us<\/p>\n
where we are told to set down the gifts as ordered.\u2019<\/p>\n
She spoke and keeping step they hastened along the dark path<\/p>\n
crossing the space between and arriving near the doors.<\/p>\n
Aeneas gained the entrance, sprinkled fresh water<\/p>\n
over his body, and set up the branch on the threshold before him.<\/p>\n
Having at last achieved this, the goddess\u2019s task fulfilled,<\/p>\n
they came to the pleasant places, the delightful grassy turf<\/p>\n
of the Fortunate Groves, and the homes of the blessed.<\/p>\n
Here freer air and radiant light clothe the plain,<\/p>\n
and these have their own sun, and their own stars.<\/p>\n
Some exercise their bodies in a grassy gymnasium,<\/p>\n
compete in sports and wrestle on the yellow sand:<\/p>\n
others tread out the steps of a dance, and sing songs.<\/p>\n
There Orpheus too, the long-robed priest of Thrace,<\/p>\n
accompanies their voices with the seven-note scale,<\/p>\n
playing now with fingers, now with the ivory quill.<\/p>\n
Here are Teucer\u2019s ancient people, loveliest of children,<\/p>\n
great-hearted heroes, born in happier years,<\/p>\n
Ilus, Assaracus, and Dardanus founder of Troy.<\/p>\n
Aeneas marvels from a distance at their idle chariots<\/p>\n
and their weapons: their spears fixed in the ground,<\/p>\n
and their horses scattered freely browsing over the plain:<\/p>\n
the pleasure they took in chariots and armour while alive,<\/p>\n
the care in tending shining horses, follows them below the earth.<\/p>\n
Look, he sees others on the grass to right and left, feasting,<\/p>\n
and singing a joyful paean in chorus, among the fragrant<\/p>\n
groves of laurel, out of which the Eridanus\u2019s broad river<\/p>\n
flows through the woodlands to the world above.<\/p>\n
Here is the company of those who suffered wounds fighting<\/p>\n
for their country: and those who were pure priests, while they lived,<\/p>\n
and those who were faithful poets, singers worthy of Apollo,<\/p>\n
and those who improved life, with discoveries in Art or Science,<\/p>\n
and those who by merit caused others to remember them:<\/p>\n
the brows of all these were bound with white headbands.<\/p>\n
As they crowded round, the Sibyl addressed them,<\/p>\n
Musaeus above all: since he holds the centre of the vast crowd,<\/p>\n
all looking up to him, his tall shoulders towering above:<\/p>\n
\u2018Blessed spirits, and you, greatest of Poets,<\/p>\n
say what region or place contains Anchises. We have<\/p>\n
come here, crossing the great rivers of Erebus, for him.\u2019<\/p>\n
And the hero replied to her briefly in these words:<\/p>\n
\u2018None of us have a fixed abode: we live in the shadowy woods,<\/p>\n
and make couches of river-banks, and inhabit fresh-water meadows.<\/p>\n
But climb this ridge, if your hearts-wish so inclines,<\/p>\n
and I will soon set you on an easy path.\u2019<\/p>\n
He spoke and went on before them, and showed them<\/p>\n
the bright plains below: then they left the mountain heights.<\/p>\n
BKVI:679-702 THE MEETING WITH ANCHISES<\/strong><\/h3>\nAeneas finds his father, Anchises, in the Elysian Fields and attempts to embrace him. But his father is merely a wispy shade. Nonetheless they can speak with each other and Aeneas weeps.<\/em> <\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nBKVI:703-723 THE SOULS DUE FOR RE-BIRTH <\/strong><\/h3>\nAnd now Aeneas saw a secluded grove<\/p>\n
in a receding valley, with rustling woodland thickets,<\/p>\n
and the river of Lethe gliding past those peaceful places.<\/p>\n
Innumerable tribes and peoples hovered round it:<\/p>\n
just as, in the meadows, on a cloudless summer\u2019s day,<\/p>\n
the bees settle on the multifarious flowers, and stream<\/p>\n
round the bright lilies, and all the fields hum with their buzzing.<\/p>\n
Aeneas was thrilled by the sudden sight, and, in ignorance,<\/p>\n
asked the cause: what the river is in the distance,<\/p>\n
who the men are crowding the banks in such numbers.<\/p>\n
Then his father Anchises answered: \u2018They are spirits,<\/p>\n
owed a second body by destiny, and they drink<\/p>\n
the happy waters, and a last forgetting, at Lethe\u2019s stream.<\/p>\n
Indeed, for a long time I\u2019ve wished to tell you of them,<\/p>\n
and show you them face to face, to enumerate my children\u2019s<\/p>\n
descendants, so you might joy with me more at finding Italy.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018O father, is it to be thought that any spirits go from here<\/p>\n
to the sky above, returning again to dull matter?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Indeed I\u2019ll tell you, son, not keep you in doubt,\u2019<\/p>\n
Anchises answered, and revealed each thing in order.<\/p>\n
BKVI:724-751 THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS <\/strong><\/h3>\n\u2018Firstly, a spirit within them nourishes the sky and earth,<\/p>\n
the watery plains, the shining orb of the moon,<\/p>\n
and Titan\u2019s star, and Mind, flowing through matter,<\/p>\n
vivifies the whole mass, and mingles with its vast frame.<\/p>\n
From it come the species of man and beast, and winged lives,<\/p>\n
and the monsters the sea contains beneath its marbled waves.<\/p>\n
The power of those seeds is fiery, and their origin divine,<\/p>\n
so long as harmful matter doesn\u2019t impede them<\/p>\n
and terrestrial bodies and mortal limbs don\u2019t dull them.<\/p>\n
Through those they fear and desire, and grieve and joy,<\/p>\n
and enclosed in night and a dark dungeon, can\u2019t see the light.<\/p>\n
Why, when life leaves them at the final hour,<\/p>\n
still all of the evil, all the plagues of the flesh, alas,<\/p>\n
have not completely vanished, and many things, long hardened<\/p>\n
deep within, must of necessity be ingrained, in strange ways.<\/p>\n
So they are scourged by torments, and pay the price<\/p>\n
for former sins: some are hung, stretched out,<\/p>\n
to the hollow winds, the taint of wickedness is cleansed<\/p>\n
for others in vast gulfs, or burned away with fire:<\/p>\n
each spirit suffers its own: then we are sent<\/p>\n
through wide Elysium, and we few stay in the joyous fields,<\/p>\n
for a length of days, till the cycle of time,<\/p>\n
complete, removes the hardened stain, and leaves<\/p>\n
pure ethereal thought, and the brightness of natural air.<\/p>\n
All these others the god calls in a great crowd to the river Lethe,<\/p>\n
after they have turned the wheel for a thousand years,<\/p>\n
so that, truly forgetting, they can revisit the vault above,<\/p>\n
and begin with a desire to return to the flesh.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ovid\u00a0Metamorphoses<\/em>\u00a0Book 10 translated by A.S. Kline<\/strong><\/h2>\nBk X:1-85\u00a0<\/strong>Orpheus and Eurydice<\/strong><\/h3>\nHymen, called by the voice of\u00a0Orpheus, departed, and, dressed in his saffron robes, made his way through the vast skies to the\u00a0Ciconian\u00a0coast: but in vain. He was present at Orpheus\u2019s marriage, true, but he did not speak the usual words, display a joyful expression, or bring good luck. The torch, too, that he held, sputtered continually, with tear-provoking fumes, and no amount of shaking contrived to light it properly. The result was worse than any omens. While the newly wedded bride,\u00a0Eurydice, was walking through the grass, with a crowd of\u00a0naiads\u00a0as her companions, she was killed, by a bite on her ankle, from a snake, sheltering there.\u00a0 When\u00a0Thracian\u00a0Orpheus, the poet of\u00a0Rhodope, had mourned for her, greatly, in the upper world, he dared to go down to\u00a0Styx, through the gate of\u00a0Taenarus, also, to see if he might not move the dead.<\/p>\n
Through the weightless throng, and the ghosts that had received proper burial, he came to\u00a0Persephone, and the\u00a0lord of the shadows, he who rules the joyless kingdom. Then striking the lyre-strings to accompany his words, he sang: \u2018O gods of this world, placed below the earth, to which, all, who are created mortal, descend; if you allow me, and it is lawful, to set aside the fictions of idle tongues, and speak the truth, I have not come here to see dark\u00a0Tartarus, nor to bind\u00a0Cerberus,\u00a0Medusa\u2019s child, with his three necks, and snaky hair. My wife is the cause of my journey. A viper, she trod on, diffused its venom into her body, and robbed her of her best years. I longed to be able to accept it, and I do not say I have not tried:\u00a0Love\u00a0won.<\/p>\n
He is a god well known in the world above, though I do not know if that is so here: though I imagine him to be here, as well, and if the story of that rape in ancient times is not a lie, you also were wedded by\u00a0Amor. I beg you, by these fearful places, by this immense abyss, and the silence of your vast realms, reverse Eurydice\u2019s swift death. All things are destined to be yours, and though we delay a while, sooner or later, we hasten home. Here we are all bound, this is our final abode, and you hold the longest reign over the human race. Eurydice, too, will be yours to command, when she has lived out her fair span of years, to maturity. I ask this benefit as a gift; but, if the fates refuse my wife this kindness, I am determined not to return: you can delight in both our deaths.\u2019<\/p>\n
The bloodless spirits wept as he spoke, accompanying his words with the music.\u00a0Tantalus\u00a0did not reach for the ever-retreating water:\u00a0Ixion\u2019s wheel was stilled: the vultures did not pluck at\u00a0Tityus\u2019s liver: the\u00a0Belides, the daughters of Dana\u00fcs, left their water jars: and you,\u00a0Sisyphus, perched there, on your rock. Then they say, for the first time, the faces of the\u00a0Furies\u00a0were wet with tears, won over by his song: the king of the deep, and his royal bride, could not bear to refuse his prayer, and called for Eurydice.<\/p>\n
She was among the recent ghosts, and walked haltingly from her wound. The poet of Rhodope received her, and, at the same time, accepted this condition, that he must not turn his eyes behind him, until he emerged from the vale of\u00a0Avernus, or the gift would be null and void.<\/p>\n
They took the upward path, through the still silence, steep and dark, shadowy with dense fog, drawing near to the threshold of the upper world. Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she dropped back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but the receding air. Dying a second time, now, there was no complaint to her husband (what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?). She spoke a last \u2018farewell\u2019 that, now, scarcely reached his ears, and turned again towards that same place.<\/p>\n
Stunned by the double loss of his wife, Orpheus was like that coward who saw Cerberus, the three-headed dog, chained by the central neck, and whose fear vanished with his nature, as stone transformed his body. Or like\u00a0Olenos, and you, his\u00a0Lethaea, too proud of your beauty: he wished to be charged with your crime, and seem guilty himself: once wedded hearts, you are now rocks set on moist Mount\u00a0Ida.<\/p>\n
Orpheus wished and prayed, in vain, to cross the\u00a0Styx\u00a0again, but the ferryman fended him off. Still, for seven days, he sat there by the shore, neglecting himself and not taking\u00a0nourishment. Sorrow, troubled thought, and tears were his food. He took himself to lofty Mount\u00a0Rhodope, and\u00a0Haemus, swept by the winds, complaining that the gods of\u00a0Erebus\u00a0were cruel.<\/p>\n
Three times\u00a0the sun\u00a0had ended the year, in watery\u00a0Pisces, and Orpheus had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the\u00a0Thracian\u00a0people to transfer his love to young boys, and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering, this side of manhood.<\/p>\n
Your final primary text is a poem by the Scottish LGBT poet Carol Ann Duffy, who was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009 until 2019. Her books are now assigned reading in British schools. <\/strong>H<\/strong>er collection<\/strong> The World\u2019s Wife, published in 1999,<\/strong> has a zany perspective on familiar stories from western culture: in these poems <\/strong>Duffy sets out to imagine the unspoken stories of the wives of famous men of myth and history. Poems in the volume include Queen Herod, Mrs Midas, Mrs Tiresias, Mrs Darwin, Mrs Faust, Queen Kong, Mrs Quasimodo, The Devil\u2019s Wife, Mrs Rip Van Winkle, Frau Freud, and more. Carol Ann Duffy is brilliant at making the characters of myth into modern believable people and she has fun imagining contemporary versions of the ancient myths, stripping away the exoticism and inserting telling domestic details\u2013in the process making unstrange and at the same time making strange too, because of how she brings the story closer to us so that we can marvel at it. Your assigned text is \u2018Eurydice\u2019. Which is in many ways hilarious.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nCarol Ann Duffy \u2018Eurydice\u2019 from The World\u2019s Wife<\/em> (1999)<\/strong><\/h1>\n\u00a0<\/strong>Girls, I was dead and down
\nin the Underworld, a shade,
\na shadow of my former self, nowhen.
\nIt was a place where language stopped,
\na black full-stop, a black hole
\nwhere words had to come to an end
\nAnd end they did there,
\nlast words,
\nfamous or not.
\nIt suited me down to the ground.
\nSo imagine me there,
\nunavailable,
\nout of this world,
\nthen picture my face in that place
\nof Eternal Repose,
\nin the one place you\u2019d think a girl would be safe
\nfrom the kind of a man
\nwho follows her round
\nwriting poems
\nhovers about
\nwhile she reads them,
\ncalls her his Muse,
\nand once sulked for a night and a day
\nbecause she remarked on his weakness for abstract noouns;
\njust picture my face
\nwhen I heard \u2013
\nYe Gods \u2013
\na familiar knock-knock-knock at Death\u2019s door.
\nHim.
\nBig O.
\nLarger than life.
\nWith his lyre
\nand a poem to read with me as the prize.
\nThings were different back then.
\nFor the men, verse-wise,
\nBig O, was the boy.
\nLegendary. The blurb
\non the back of his books claimed
\nthat animals,
\naardvark to Zebra,
\nflocked to his side when he sang,
\nfish leapt from their waves
\nat the sound of his voice,
\neven the mute, sullen stones at his feet
\nwept wee silver tears.
\nBollocks. Furthermore,
\nwe\u2019ve all, let\u2019s be honest,
\nbeen bored half to death by a man
\nwho fucks like he\u2019s writing a book.
\nAnd, given my time all over again,
\nI know that I\u2019d rather write for myself
\nthan be dearest, beloved, dark lady, white goddess, etc. etc.
\nIn fact, girls, I\u2019d rather be dead.
\nBut the Gods are like publishers \u2013
\nusually male \u2013
\nand what you doubtless know of my tale
\nis the deal.
\nOrpheus strutted his stuff.
\nThe bloodless ghosts were in tears.
\nSisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years.
\nTantalus was permitted a couple of beers.
\nThe woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.
\nLike it or not,
\nI must follow him back to our life \u2013
\nEurydice, Orpheus\u2019s wife \u2013
\nto be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes,
\noctaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets,
\nelegies, limericks,villanelles,
\nhistories, myths\u2026
\nHe\u2019d been told that he mustn\u2019t look back
\nor turn round,
\nbut walk steadily upwards,
\nmyself right behind him,
\nout of the Underworld
\ninto the upper air that for me was the past.
\nHe\u2019d been warned
\nthat one look would lose me
\nfor ever and ever.
\nSo onwards we walked.
\nNobody talked.
\nGirls, forget what you\u2019ve read,
\nit happened like this \u2013
\nI did everything in my power
\nto make him look back.
\nWhat did I have to do, I said,
\nto make him see we were through?
\nI was dead Deceased.
\nI was Resting in Peace. Passe.
\nLate. Past my sell-by date \u2013
\nand here I stretched out my hand
\nand touched him once
\non the back of the neck \u2013
\nPlease let my stay.
\nBut already the light had saddened from purple to grey.
\nIt was an uhill schlep
\nfrom death to life
\nand with every step
\nI willed him to turn.
\nI\u2019d managed to filch the poem
\nout of his cloak
\nwhen inspiration finally struck.
\nI stopped, thrilled.
\nHe was a yard in front. My voice shook when I spoke \u2013
\nOrpheus, your poem\u2019s a masterpiece.
\nI\u2019d love to hear it again.
\nHe was smiling modestly
\nwhen he turned
\nwhen he turned and he looked at me.
\nWhat else?
\nI noticed he hadn\u2019t shaved.
\nI waved once and was gone.
\nThe dead are so talented.
\nThe living walk by the edge of a vast lake
\nnear the wise, drowned silence of the dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Introduction: The three primary sources for Unit 12 are all from works you have seen before: Homer’s Odyssey,\u00a0Virgil’s\u00a0Aeneid, and Ovid’s\u00a0Metamorphoses. Each of these selections deals with a\u00a0katabasis, a descent to the underworld, by a male hero: Odysseus, Aeneas, and Orpheus, respectively. We have already encountered Odysseus and Aeneas in the this course. Orpheus was another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72604,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-76","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/grmyth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}