For guile Deïdamia[679] makes deplore In death her lost Achilles, tears they shed, And bear for the Palladium[680] vengeance sore.' 'Master, I pray thee fervently,' I said, 'If from those flames they still can utter speech-- Give ear as if a thousand times I pled! Refuse not here to linger, I beseech, Until the cloven fire shall hither gain: Thou seest how toward it eagerly I reach.' And he: 'Thy prayers are worthy to obtain 70 Exceeding praise; thou hast what thou dost seek: But see that thou from speech thy tongue refrain. I know what thou wouldst have; leave me to speak, For they perchance would hear contemptuously Shouldst thou address them, seeing they were Greek.'[681] Soon as the flame toward us had come so nigh That to my Leader time and place seemed met, I heard him thus adjure it to reply: 'O ye who twain within one fire are set, If what I did your guerdon meriteth, 80 If much or little ye are in my debt For the great verse I built while I had breath, By one of you be openly confessed Where, lost to men, at last he met with death.' Of the ancient flame the more conspicuous crest Murmuring began to waver up and down Like flame that flickers, by the wind distressed. At length by it was measured motion shown, Like tongue that moves in speech; and by the flame Was language uttered thus: 'When I had gone 90 From Circe[682] who a long year kept me tame Beside her, ere the near Gaeta had Receivèd from Æneas that new name; No softness for my son, nor reverence sad For my old father, nor the love I owed Penelope with which to make her glad, Could quench the ardour that within me glowed A full experience of the world to gain-- Of human vice and worth. But I abroad Launched out upon the high and open main[683] 100 With but one bark and but the little band Which ne'er deserted me.[684] As far as Spain I saw the sea-shore upon either hand, And as Morocco; saw Sardinia's isle, And all of which those waters wash the strand. I and my comrades were grown old the while And sluggish, ere we to the narrows came Where Hercules of old did landmarks pile For sign to men they should no further aim; And Seville lay behind me on the right, 110 As on the left lay Ceuta. Then to them I spake: "O Brothers, who through such a fight Of hundred thousand dangers West have won, In this short watch that ushers in the night Of all your senses, ere your day be done, Refuse not to obtain experience new Of worlds unpeopled, yonder, past the sun. Consider whence the seed of life ye drew; Ye were not born to live like brutish herd, But righteousness and wisdom to ensue." 120 My comrades to such eagerness were stirred