“‘Thy fated road (the magic power replied), Divine Ulysses! ask no mortal guide. Rear but the mast, the spacious sail display, The northern winds shall wing thee on thy way. Soon shalt thou reach old Ocean’s utmost ends, Where to the main the shelving shore descends; The barren trees of Proserpine’s black woods, Poplars and willows trembling o’er the floods: There fix thy vessel in the lonely bay, And enter there the kingdoms void of day, Where Phlegethon’s loud torrents, rushing down, Hiss in the flaming gulf of Acheron; And where, slow rolling from the Stygian bed, Cocytus’ lamentable waters spread: Where the dark rock o’erhangs the infernal lake, And mingling streams eternal murmurs make. First draw thy falchion, and on every side Trench the black earth a cubit long and wide: To all the shades around libations pour, And o’er the ingredients strew the hallow’d flour: New wine and milk, with honey temper’d bring, And living water from the crystal spring. Then the wan shades and feeble ghosts implore, With promised offerings on thy native shore; A barren cow, the stateliest of the isle, And heap’d with various wealth, a blazing pile: These to the rest; but to the seer must bleed A sable ram, the pride of all thy breed. These solemn vows and holy offerings paid To all the phantom nations of the dead, Be next thy care the sable sheep to place Full o’er the pit, and hellward turn their face: But from the infernal rite thine eye withdraw, And back to Ocean glance with reverend awe. Sudden shall skim along the dusky glades Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades. Then give command the sacrifice to haste, Let the flay’d victims in the flame be cast, And sacred vows and mystic song applied To grisly Pluto and his gloomy bride. Wide o’er the pool thy falchion waved around Shall drive the spectres from unbidden ground: The sacred draught shall all the dead forbear, Till awful from the shades arise the seer. Let him, oraculous, the end, the way, The turns of all thy future fate display, Thy pilgrimage to come, and remnant of thy day.’ “So speaking, from the ruddy orient shone The morn, conspicuous on her golden throne. The goddess with a radiant tunic dress’d My limbs, and o’er me cast a silken vest. Long flowing robes, of purest white, array The nymph, that added lustre to the day: A tiar wreath’d her head with many a fold; Her waist was circled with a zone of gold. Forth issuing then, from place to place I flew; Rouse man by man, and animate my crew. ‘Rise, rise, my mates! ’tis Circe gives command: Our journey calls us; haste, and quit the land.’ All rise and follow, yet depart not all, For Fate decreed one wretched man to fall.