“Arriv’d now at our ship, we launch’d, and set Our mast up, put forth sail, and in did get Our late-got cattle. Up our sails, we went, My wayward fellows mourning now th’ event.[1] A good companion yet, a foreright wind, Circe (the excellent utt’rer of her mind) Supplied our murmuring consorts with, that was Both speed and guide to our adventurous pass. All day our sails stood to the winds, and made Our voyage prosp’rous. Sun then set, and shade All ways obscuring, on the bounds we fell Of deep Oceanus, where people dwell Whom a perpetual cloud obscures outright, To whom the cheerful sun lends never light, Nor when he mounts the star-sustaining heaven, Nor when he stoops earth, and sets up the even, But night holds fix’d wings, feather’d all with banes, Above those most unblest Cimmerians. Here drew we up our ship, our sheep withdrew, And walk’d the shore till we attain’d the view, Of that sad region Circe had foreshow’d; And then the sacred off’rings to be vow’d Eurylochus and Persimedes bore. When I my sword drew, and earth’s womb did gore Till I a pit digg’d of a cubit round, Which with the liquid sacrifice we crown’d, First honey mix’d with wine, then sweet wine neat, Then water pour’d in, last the flour of wheat. Much I importun’d then the weak-neck’d dead, And vow’d, when I the barren soil should tread Of clifty Ithaca, amidst my hall To kill a heifer, my clear best of all, And give in off’ring, on a pile compos’d Of all the choice goods my whole house enclos’d. And to Tiresias himself, alone, A sheep coal-black, and the selectest one Of all my flocks. When to the Pow’rs beneath, The sacred nation that survive with death, My pray’rs and vows had done devotions fit, I took the off’rings, and upon the pit Bereft their lives. Out gush’d the sable blood, And round about me fled out of the flood The souls of the deceas’d. There cluster’d then Youths, and their wives, much-suff’ring aged men, Soft tender virgins that but new came there By timeless death, and green their sorrows were. There men-at-arms, with armours all embrew’d, Wounded with lances, and with faulchions hew’d, In numbers, up and down the ditch, did stalk, And threw unmeasur’d cries about their walk, So horrid that a bloodless fear surpris’d My daunted spirits. Straight then I advis’d My friends to flay the slaughter’d sacrifice, Put them in fire, and to the Deities, Stern Pluto and Persephoné, apply Exciteful pray’rs. Then drew I from my thigh My well-edg’d sword, stept in, and firmly stood Betwixt the prease of shadows and the blood, And would not suffer anyone to dip Within our off’ring his unsolid lip, Before Tiresias that did all controul. The first that press’d in was Elpenor’s soul, His body in the broad-way’d earth as yet Unmourn’d, unburied by us, since we swet With other urgent labours. Yet his smart I wept to see, and rued it from my heart, Enquiring how he could before me be That came by ship? He, mourning, answer’d me: