To this infernal state made me contend; That from the wise Tiresias’ Theban soul I might an oracle involv’d unroll; For I came nothing near Achaia yet, Nor on our lov’d earth happy foot had set, But, mishaps suff’ring, err’d from coast to coast, Ever since first the mighty Grecian host Divine Atrides led to Ilion, And I his follower, to set war upon The rapeful Trojans; and so pray’d she would The fate of that ungentle death unfold, That forc’d her thither; if some long disease, Or that the spleen of her-that-arrows-please, Diana, envious of most eminent dames, Had made her th’ object of her deadly aims? My father’s state and sons I sought, if they Kept still my goods? Or they became the prey Of any other, holding me no more In pow’r of safe return? Or if my store My wife had kept together with her son? If she her first mind held, or had been won By some chief Grecian from my love and bed?’ All this she answer’d: ‘That affliction fed On her blood still at home, and that to grief She all the days and darkness of her life In tears had consecrate. That none possest My famous kingdom’s throne, but th’ interest My son had in it still he held in peace, A court kept like a prince, and his increase Spent in his subjects’ good, administ’ring laws With justice, and the general applause A king should merit, and all call’d him king. My father kept the upland, labouring, And shunn’d the city, us’d no sumptuous beds, Wonder’d-at furnitures, nor wealthy weeds, But in the winter strew’d about the fire Lay with his slaves in ashes, his attire Like to a beggar’s; when the summer came, And autumn all fruits ripen’d with his flame, Where grape-charg’d vines made shadows most abound, His couch with fall’n leaves made upon the ground, And here lay he, his sorrow’s fruitful state Increasing as he faded for my fate; And now the part of age that irksome is Lay sadly on him. And that life of his She led, and perish’d in; not slaughter’d by The Dame that darts lov’d, and her archery; Nor by disease invaded, vast and foul, That wastes the body, and sends out the soul With shame and horror; only in her moan, For me and my life, she consum’d her own.’ She thus, when I had great desire to prove My arms the circle where her soul did move. Thrice prov’d I, thrice she vanish’d like a sleep, Or fleeting shadow, which struck much more deep The wounds my woes made, and made ask her why She would my love to her embraces fly, And not vouchsafe that ev’n in hell we might Pay pious Nature her unalter’d right, And give Vexation here her cruel fill? Should not the Queen here, to augment the ill Of ev’ry suff’rance, which her office is, Enforce thy idol to afford me this? ‘O son,’ she answer’d, ‘of the race of men The most unhappy, our most equal Queen Will mock no solid arms with empty shade, Nor suffer empty shades again t’ invade Flesh, bones, and nerves; nor will defraud the fire Of his last dues, that, soon as spirits expire And leave the white bone, are his native right,