Susa literatura - Poesia kaiera

And then went down to the ship, / Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly seas, and / We set up mast and sail on that swart ship, / Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also / Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward / Bore us out onward with bellying canvas, / Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. / Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller, / Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end. / Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean, / Came we then to the bounds of deepest water, / To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities / Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever / With glitter of sun-rays / Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven / Swartest night stretched over wretched men there. / The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place / Aforesaid by Circe. / Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus, / And drawing sword from my hip / I dug the ell-square pitkin; / Poured we libations unto each the dead, / First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour. / Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads; / As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best / For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods, / A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep. / Dark blood flowed in the fosse, / Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides / Of youths and of the old who had borne much; / Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender, / Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads, / Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms, / These many crowded about me; with shouting, / Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts; / Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze; / Poured ointment, cried to the gods, / To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine; / Unsheathed the narrow sword, / I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead, / Till I should hear Tiresias. / But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor, / Unburied, cast on the wide earth, / Limbs that we left in the house of Circe, / Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other. / Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech: / “Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast? / “Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?” / And he in heavy speech: / “Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe’s ingle. / “Going down the long ladder unguarded, / “I fell against the buttress, / “Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus. / “But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied, / “Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed: / “A man of no fortune, and with a name to come. / “And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.” // And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban, / Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first: / “A second time? why? man of ill star, / “Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region? / “Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever / “For soothsay.” // And I stepped back, / And he strong with the blood, said then: “Odysseus / “Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas, / “Lose all companions.” And then Anticlea came. / Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus, / In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer. / And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away / And unto Circe. // Venerandam, / In the Cretan’s phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite, / Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, orichalchi, with golden / Girdles and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids / Bearing the golden bough of Argicida. So that: