Читать книгу The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase - John Gay - Страница 30

Lost in the gloomy horror of the night,

We struck upon the coast where Ætna lies,

Horrid and waste, its entrails fraught with fire,

That now casts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds,

Vast showers of ashes hovering in the smoke;

Now belches molten stones and ruddy flame,

Incensed, or tears up mountains by the roots,

Or slings a broken rock aloft in air.

The bottom works with smothered fire involved

In pestilential vapours, stench, and smoke.

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'Tis said, that thunder-struck Enceladus

Groveling beneath the incumbent mountain's weight,

Lies stretched supine, eternal prey of flames;

And, when he heaves against the burning load,

Reluctant, to invert his broiling limbs,

A sudden earthquake shoots through all the isle,

And Ætna thunders dreadful under-ground,

Then pours out smoke in wreathing curls convolved,

And shades the sun's bright orb, and blots out day.

Here in the shelter of the woods we lodged,

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And frighted heard strange sounds and dismal yells,

Nor saw from whence they came; for all the night

A murky storm deep lowering o'er our heads

Hung imminent, that with impervious gloom

Opposed itself to Cynthia's silver ray,

And shaded all beneath. But now the sun

With orient beams had chased the dewy night

From earth and heaven; all nature stood disclosed:

When, looking on the neighbouring woods, we saw

The ghastly visage of a man unknown,

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An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;

Affliction's foul and terrible dismay

Sat in his looks, his face, impaired and worn

With marks of famine, speaking sore distress;

His locks were tangled, and his shaggy beard

Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.

He first advanced in haste; but, when he saw

Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career

Stopp'd short, he back recoiled as one surprised:

But soon recovering speed he ran, he flew

Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries

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Our ears assailed: 'By heaven's eternal fires,

By every god that sits enthroned on high,

By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn,

And bear me hence to any distant shore,

So I may shun this savage race accursed.

'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late

With sword and fire o'erturned Neptunian Troy

And laid the labours of the gods in dust;

For which, if so the sad offence deserves,

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Plunged in the deep, for ever let me lie

Whelmed under seas; if death must be my doom,

Let man inflict it, and I die well-pleased.'

He ended here, and now profuse to tears

In suppliant mood fell prostrate at our feet:

We bade him speak from whence and what he was,

And how by stress of fortune sunk thus low;

Anchises too, with friendly aspect mild,

Gave him his hand, sure pledge of amity;

When, thus encouraged, he began his tale.

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'I'm one,' says he, 'of poor descent; my name

Is Achæmenides, my country Greece;

Ulysses' sad compeer, who, whilst he fled

The raging Cyclops, left me here behind,

Disconsolate, forlorn; within the cave

He left me, giant Polypheme's dark cave;

A dungeon wide and horrible, the walls

On all sides furred with mouldy damps, and hung

With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs,

His dire repast: himself of mighty size,

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Hoarse in his voice, and in his visage grim,

Intractable, that riots on the flesh

Of mortal men, and swills the vital blood.

Him did I see snatch up with horrid grasp

Two sprawling Greeks, in either hand a man;

I saw him when with huge, tempestuous sway

He dashed and broke them on the grundsil edge;

The pavement swam in blood, the walls around

Were spattered o'er with brains. He lapp'd the blood,

And chewed the tender flesh still warm with life,

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That swelled and heaved itself amidst his teeth

As sensible of pain. Not less meanwhile

Our chief, incensed and studious of revenge,

Plots his destruction, which he thus effects.

The giant, gorged with flesh, and wine, and blood,

Lay stretched at length and snoring in his den,

Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'ercharged

With purple wine and cruddled gore confused.

We gathered round, and to his single eye,

The single eye that in his forehead glared

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Like a full moon, or a broad burnished shield,

A forky staff we dexterously applied,

Which, in the spacious socket turning round,

Scooped out the big round jelly from its orb.

But let me not thus interpose delays;

Fly, mortals, fly this cursed, detested race:

A hundred of the same stupendous size,

A hundred Cyclops live among the hills,

Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along

With horrid strides o'er the high mountains' tops,

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Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard

Their voice and tread, oft seen them as they passed,

Sculking and cowering down, half dead with fear.

Thrice has the moon washed all her orb in light,

Thrice travelled o'er, in her obscure sojourn,

The realms of night inglorious, since I've lived

Amidst these woods, gleaning from thorns and shrubs

A wretched sustenance.' As thus he spoke,

We saw descending from a neighbouring hill

Blind Polypheme; by weary steps and slow

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The groping giant with a trunk of pine

Explored his way; around, his woolly flocks

Attended grazing; to the well-known shore

He bent his course, and on the margin stood,

A hideous monster, terrible, deformed;

Full in the midst of his high front there gaped

The spacious hollow where his eye-ball rolled,

A ghastly orifice: he rinsed the wound,

And washed away the strings and clotted blood

That caked within; then, stalking through the deep,

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He fords the ocean, while the topmost wave

Scarce reaches up his middle side; we stood

Amazed, be sure; a sudden horror chill

Ran through each nerve, and thrilled in every vein,

Till, using all the force of winds and oars,

We sped away; he heard us in our course,

And with his outstretched arms around him groped,

But finding nought within his reach, he raised

Such hideous shouts that all the ocean shook.

Even Italy, though many a league remote,

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In distant echoes answered; Ætna roared,

Through all its inmost winding caverns roared.

Roused with the sound, the mighty family

Of one-eyed brothers hasten to the shore,

And gather round the bellowing Polypheme,

A dire assembly: we with eager haste

Work every one, and from afar behold

A host of giants covering all the shore.

So stands a forest tall of mountain oaks

Advanced to mighty growth: the traveller

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Hears from the humble valley where he rides

The hollow murmurs of the winds that blow

Amidst the boughs, and at the distance sees

The shady tops of trees unnumbered rise,

A stately prospect, waving in the clouds.