These things, Ulysses, The wise bards also Behold and sing. But oh, what labour! 210 O prince, what pain!
They too can see Tiresias;--but the Gods, Who give them vision, Added this law: 215 That they should bear too His groping blindness, His dark foreboding, His scorn'd white hairs; Bear Hera's anger° °220 Through a life lengthen'd To seven ages.
They see the Centaurs On Pelion;--then they feel, They too, the maddening wine 225 Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain They feel the biting spears Of the grim Lapithæ,° and Theseus,° drive, °228 Drive crashing through their bones°; they feel °229 High on a jutting rock in the red stream 230 Alcmena's dreadful son° °231 Ply his bow;--such a price The Gods exact for song: To become what we sing.
They see the Indian 235 On his mountain lake; but squalls Make their skiff reel, and worms In the unkind spring have gnawn Their melon-harvest to the heart.--They see The Scythian; but long frosts 240 Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp, Till they too fade like grass; they crawl Like shadows forth in spring.
They see the merchants On the Oxus stream°;--but care °245 Must visit first them too, and make them pale. Whether, through whirling sand, A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, In the wall'd cities the way passes through, 250 Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs, On some great river's marge, Mown them down, far from home.
They see the Heroes° °254 Near harbour;--but they share 255 Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes, Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy°; °257 Or where the echoing oars Of Argo first Startled the unknown sea.° °260
The old Silenus° °261 Came, lolling in the sunshine, From the dewy forest-coverts, This way, at noon. Sitting by me, while his Fauns 265 Down at the water-side Sprinkled and smoothed His drooping garland, He told me these things.
But I, Ulysses, 270 Sitting on the warm steps, Looking over the valley, All day long, have seen, Without pain, without labour, Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mænad°-- °275 Sometimes a Faun with torches°-- °276 And sometimes, for a moment, Passing through the dark stems Flowing-robed, the beloved, The desired, the divine, 280 Beloved Iacchus.