University of Virginia Library

From old and leasing spells right easily
Can I to thee tell out a tale like that
Whereof we lately spake.—It chanced of yore
That, on a time, Ulysses held two kingdoms
Under his Cæsar: he was prince of Thrace,
And ruled Neritia as its shepherd king.
His head-lord's folk-known name was Agamemnon
Who wielded all the greatness of the Greeks.
At that time did betide the Trojan war
Under the clouds well known: the warrior chief,
Lord of the Greeks, went forth to seek the battle.
Ulysses with him led an hundred ships
Over the sea, and sat ten winters there.
When the time happen'd that this Grecian lord
With his brave peers had overthrown that kingdom
The dear-bought burgh of Troy,—Ulysses then
The king of Thracia, when his lord gave leave
That he might hie him thence, he left behind
Of all his horn'd sea-keels ninety and nine.
Thence, none of those sea horses, saving one,
Travell'd with foamy sides the fearful sea;
Save one, a keel with threefold banks of oars,
Greatest of Grecian ships. Then was cold weather,
A gathering of stark storms; against each other
Stunn'd the brown billows, and out-drove afar
On the Mid-winding sea the shoal of warriors,
Up to that island, where, unnumbered days,
The daughter of Apollo wont to dwell.

This same Apollo was of highborn kin,
Offspring of Jove, who was a king of yore.
He schemed so, as to seem to every one,
Little and great, that he must be a God,
Highest and holiest! So the silly folk
This lord did lead thro' lying ways, until
An untold flock of men believed in him:
For that he was with right the kingdom's chief
And of their kingly kin. Well is it known
That in those times each people held its lord
As for the God most high, and worshipp'd him
For King of Glory,—if with right of rule
He to the kingdom of his rule was born.
The father of this Jove was also a God,
Even as he: him the sea-dwellers call
Saturn: the sons of men counted these kin
One after other as the Ever Good!
Thus also would Apollo's highborn daughter
Be held a goddess by the senseless folk,
Known for her druid-craft, and witcheries.
Most of all other men she followed lies.
And this king's-daughter, Circe was she hight,
Circe for Church, as having many with her.
She ruled this isle, whereto the Thracian king
Ulysses, with one ship, happened to sail.
Soon was it known, to all the many there
That dwelt with her, the coming of the prince;
She without measure loved this sailor-chief,
And he alike with all his soul loved her,
So that he knew not any love more deep
Even of home, than as he loved this maiden;
But lived with her for wife long afterward;
Until not one of all his thanes would stay,
But, full of anguish for their country's love,
They meant to leave behind their well loved lord.
Then on the men she 'gan to work her spells;
They said, she should by those her sorceries
Make the men prone like beasts: and savagely
Into the bodies of wild beasts she warp'd
By baleful craft the followers of the King.
Then did she tie them up, and bind with chains.
Some were as wolves; and might not then bring forth
A word of speech; but now and then would howl.
Some were as boars; and grunted ever and aye,
When they should sigh a whit for sorest grief.
They that were lions, loathly would begin
To roar with rage when they would call their comrades.
The knights, both old and young, into some beast
Were chang'd as each aforetime was most like
In his life's day: but only not the king,
Whom the queen loved: the others, none would bite
The meat of men, but loved the haunt of beasts,
As was ill fitting; they to men earth-dwellers
Had no more likeness left than their own thought.
Each still had his own mind, tho' straitly bound
With sorrow for the toils that him beset.
For e'en the foolish men who long believed
Thro' leasing spells in all this druidcraft,
Knew natheless that no man might change the wit,
Or mind, by such bad craft: tho' they might make
That for long while the bodies should be changed.

Wonderful is that great and mighty art
Of every mind above the mean dull body.
By such and such things thou mayest clearly know
That from the mind come one by one to each
And every man his body's lusts and powers.
Easily mayst thou see that every man
Is by his wickedness of mind more harm'd
Than by the weakness of his failing hody.
Nor need a man ween ever such weird-chance,
As that the wearisome and wicked flesh
Could change to it the mind of any man,
But the bad lusts of each mind, and the thought
Of each man, lead his body where they will.