 | NO. I.
THE RAPTURE OF PROSERPINE.
A RHAPSODY, FROM OVID. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches |  |
1. NO. I.
THE RAPTURE OF PROSERPINE.
A RHAPSODY, FROM OVID.
THE INFLICTION.
The thunderbolts of Jove had triumphed, and impious Typhæus
stretched his prostrate length along the groaning earth.
Glad Sicily was laid upon the conquered monster, to keep
him down; for Jupiter knew well enough there 'd be another
bloody fight, if ever he got up. Upon his hundred heads
rested alarmed old Ætna, covering all save a few long straggling
locks. The imposition of such heavy weight, of stone,
and wood, and water, bore not the vanquished foe, with dutiful
submission; bore not the inhumation, and thanked the
hand that buried him; but up against the blackened sky, ingrate,
from his rebellious bowels, belched such showers of
ashes, and clouds of smoke, mixed up with lava and lumps of
coke, that Ocean roared with fear, and Ætna's peaceful seats
reeled, and rolled, to and fro, with terror and dismay.
The God of Tartarus upstarted at the din, heard in his
house profound, all trembling, lest his roof should suddenly
be cracked, and dayling enter, and the ghosts get out, and he
be overwhelmed with suits for the escape. Up! up! thou
wary jailor! He harnessed his black steeds, into his chariot
sprang, shook the loose reins, cracked his long lash,—of cast
present,—and drove, impetuous, up to earth, to see
what in the d—l's name could be to pay.
Up to the regions of sunshine and day his coursers soon
galloped, running, with reckless leaps, their rude, rough way.
And now they stamp Trinacrian ground, and climb old ætna's
dizzy steep, and snuff the tainted air, and paw the yet warm
sulphur, wandering at will; while Pluto, far aloft, from peak
to peak springs anxious, thoughtful, surveying cracks, chasms,
and craters.
Within a bower, on Ida's side, the Cytherean goddess slept
—her cherished trysting place of old, when good Anchises
was a juvenal. The dusky form of Pluto, leaping over the
hills, threw its long shadow on the peaceful grove. The
shadow, and the form, dismal, and cold, and grim, awoke the
jealous queen, awoke to call her archer boy, with summons
quick and shrill. “Eros! my son! Cupid! fly quick!
Hither! come hither!”
Cupid was frolicking, down in a vale, busy, as usual, sticking
a pin in the breast of a captive beetle. He ran to his
mother, and buried his head in her bosom.
“If ever thou did'st love me, boy; if in thy gentle mother's
breast thou hast delight, and dreamy joy, pillowed, in
deep and balmy rest; be now my grateful Eros, my darling
avenger; our long insulted shrines are thirsting for vengeance
on Pluto's chill philosophy,—his haughty heart,—his stubborn
knee, that bends not—owns not woman, nor me;—thine
is the grace, to bring you reprobate to know, redeemed, a
Benedict's condition; to bid him at my footstool kneel, the
pangs of torturing love to feel, fearing, hoping, wishing. But
now, he treads the withering earth, secure in pride of regal
birth, and spurns the joys of woman's arms, rejects her love,
cold-hearted rip deserts for whiskey, rum, and flip, the eye,
the brow, the cheek, the lip, replete with happy heaven!
And shall we then confess, conquered, despised, our power is
less than haughty Pluto's? What! has high heaven confessed
a rape, and shall low Erebus escape, and we excuse
the duty which the brute owes! No! bring your bow and
arrows!
It was a goodly sight to see the queen of beauty, with
flushed and anxious face, hurry and help the god of love. It
was a goodly sound to hear, with voice subdued, but accents
clear, queen Venus cheer her son. “Shoot! till he feels
the glowing flame; shoot! for your mother's glorious fame;
shoot! for the honor of your name, love, and love's archery.”
“Your word is law, good mother,” said fun-loving Cupid,
unbuckling his quiver. “Your breath upon this arrow. I'll
do the business for the old bachelor in a twinkling. Speak
softly, on this barb, her name whom he shall love.”
The goddess kissed its point—the pain-and-pleasure-bearing
weapon—and smoothed its plume upon her billowy bosom.
The dart was keen, and strait, and truly balanced, and Paphia
approved it, and whispered, on its edge, the name of “Proserpine,”
and laid it in the rest.
There was a fixing, a bending, a tension, a pulling of a
bowstring, a twang, a slip, and a whiz through the air, and it
straight was all over with Pluto.
“Ha! ha! look! look! mamma, ha! ha!” Cupid laughed
heartily, seeing the arrow quivering in Pluto's heart, and
hearing him swear, “By Orcus! what a sudden stitch I've
got in my left side!” “The gentleman from Styx is stuck,”
pursued my lord of love, merry as a cricket; “the judge of
new care on his royal hands to manage.”
“Stop your nonsense, you monkey!” said Venus, hitting
the boy with her fan, “and bend your saucy knees, in love-suits
ever suppliant and successful, and wrestle with Olympus,
and move all gods to send the daughter of the wheat-and-indian
lady before his lovesick eyes? for if she be not seen,
our vengeance half is lost, and your great-uncle, there, will
soon go down to Erebus, not knowing whence or what the
pains that rack his frame.
“This cursed climate,” Pluto cried, deep sighing, to himself,
“delights not our condition; so rough, so raw, so cold,
and soon, again, so hot. I must be off, and seek in regions
more congenial, a steadier sky and heat more equable. This
long old giant here lies quietly enough, and I hope he'll not
raise such a rumpus again.—Alas! my side! my side!”
With such soliloquy, he nourished his deep wound, nor
knew the secret cause of his distress; knew not the subtle
venom that swelled his starting veins; knew not the glorious
agony from ordinary pains. His coursers feel the lash, burning
their trembling flanks. Now, onward, and away!—they
spring, they rear, they rush, bearing their sorrowful master.
And soon, before his wonder-smitten eyes, deep, dimpling,
pure, and cool, old Pergus lies, and lifts, upon his silver, crystal
wave, the songs of snowy swans, that wanton, lave their
spotless plumes, and swim, and swimming, sing, arch the
the proud neck, and curve the sounding wing. A grove, impervious,
crowns the lake, hanging above the cherished water,
and, sacred, guards with veil opaque the virgin revelry of
Ceres' daughter. There is she now, with her maidens, adjusting
her long hair, gazing into the mirror of that lake, and
humming to herself a sweet low tune. Her maidens, all
and buds, and blossoms, are mingled all together, in a confused
perplexing mass of beauty.
But O!the m istress of that troupe, how beautiful was she!
And that strange gazer on the group, how suddenly crazed
was he! Young Proserpine was flattered by Pluto's wild
confusion, and moved with more coquettish grace, and from
her eyes shot rays more brilliant, when, with half averted
head, she saw the royal stranger, bewildered by swans' songs,
and maidens' voices, rein up his coursers with a sudden
jerk, that brought them on their haunches. The dallying
breeze blew back the light transparent folds of her thin stola,
and played with her brown ringlets, and lifted up her necker-chief
from off her full deep bosom; up and down, up and
down, how heaved that beautiful bosom!
The kingly lover gazed, and drank the subtle poison;
drank and gazed, gazed and drank, and gazed and drank on
still. His parched tongue and lips refuse their usual function;
staring he sat, and dumb. So, bloodless, sits and stares, torn
from his ancient catacomb, the cold Egyptian mummy, uplifted
in his coffin, at feminine admirers at Scudder's, all
speechless, and dried up. His reins are on the grass, his
hands hang at his side, his eyes are dimmed and dark, his
mouth is stretched wide open, his head droops on his shoulder.
Strange languor o'ercomes him, fierce weakness consumes
him,—he wishes he was in Hell.
THE ABDUCTION.
Proserpine! Proserpine! hold! beware! temptation may
be too tempting! She little heeds the warning which Prudence,
in her ears, whispers and urges; but cheek, and eye,
up her flowers, and presses them closely together, and binds
them with the ends of her long flowing hair. And often, as
she binds them, she looks, with half shut eye, through the
meshes of her locks; and through her long, dark eyelashes,
the beams of a mellow dreamy eye, fall, broken, upon Pluto.
So, moonlight rays, through intertwining trees, sprinkle the
leafy ground, in yellow autumn. And now she scatters them
to the winds, and claps her empty hands, bending her bare
white arms; and now she gathers the woodrose gay, and
snatches the pale lily, and winds them with a willow wreath,
and presses them, all trembling, against her leaping heart,
and fawn-like, startled, flies, but archly she looks back and
peals in Pluto's ear a merry laugh. Her maidens, delighted,
encourage the flirtation, rejoicing in the grace and beauty of
their mistress.
His majesty looked like a natural fool, while loud the
echoed joy rang through the sacred grove. “I am seduced,”
thought he, “from principle and promise; from all my vows
of single blessedness; from my course of life, and love of
business! alas! I am seduced! She must go down to Erebus
with me, for certain.”
“Will you accept a violet, sir?” said Proserpine, O, how
meekly! and curtesying with well-put-on solemnity, as
she stood by the chariot, and lifting up the flower, exposed
her upturned throat, and deep, full, swelling bust, to Pluto's
glowing gaze. “Will you accept a violet, good sir?”
“Violate?” gasped the king of night, not knowing what
he said. “Yes, yes, my angel, yes, jump in;” and Pluto's
iron arm was on the maiden's cestus, and into the chariot
lifted her.
Away!—away!—What voice is that, shaking the trembling
is that, so long, so loud, so bitter? What goddess pleads
so piteously, and who is deaf to her prayer? Ye maidens
at Pergus, say, why do ye weep, beating your breasts, and
tearing your hair! Where, where is your mistress?
Lost Proserpina's shrieks no gentle pity moved in her
immortal ravisher. Upon his coursers' necks, abandoned,
lie the reins, for both his hands are needed, the maiden's cries
to stifle, and bind her active arms down, and keep her in
the chariot. The steeds dash on the accustomed way,
o'er hill and dale, swamp and marsh, “rocks, caves, lakes,
fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death,” the dreary road to
Tartarus.
“Oh! mother! mother! goddess Ceres!” besought the
struggling girl; “save your unhappy daughter.”
“Be quiet, love, you shall be queen of Hell, my bride, my
wife,” said Pluto, bending upon one knee, and still, with
equal zeal, encouraging his horses, each by name;—“To
reign is worth ambition, though in Hell; `better to reign in
Hell, than serve in Heaven,' ” pursued the seducer, quoting
his old friend Orpheus. “People may talk of the need of a
minister, Hymen, or flamen, to sanction a match, but believe
me, the doctrine's suspicious and sinister. A license to
marry? It is a mere catch—it's all in my eye—and so
says Fanny Wright—nay, Proserpine, I prithee, do not cry
so bitterly; these tears fall worse than idly.”
Tears, promises, and prayers, threats, flattery, and protestations—how
mingled all, and all how vain! The raptured
bride no consolation knew, for being made a queen against her
virgin will—none but the old man's wealth and extensive dominion—what
goddess or woman was ever so foolish but that
she would listen to reason?
“O! what a horrid beard!” said Proserpine, quite faintly
—“and then—your breath is so sulphureous,”—
“Fear not, my dearest, Saunders has just new honed my
razors—* * * * *—and then your majesty may rest assured,
there is no better seidlitz in the world than a good
draught of Lethe.”
But now they reached the realms of modest Cyane, cool,
chaste, immaculate nymph; the coursers' heated hoofs hiss
in her sacred fountain. An ancient nymph was she, of puritan
extraction, a rigid methodist, and censor stern of fleshly
weaknesses. Three thousand years had rolled over her virgin
head, yet had no wanton lip tasted her withered cheek.
Up, from the parting waves, ascended the cold nymph, and
chilled the raging team with sudden frost. The chariot stood
still.
“Who bars our way?” cried the imperial lover—“and stays
our happy nuptials?”
“'T is I forbid the banns,” said the lady of the lake, putting
her arms akimbo. “Have you never yet heard of an action
per quod, for running away with a woman? By G—d! This
is too much, a veteran monarch like you, not waiting to ask
for permission to sue, leaving old ætna, and steering for
Gretna, you, surely, are crazy, or else you are blue. Ah! my
poor girl, I pity your unhappy—”
“Pray, mind your own business, good madam,” said Proserpine,
sharply, but hiding her face with her hands.
The king of Orcus waited for no more, hearing with grim
delight the words of spite and passion blended. Upon the
yielding earth, with fierce and violent strength, he smote his
whipstock. Straightway there lay disclosed, precipitous, but
smooth, a turnpike new macadamised, leading down to the
kingdom. The adamantine gates shone dimly through the
welcome sound, fell the accustomed bark of trusty Cerberus.
“We'll soon be home, my love.”
“O! whither do you bear me? stay! curb your rushing
steeds! How dark!—stay!—stay!—I faint!—the air!—release
me!—in pity let me go!—let me go home to my
mother!”—
“Not to-night, Proserpine, not to-night.”
“When, when, in mercy—when?” shrieked the lost penitent.
“Never, Proserpine, never.”
THE INTRODUCTION.
“Infernal world, and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor,”
said the happy Pluto, bowing reverentially, as he drove through
the everlasting portals. “Down Cerberus, down. I give you
welcome, Proserpine, and joy, in your new dominion—back,
you bloody three mouthed cur—droop not, my gentle queen,
you will soon become accustomed to the change of air—we
are populous here, you see, but not crowded. This is the
Styx, and that little murmuring stream on the right, is Acheron.
The people down the river to the left, are ghosts waiting to
cross the ferry; but we, you perceive, dash right ahead,
through fire and water, without stopping for the boat. Here
we are in Tartarus proper. The individuals you see engaged
in different employments, are all persons of the highest consideration—I'll
soon introduce you—you'll be delighted—ah!
allow me to present to you Mr. Tantalus, the president of our
infernal Temperance Society—a very abstemious, self-denying
gentleman—drinks nothing—Mr. Tantalus, the queen of Orcus—you
the Misses Danaides—daughters of a king, my dear, and
eminent collaborators with Tantalus, in the liquid cause—deep
in the science of water power—Ladies, our new queen will
give out cards for a ball, as soon as she is rested from her
journey. Lord Sysiphus, my love—a great mineralogist.
Hippodamia, we must tax thy dutiful loyalty to set down that
water pitcher, and do us a few errands. Let our people hear
the news, and share their sovereign's joy. First see chief justice
Minos, and desire him to hasten to the palace to draw a
marriage settlement—carry Mr. Tantalus a bottle of hock—
tell him, I say he must drink it—set Ixion's wheel turning the
other way—drive the vultures from off old Tityus, and tell all
the souls to rest themselves and be happy; this is our royal
wedding-day, and our bridal shall be a jubilee, by the Styx!
Smack, went the whip, and on dashed the royal vehicle,
burning the tracks of its rapid course in lines of vivid lightning.
THE SUBMISSION.
Within an iron chamber, deep in the sombre palace, were
crouching three old women, sitting and spinning, sad, solemn,
sullen, sulky, scandalous. The threads those women spun,
were of no earthly texture; the hands that held that distaff,
were of no terrene mould, no mortal fingers they that shut
those bright edged scissors, opened and shut, and cut the
fated thread of human life. Mournfully, mysteriously, went
round your magic wheel, ye priestesses of Destiny, when Hell
received your mistress, rival, and queen. Why should gangrenous
jealousy corrupt the eternal Parcæ? Why pales their
sinking cheek, why fades their ancient eye, why falls their
proofs of recent lack of combs, and clean rain water!
Proserpine sleeps on Pluto's neck, and Erebus rejoices.
Now haste, the bridal bed bedeck, ye ghosts lift up your
voices; fill high with vinum Samium, and swell the glad
Epithalamium.
High on a throne, which carpenters far famed, on earth, of
yore, but now mechanic ghosts, had temporary raised upon a
hill, covered with carpets, Brussels and Ingrain, Pluto exalted
sat; by twelve steps raised to that good eminence; and,
from his seat, the summoned myriads of his realm surveyed,
Tartarean and Elysian. By his side, queenly, his bride sat
wondering at the shades, jostling, and for good places cager
pressing. As, when from senior's pews, the silken gowned
step glorious, and o'erspread the covered stage, on glad commencement-day—day
of relief from board with circles chalked,
and conic sections—solemn, grave Præses sits, and Latin
talks, and morals; in the body of the church, sound fans
incessant, beating the hot air; while youth, ingenuous, plies
the elbow.
The monarch, by the sight uplifted, slowly rose, and murmuring
plaudits rumbled through the crowd as he began to
speak. “Spirits and ghosts, our subjects dutiful”—but here,
a sudden clap of interposing thunder stopped the begun infliction,
announcing unexpectedly, a messenger from Jove.
Mercury knelt at the feet of the king, and handed him a letter.
Pale Proserpine trembled, while Pluto, muttering, broke
the seal, and swore, in a low tone—and loud Alecto laughed,
shaking her tied up snakes,—tied with white ribbons, for
the bridal—as o'er his royal shoulder, bending joyous, she
read the following epistle.
THE SUBMISSION.
“This a cursed bad business of yours about Proserpine.
Ceres is raising the very Old Nick, up here, and we shall
have no quiet until you let the girl go. I have had to promise
the old woman, that if her daughter has not eaten, since
you have had her,—you know what that means—you shall give
her up entirely, but if she has tasted food on your premises,
that—then—then she shall divide her time, half yearly, between
you and her mother. Come, now, that's an equitable
decision—don't appeal, you shall have the first six months,
my boy—
THE SUBMISSION.
“P. S. Send me a box of good pocket matches—I'm quite
out—how are you off for nectar? J.”
“She has eaten, she has eaten,” blabbed mean Ascalaphus,
young grey-eyed imp, delighted at the chance to do his master
service. “She has eaten, she has eaten, within the
Elysian fields; in the shadow of an arbor I was sitting,
when the queen, on her tiptoe stretching up, plucked a nectarine,
and ate it!”
Another peal of thunder! The snakes upon the heads of
the furies hissed and grinned, and Mercury flew back to heaven.
| NO. I.
THE RAPTURE OF PROSERPINE.
A RHAPSODY, FROM OVID. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches | |