Dialogues of the Dead | Page 9

not me; they are the exercise of my soul; they keep it in
health and in vigour. Give me again the fields of Troy, rather than these
vacant groves. There I could reap the bright harvest of glory; here I am
hid like a coward from the eyes of mankind, and begin to appear

comtemptible in my own. The image of my former self haunts and
seems to upbraid me wheresoever I go. I meet it under the gloom of
every shade; it even intrudes itself into your presence and chides me
from your arms. O goddess, unless you have power to lay that spirit,
unless you can make me forget myself, I cannot be happy here, I shall
every day be more wretched.
Circe.--May not a wise and good man, who has spent all his youth in
active life and honourable danger, when he begins to decline, be
permitted to retire and enjoy the rest of his days in quiet and pleasure?
Ulysses.--No retreat can be honourable to a wise and good man but in
company with the muses. Here I am deprived of that sacred society.
The muses will not inhabit the abodes of voluptuousness and sensual
pleasure. How can I study or think while such a number of beasts--and
the worst beasts are men turned into beasts--are howling or roaring or
grunting all about me?
Circe.--There may be something in this, but this I know is not all. You
suppress the strongest reason that draws you to Ithaca. There is another
image besides that of your former self, which appears to you in this
island, which follows you in your walks, which more particularly
interposes itself between you and me, and chides you from my arms. It
is Penelope, Ulysses, I know it is. Don't pretend to deny it. You sigh for
Penelope in my bosom itself. And yet she is not an immortal. She is not,
as I am, endowed by Nature with the gift of unfading youth. Several
years have passed since hers has been faded. I might say, without
vanity, that in her best days she was never so handsome as I. But what
is she now?
Ulysses.--You have told me yourself, in a former conversation, when I
inquired of you about her, that she is faithful to my bed, and as fond of
me now, after twenty years' absence, as at the time when I left her to go
to Troy. I left her in the bloom of youth and beauty. How much must
her constancy have been tried since that time! How meritorious is her
fidelity! Shall I reward her with falsehood? Shall I forget my Penelope,
who can't forget me, who has no pleasure so dear to her as my
remembrance?

Circe.--Her love is preserved by the continual hope of your speedy
return. Take that hope from her. Let your companions return, and let
her know that you have fixed your abode with me, that you have fixed
it for ever. Let her know that she is free to dispose as she pleases of her
heart and her hand. Send my picture to her, bid her compare it with her
own face. If all this does not cure her of the remains of her passion, if
you don't hear of her marrying Eurymachus in a twelvemonth, I
understand nothing of womankind.
Ulysses.--O cruel goddess! why will you force me to tell you truths I
desire to conceal? If by such unmerited, such barbarous usage I could
lose her heart it would break mine. How should I be able to endure the
torment of thinking that I had wronged such a wife? What could make
me amends for her being no longer mine, for her being another's? Don't
frown, Circe, I must own--since you will have me speak--I must own
you could not. With all your pride of immortal beauty, with all your
magical charms to assist those of Nature, you are not so powerful a
charmer as she. You feel desire, and you give it, but you have never felt
love, nor can you inspire it. How can I love one who would have
degraded me into a beast? Penelope raised me into a hero. Her love
ennobled, invigorated, exalted my mind. She bid me go to the siege of
Troy, though the parting with me was worse than death to herself. She
bid me expose myself there to all the perils of war among the foremost
heroes of Greece, though her poor heart sunk and trembled at every
thought of those perils, and would have given all its own blood to save
a drop of mine. Then there was such a conformity in all our inclinations!
When Minerva was teaching me the lessons of wisdom she delighted to
be present. She heard,