Chapter V

The lord, that wields the humid trident, heardApollo's prayers, and listened to his cries,With tender bosom and a kind regard.

He slyly winked, and made the waves to riseBy dint of foot, and ere the poets knew,They reared their curling crests to kiss the skies;

And then, by secret paths and out of view,He burrowed 'neath the ship, where, uncontrolled,He better might his wicked plans pursue.

He struck his trident right into its hold,And, through the wound, into its vacant wombA rushing, roaring, briny current rolled.

A panic rose: and through the air did boomOf fear and pain a multitudinous cry,Which sprung from thousand lips that wailed their doom.

The luckless barque sinks slowly from the eye,Into the bosom of the hoary main,Wherein so many souls sepulchred lie;

Up to the heavens rise the moanings vainOf these poor wretches as they shriek aloud,To see their end so certain and so plain;

They clamber up by rigging and by shroud,They seek the top-most point with desperate strife,And cling together in a seething crowd;

The flutter and the fear with horror rifeConfound their senses, as they vent the whim:"How great the leap from this to t'other life!"

But close and closer comes the peril grim;And some, determined further out to spinTheir dying, make a bold resolve to swim;

Into the sea they jump, to frogs akin,Which make from bank to pond a jerking bound,When fear assails them or some horrid din;

They cleave the waves and cast the foam around,They ply their legs and arms with effort sore,Though feeble these, and those in no wise sound;

And as they toil, on to the wished-for shoreTheir straining eyes with eager longing pass,Fain would they give it thousand hugs and more.

Full well I know that this doomed crew, alas!Had they the chance, with bounding joy would hasteTo tread again Sevilla's famed Compas!

For drowning, certes, doth not suit their taste,In this their great discretion may be seen,But all in vain their waning strength they waste.

For now the briny Sire his rigour keenWill show, and in his car, in state arrayed,He shows his fiery face, and threatening mien;

Four Dolphins, each the lustiest of their grade,With cords of sea-weed spun with cunning art,Drag it along with fierce fanfarronade;

The nymphs within their humid alcoves start,O vengeful Sea-god, when they feel thine ire,Pale grow their ruddy cheeks beneath thy smart!

The swimming poet, who with keen desireWould plant his foot on the forbidden shore,Pants all in vain, and spends his flickering fire;

For on the trident's points, full sharp and sore—A homicidal weapon then, I ween—He ends his short career, and swims no more.

Hast ever watched an urchin, brisk and keen,Himself o'ertopping in his greedy glow—More apt comparison hath never been—

Spike in his cap the grape-pips all a-row,Which honest find or filching placed therein,With point of needle, or hair-pin, or so?

With no less pleasure, no less lusty din,Did Neptune spit the poets in his hate,With shameless gusto, and a dubious grin.

Upon a crystal car he sat in state,With flowing beard, all crisp with shells marine,While two fat lampreys crowned his ample pate:

Amongst his locks there nestled all sereneThe muscle, limpet, crab and polypus,Just as on reef or rock they may be seen;

He was of old aspect and ponderous,With robes of green, and blue, and silvery white,And seemed robust withal, and vigorous;

Being irate, his visage to the sightAppeared a swarthy black, for rage indeed,That fires the reason, turns the colour quite.

Against the stoutest swimmers doth he speed,And, as he passes, ploughs them down in ire,And counts as glory such a coward deed.

Now doth a new and wondrous thing transpire,Most worthy to be sung with great parade,And to the music of Torquato's lyre!

Till now have I no invocation made,But here, O Muses, I invoke your grace,The lofty theme I touch demands your aid;

Unlock and ope your richest treasure-case,Clothe me with strength for this event so rare,Not mean, nor vulgar, nay, nor common-place.

The clouds are rent, and, poising in the air,From heaven descends, unhindered on the way,The Venus Acidalia, wondrous fair!

She comes arrayed in dress of sack-cloth grey,A goodly gown that wrapped her o'er and o'er,And fair and square, as people quaintly say;

Mourning which she for her Adonis wore,What time his groin received the slanting blowFrom the huge tusk of that most savage boar:

Had but the stripling bearded been, I know,That tusky one had thrust at him in vain,Nor ta'en his life, nor laid his beauty low!

O youth, of greater hardihood than brain,Why, shunning counsel, didst thy fate pursue,Courting a risk so monstrous and insane?

Now came the softest doves that ever flew,Guiding the chariot of that goddess blest,By plain and steep across the ocean blue;

They hurried hither, thither, without rest,Until they met with Neptune on the main,The wished-for object of their eager quest.

The immortals, as they met, to greet were fain,And making their salaams in Moorish way,Expressed their joy at meeting once again;

With royal gravity their part they play,And at this point the Cyprian had a mindThe cream of all her beauty to display;

She spread her ample skirts before, behind,And with her twinkling toes gave kicks outrightAt the rapt god, who saw them and grew blind.

A certain poet, DON QUINCOCES hight,Was swimming half-alive amid the brine,Sputtering out groans, not words, with all his might;

At length he said with stuttering speech and whine:"O lady, thou of Paphos, and of twoMore islands still, becrowned with fame divine!

My cramped condition now with pity viewIn hand and foot, for see I sink forlornAnd drown in floods the Karaaf never knew;

Here shall my pyre be lit; here, to my scorn,QUINCOCES shall lie buried in the main,Who had a pedagogue when he was born!"

So said the hapless one; and not in vainThe goddess listened to his tale complete,As she arranged her much disordered train;

And presently she started to her feet,And, glancing at the victim of the rod,She cleared her throat to make her voice more sweet;

And with a certain supercilious nod,Irate, and grave, and gracious all in one,She said what much perplexed the humid god:

And though her arguments were not long-spun,She yet contrived to bring before his mindWhat god he was, whose brother and whose son!

"What glory," quoth she, "dost thou hope to findIn cruel triumphs, of so little weight,Over these wretches, feeblest of their kind!"

"Had not the Fates," he said, "with changeless hatePronounced a fatal sentence on this band,Whose ignorance is fixed and obstinate,

A single thread held by thy gentle hand,Linking me, fairest lady, unto thee,Might curb my ruthlessness and make it bland!

But now it cannot; for the hour I see,When this soft hand of mine must show againHow masterful and cruel it can be!

For hundred thousand times, in savage strain,Have these bold rhymesters sang most spitefully:Lashing the waters of the hoary main!

"Nor lashed, nor hoary, dost thou seem to me!"Responded Venus, and to her he said:"Though deep in love, yet bland I must not be;

For with such menace doth the star of dreadHang o'er these wretches, that I cannot doThy bidding now, nor please thee on this head;

What the Fates will thou know'st I must pursue,Nor swerve one jot, so, please thee or displease,They must succumb and that right quickly too!"

"Thou shalt succumb thyself, ere thou make these!"Rejoined milady with no small disdain,Who of so many hearts holds gate and keys,

"For though ferocious Fate their death ordain,The manner of it doth not rest with you,For Death itself doth many deaths contain!"

On this the sullen waters restless grew,Afresh the tempest gathered in the sky,And wild and wilder still the strong winds blew;

The hungry crew, not thirsty then, trow I,Cowered as the hurricane came o'er the scene,And to be rid of pain were glad to die.

O rare event, till now nor heard nor seen!O new invention, dreamed not of before,The work of her whom Gnidus hails as queen!

For in a trice the sea seemed curdled o'erWith pumpkins, some as stout as stout could be,That had a girth of twenty feet or more;

And bladders too went floating jauntilyAbout, of every fancied form and size,Breasting the white foam of the curling sea;

These were the poor weak poets in disguise,Transmuted then by Venus, in such phaseThat Neptune might not drown them by surprise.

In wrath to Phœbus for his shafts he prays,That he, with cunning shots and stealthy too,Might frustrate Venus and her tricksome ways.

Phœbus declines; and now the old one view,How with his trident, sailing round and round,He tries to prick and pierce them through and through;

But this recoiled, and that felt not the wound,But with a sidling motion sought the shore;Gods! how the wrathful ancient fumed and frowned!

Now woke up Boreas with a furious roar,And drove before his blast that rabble rough,That seemed like squeaking brood of bristly boar.

The art-devoted goddess cried: Enough!Begged he would spare the poets zaraband,The jaunty ones, those of the starch and ruff,

The gay, the tender, honied and the bland,Those who, because they cannot well agree,Split up at times, and combat band with band!

The winds of every quarter join with gleeTo grant the lovely plaintiff her request,And with a single breath calm down the sea;

Which bears the grunting herd upon its breast,In shape of pumpkins and of bladders light,On to the distant kingdoms of the west.

Of this sweet seed, whose fortunes I recite,Spain, of a truth, hath such an ample storeThat she thereby is known and gives delight;

For though in arms and letters fertile moreThan any other province of the earth,To this in part she owes her tuneful lore.

Since that great transformation which had birthIn Heaven, or Venus, or some source akin—A nice exactness here has little worth—

I never see a pumpkin, stout or thin,But I imagine some poetic wightLies curled up, cabined, cribbed, confined within;

Then when I see a bladder, to what height,O fancy, dost thou soar, how dost thou flout,Becoming, sooth to say, a wanton light!

For in its mouthlet, puckered all about,I seem to see loom out some poet's face,Transformed into that figure ill-blown out!

And when I meet some poet of the place,A so-called honoured, solid one, say I,A rhymester trimly clad, and shod with grace,

It seems to me a bladder I espy,Or else a pumpkin, and I feel inclined' Mid these conflicting thoughts, to faint and die!

Say am I too acute, or am I blind,These pumpkins, bladders, poets to arrayAs natural products of the self-same kind?

The low-bred kites, that on the lizards prey,Must not expect to share the lofty prizeWith the free falcons, soaring as they may!

Apollo's griefs now settled in this wise,The weakly poets, saved from watery graves,Changed into vain and hollow mockeries,

The winds now hushed, and peaceful all the waves,Neptune plunged down, with discontented mind,And sought a refuge in his crystal caves.

The soft sweet doves took wing before the wind,And o'er the silvery sea did Venus glide,And reached her kingdom, leaving care behind.

And as a proof her triumph gave her pride,—What up till now she had declined to do—She straightway put her mourning gown aside;

And shone in Nature's garb so bright of hue,That Mars, as afterwards it came to light,Pursued her all that day, and other two.

All of which time the squadron stood in sight,Gazing upon the fatal wreckage there,Which left that vulgar mob transmuted quite;

And when Apollo saw the sea was bareOf these unwelcome allies, far and near,He made resolve to end the grand affair.

But hark! a rumbling sound strikes on the ear,Whereat the crowd is moved like troubled wave,And keep their ears erect, and vision clear!

It was a splendid chariot that gaveSuch clattering noise, wherein there sat in stateLORENZO DE MENDOZA, wise and grave;

Attended by his happy wit and great,Adorned with worth and courtesy refined,Most precious jewels, and of sterling weight.

Within another coach there rode behindJUAN DE REJAULE, that Valencian brigA poet he, and bulwark of his kind;

JUAN DE SOLIS was seated at his right,A generous youth with rare wit at his call,And in his tender years a shining light;

That famous Doctor, JUAN DE CARVAJAL,Made up the third; though ponderous his weightThey lessened not their eager speed at all;

For neither hillock small nor mountain greatCould check the wit divine or valour spoilOf those brave three who in the carriage sate;

They pass the topmost ridge with winged toil,They cleave the clouds, they almost touch the sky,And press with joyful feet the famous soil.

With like distinguished zeal, and earnest eye,BARTOLOMÉ DE MOLA climbs the height,While GABRIEL LASO with his friend doth vie.

Then Don DIEGO, he DE SILVA hight,Upon Parnassus' summit lighteth down,And pays it honour with supreme delight;

Before whose wit and unsurpassed renownEach science bends, and gives him homage fine,And decks his brow with more than mortal crown.

The shadows lengthen as the hours decline,And, peeping through the sable cloak of night,The twinkling stars with heightened lustre shine;

The squadron, that had been on foot since light,Sunk on the ground to sleep, as best they knew,Hungry and thirsty and exhausted quite.

Apollo then, whose light to nothing grew,To realms Antipodean gave a bound,To follow there his fated course anew;

But ere he parted he took leave profoundOf the five titled poets who were there,And begged dismissal on most urgent ground;

For only smiles, and jests, and laughter rareDid such emprises kindle in their soul,And so Apollo stooped to grant their prayer;

For Daphne's gallant is unique and soleIn all the points of courtesy refined,And reigns supreme therein from pole to pole.

Forth from the murky cave of horrors blindCame languid Morpheus, sprinkler in his hand,Wherewith he drugs the senses of mankind;

And with the liquor of Lethean land,Which from the fountain of Oblivion flows,He bathed the eyelids of the wearied band.

The very hungriest sank to sound repose:Hunger and sleep, two things repugnant quite,A privilege the poet only knows.

At length I slept, and like a log, that night,And of a thousand curious things did dream,Which here I pledge mine honour to recite,

However strange or difficult they seem.