Book 10
nor he who rules the lower world deny
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the prayer of Orpheus; so they called to them
Eurydice, who still was held among
the new-arriving shades, and she obeyed
the call by walking to them with slow steps,
yet halting from her wound. So Orpheus then
received his wife; and Pluto told him he
might now ascend from these Avernian vales
up to the light, with his Eurydice;
but, if he turned his eyes to look at her,
the gift of her delivery would be lost.
They picked their way in silence up a steep
and gloomy path of darkness. There remained
but little more to climb till they would touch
earth's surface, when in fear he might again
lose her, and anxious for another look
at her, he turned his eyes so he could gaze
upon her. Instantly she slipped away.
He stretched out to her his despairing arms,
eager to rescue her, or feel her form,
but could hold nothing save the yielding air.
Dying the second time, she could not say
a word of censure of her husband's fault;
what had she to complain of — his great love?
Her last word spoken was, “Farewell!” which he
could barely hear, and with no further sound
she fell from him again to Hades.—Struck
quite senseless by this double death of his
dear wife, he was as fixed from motion as
the frightened one who saw the triple necks
of Cerberus, that dog whose middle neck
was chained. The sight filled him with terror he
had no escape from, until petrified
to stone; or like Olenos, changed to stone,
because he fastened on himself the guilt
of his wife. O unfortunate Lethaea!
Too boastful of your beauty, you and he,
united once in love, are now two stones
upon the mountain Ida, moist with springs.
Orpheus implored in vain the ferryman
