Shall taste the blood, that shade will tell thee truth;
The rest, prohibited, will all retire.
When thus the spirit of the royal Seer
Had his prophetic mind reveal'd, again 180
He enter'd Pluto's gates; but I unmoved
Still waited till my mother's shade approach'd;
She drank the blood, then knew me, and in words
Wing'd with affection, plaintive, thus began.
My son! how hast thou enter'd, still alive, 185
This darksome region? Difficult it is
For living man to view the realms of death.
Broad rivers roll, and awful floods between,
But chief, the Ocean, which to pass on foot,
Or without ship, impossible is found. 190
Hast thou, long wand'ring in thy voyage home
From Ilium, with thy ship and crew arrived,
Ithaca and thy consort yet unseen?
She spake, to whom this answer I return'd.
My mother! me necessity constrain'd 195
To Pluto's dwelling, anxious to consult
Theban Tiresias; for I have not yet
Approach'd Achaia, nor have touch'd the shore
Of Ithaca, but suff'ring ceaseless woe
Have roam'd, since first in Agamemnon's train 200
I went to combat with the sons of Troy.
But speak, my mother, and the truth alone;
What stroke of fate slew thee? Fell'st thou a prey
To some slow malady? or by the shafts
Of
