2. A Strain of Sodom.
(Author Uncertain.)
Already had Almighty God wiped off By vengeful flood (with waters all conjoined Which heaven discharged on earth and the sea's plain [1214] Outspued) the times of the primeval age: 5 Had pledged Himself, while nether air should bring The winters in their course, ne'er to decree, By liquid ruin, retribution's due; And had assigned, to curb the rains, the bow Of many hues, sealing the clouds with band 10 Of purple and of green, Iris its name, The rain-clouds' proper baldric. [1215] But alike With mankind's second race impiety Revives, and a new age of ill once more Shoots forth; allotted now no more to showers 15 For ruin, but to fires: thus did the land Of Sodom earn to be by glowing dews Upburnt, and typically thus portend The future end. [1216] There wild voluptuousness (Modesty's foe) stood in the room of law; 20 Which prescient guest would shun, and sooner choose At Scythian or Busirian altar's foot 'Mid sacred rites to die, and, slaughtered, pour His blood to Bebryx, or to satiate Libyan palæstras, or assume new forms; 25 By virtue of Circæan cups, than lose His outraged sex in Sodom. At heaven's gate There knocked for vengeance marriages commit With equal incest common 'mong a race By nature rebels 'gainst themselves; [1217] and hurts 30 Done to man's name and person equally. But God, forewatching all things, at fix'd time Doth judge the unjust; with patience tarrying The hour when crime's ripe age--not any force Of wrath impetuous--shall have circumscribed 35 The space for waiting. [1218] Now at length the day Of vengeance was at hand. Sent from the host Angelical, two, youths in form, who both Were ministering spirits, [1219] carrying The Lord's divine commissions, come beneath 40 The walls of Sodom. There was dwelling Lot A transplantation from a pious stock; Wise, and a practicer of righteousness, He was the only one to think on God: As oft a fruitful tree is wont to lurk, 45 Guest-like, in forests wild. He, sitting then Before the gate (for the celestials scarce Had reached the ramparts), though he knew not them Divine, [1220] accosts them unsolicited, Invites, and with ancestral honour greets; 50 And offers them, preparing to abide Abroad, a hospice. By repeated prayers He wins them; and then ranges studiously The sacred pledges [1221] on his board, [1222] and quits [1223] His friends with courteous offices. The night 55 Had brought repose: alternate [1224] dawn had chased The night, and Sodom with her shameful law Makes uproar at the doors. Lot, suppliant wise, Withstands: "Young men, let not your new fed lust Enkindle you to violate this youth! [1225] 60 Whither is passion's seed inviting you? To what vain end your lust? For such an end No creatures wed: not such as haunt the fens; Not stall-fed cattle; not the gaping brood Subaqueous; nor they which, modulant 65 On pinions, hang suspended near the clouds; Nor they which with forth-stretched body creep Over earth's face. To conjugal delight Each kind its kind doth owe: but female still To all is wife; nor is there one that has 70 A mother save a female one. Yet now, If youthful vigour holds it right [1226] to waste The flower of modesty, I have within Two daughters of a nuptial age, in whom Virginity is swelling in its bloom, 75 Already ripe for harvest--a desire Worthy of men--which let your pleasure reap! Myself their sire, I yield them; and will pay For my guests' sake, the forfeit of my grief!" Answered the mob insane: "And who art thou? 80 And what? and whence? to lord it over us, And to expound us laws? Shall foreigner Rule Sodom, and hurl threats? Now, then, thyself For daughters and for guests shalt sate our greed! One shall suffice for all!" So said, so done: 85 The frantic mob delays not. As, whene'er A turbid torrent rolls with wintry tide, And rushes at one speed through countless streams Of rivers, if, just where it forks, some tree Meets the swift waves (not long to stand, save while 90 By her root's force she shall avail to oppose Her tufty obstacles), when gradually Her hold upon the undermined soil Is failing, with her bared stem she hangs, And, with uncertain heavings to and fro, 95 Defers her certain fall; not otherwise Lot in the mid-whirl of the dizzy mob Kept nodding, now almost o'ercome. But power Divine brings succour: the angelic youths, Snatching him from the threshold, to his roof 100 Restore him; but upon the spot they mulct Of sight the mob insane in open day,-- Fit augury of coming penalties! Then they unlock the just decrees of God: That penalty condign from heaven will fall 105 On Sodom; that himself had merited Safety upon the count of righteousness. "Gird thee, then, up to hasten hence thy flight, And with thee to lead out what family Thou hast: already we are bringing on 110 Destruction o'er the city." Lot with speed Speaks to his sons-in-law; but their hard heart Scorned to believe the warning, and at fear Laughed. At what time the light attempts to climb The darkness, and heaven's face wears double hue 115 From night and day, the youthful visitants Were instant to outlead from Sodoma The race Chaldæan, [1227] and the righteous house Consign to safety: "Ho! come, Lot! arise, And take thy yokefellow and daughters twain, 120 And hence, beyond the boundaries be gone, Preventing [1228] Sodom's penalties!" And eke With friendly hands they lead them trembling forth, And then their final mandates give: "Save, Lot, Thy life, lest thou perchance should will to turn 125 Thy retroverted gaze behind, or stay The step once taken: to the mountain speed!" Lot feared to creep the heights with tardy step, Lest the celestial wrath-fires should o'ertake And whelm him: therefore he essays to crave 130 Some other ports; a city small, to wit, Which opposite he had espied. "Hereto," He said, "I speed my flight: scarce with its walls 'Tis visible; nor is it far, nor great." They, favouring his prayer, safety assured 135 To him and to the city; whence the spot Is known in speech barbaric by the name Segor. [1229] Lot enters Segor while the sun Is rising, [1230] the last sun, which glowing bears To Sodom conflagration; for his rays 140 He had armed all with fire: beneath him spreads An emulous gloom, which seeks to intercept The light; and clouds combine to interweave Their smoky globes with the confused sky: Down pours a novel shower: the ether seethes 145 With sulphur mixt with blazing flames: [1231] the air Crackles with liquid heats exust. From hence The fable has an echo of the truth Amid its false, that the sun's progeny Would drive his father's team; but nought availed 150 The giddy boy to curb the haughty steeds Of fire: so blazed our orb: then lightning reft The lawless charioteer, and bitter plaint Transformed his sisters. Let Eridanus See to it, if one poplar on his banks 155 Whitens, or any bird dons plumage there Whose note old age makes mellow! [1232] Here they mourn O'er miracles of metamorphosis Of other sort. For, partner of Lot's flight, His wife (ah me, for woman! even then [1233] 160 Intolerant of law!) alone turned back At the unearthly murmurs of the sky) Her daring eyes, but bootlessly: not doomed To utter what she saw! and then and there Changed into brittle salt, herself her tomb 165 She stood, herself an image of herself, Keeping an incorporeal form: and still In her unsheltered station 'neath the heaven Dures she, by rains unmelted, by decay And winds unwasted; nay, if some strange hand 170 Deface her form, forthwith from her own store Her wounds she doth repair. Still is she said To live, and, 'mid her corporal change, discharge With wonted blood her sex's monthly dues. Gone are the men of Sodom; gone the glare 175 Of their unhallowed ramparts; all the house Inhospitable, with its lords, is gone: The champaign is one pyre; here embers rough And black, here ash-heaps with hoar mould, mark out The conflagration's course: evanished 180 Is all that old fertility [1234] which Lot, Seeing outspread before him,... . . . . . . . . . . . . . No ploughman spends his fruitless toil on glebes Pitchy with soot: or if some acres there, But half consumed, still strive to emulate 185 Autumn's glad wealth, pears, peaches, and all fruits Promise themselves full easely [1235] to the eye In fairest bloom, until the plucker's hand Is on them: then forthwith the seeming fruit Crumbles to dust 'neath the bewraying touch, 190 And turns to embers vain. Thus, therefore (sky And earth entombed alike), not e'en the sea Lives there: the quiet of that quiet sea Is death! [1236] --a sea which no wave animates Through its anhealant volumes; which beneath 195 Its native Auster sighs not anywhere; Which cannot from its depths one scaly race, Or with smooth skin or cork-like fence encased, Produce, or curled shell in single valve Or double fold enclosed. Bitumen there 200 (The sooty reek of sea exust) alone, With its own crop, a spurious harvest yields; Which 'neath the stagnant surface vivid heat From seething mass of sulphur and of brine Maturing tempers, making earth cohere 205 Into a pitch marine. [1237] At season due The heated water's fatty ooze is borne Up to the surface; and with foamy flakes Over the level top a tawny skin Is woven. They whose function is to catch 210 That ware put to, tilting their smooth skin down With balance of their sides, to teach the film, Once o'er the gunnel, to float in: for, lo! Raising itself spontaneous, it will swim Up to the edge of the unmoving craft; 215 And will, when pressed, [1238] for guerdon large, ensure Immunity from the defiling touch Of weft which female monthly efflux clothes. Behold another portent notable, Fruit of that sea's disaster: all things cast 220 Therein do swim: gone is its native power For sinking bodies: if, in fine, you launch A torch's lightsome [1239] hull (where spirit serves For fire) therein, the apex of the flame Will act as sail; put out the flame, and 'neath 225 The waters will the light's wrecks ruin go! Such Sodom's and Gomorrah's penalties, For ages sealed as signs before the eyes Of unjust nations, whose obdurate hearts God's fear have quite forsaken, [1240] will them teach 230 To reverence heaven-sanctioned rights, [1241] and lift Their gaze unto one only Lord of all.