Metamorphoses Analysis

BOOK THE FIRST



OF bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:

Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,

Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;

'Till I my long laborious work compleat:

And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,

Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.

The Creation ofBefore the seas, and this terrestrial ball,

the WorldAnd Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,

One was the face of Nature; if a face:

Rather a rude and indigested mass:

A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,

Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.

No sun was lighted up, the world to view;

No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:

Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,

Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lye:

Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;

But earth, and air, and water, were in one.

Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,

And water's dark abyss unnavigable.

No certain form on any was imprest;

All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.

For hot and cold were in one body fixt;

And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.

But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,

To these intestine discords put an end:

Then earth from air, and seas from earth were

driv'n,

And grosser air sunk from aetherial Heav'n.

Thus disembroil'd, they take their proper place;

The next of kin, contiguously embrace;

And foes are sunder'd, by a larger space.

The force of fire ascended first on high,

And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky:

Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;

Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.

Earth sinks beneath, and draws a num'rous throng

Of pondrous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.

About her coasts, unruly waters roar;

And rising, on a ridge, insult the shore.

Thus when the God, whatever God was he,

Had form'd the whole, and made the parts agree,

That no unequal portions might be found,

He moulded Earth into a spacious round:

Then with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;

And bad the congregated waters flow.

He adds the running springs, and standing lakes;

And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.

Some part, in Earth are swallow'd up, the most

In ample oceans, disembogu'd, are lost.

He shades the woods, the vallies he restrains

With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.

And as five zones th' aetherial regions bind,

Five, correspondent, are to Earth assign'd:

The sun with rays, directly darting down,

Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone:

The two beneath the distant poles, complain

Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.

Betwixt th' extreams, two happier climates hold

The temper that partakes of hot, and cold.

The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,

Surround the compass of this earthly ball:

The lighter parts lye next the fires above;

The grosser near the watry surface move:

Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there,

And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals fear,

And winds that on their wings cold winter bear.

Nor were those blustring brethren left at large,

On seas, and shores, their fury to discharge:

Bound as they are, and circumscrib'd in place,

They rend the world, resistless, where they pass;

And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;

Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.

First Eurus to the rising morn is sent

(The regions of the balmy continent);

And Eastern realms, where early Persians run,

To greet the blest appearance of the sun.

Westward, the wanton Zephyr wings his flight;

Pleas'd with the remnants of departing light:

Fierce Boreas, with his off-spring, issues forth

T' invade the frozen waggon of the North.

While frowning Auster seeks the Southern sphere;

And rots, with endless rain, th' unwholsom year.

High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,

The God a clearer space for Heav'n design'd;

Where fields of light, and liquid aether flow;

Purg'd from the pondrous dregs of Earth below.

Scarce had the Pow'r distinguish'd these, when

streight

The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,

Exert their heads, from underneath the mass;

And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,

And with diffusive light adorn their heav'nly

place.

Then, every void of Nature to supply,

With forms of Gods he fills the vacant sky:

New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share:

New colonies of birds, to people air:

And to their oozy beds, the finny fish repair.

A creature of a more exalted kind

Was wanting yet, and then was Man design'd:

Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,

For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:

Whether with particles of heav'nly fire

The God of Nature did his soul inspire,

Or Earth, but new divided from the sky,

And, pliant, still retain'd th' aetherial energy:

Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,

And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image

cast.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend

Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,

Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes

Beholds his own hereditary skies.

From such rude principles our form began;

And earth was metamorphos'd into Man.

TheThe golden age was first; when Man yet new,

Golden AgeNo rule but uncorrupted reason knew:

And, with a native bent, did good pursue.

Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear,

His words were simple, and his soul sincere;

Needless was written law, where none opprest:

The law of Man was written in his breast:

No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd,

No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:

But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.

The mountain-trees in distant prospect please,

E're yet the pine descended to the seas:

E're sails were spread, new oceans to explore:

And happy mortals, unconcern'd for more,

Confin'd their wishes to their native shore.

No walls were yet; nor fence, nor mote, nor mound,

Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound:

Nor swords were forg'd; but void of care and crime,

The soft creation slept away their time.

The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of the plough,

And unprovok'd, did fruitful stores allow:

Content with food, which Nature freely bred,

On wildings and on strawberries they fed;

Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,

And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.

The flow'rs unsown, in fields and meadows reign'd:

And Western winds immortal spring maintain'd.

In following years, the bearded corn ensu'd

From Earth unask'd, nor was that Earth renew'd.

From veins of vallies, milk and nectar broke;

And honey sweating through the pores of oak.

TheBut when good Saturn, banish'd from above,

Silver AgeWas driv'n to Hell, the world was under Jove.

Succeeding times a silver age behold,

Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.

Then summer, autumn, winter did appear:

And spring was but a season of the year.

The sun his annual course obliquely made,

Good days contracted, and enlarg'd the bad.

Then air with sultry heats began to glow;

The wings of winds were clogg'd with ice and snow;

And shivering mortals, into houses driv'n,

Sought shelter from th' inclemency of Heav'n.

Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds;

With twining oziers fenc'd; and moss their beds.

Then ploughs, for seed, the fruitful furrows broke,

And oxen labour'd first beneath the yoke.

TheTo this came next in course, the brazen age:

Brazen AgeA warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage,

Not impious yet...

TheHard steel succeeded then:

Iron AgeAnd stubborn as the metal, were the men.

Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook:

Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took.

Then sails were spread, to every wind that blew.

Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:

Trees, rudely hollow'd, did the waves sustain;

E're ships in triumph plough'd the watry plain.

Then land-marks limited to each his right:

For all before was common as the light.

Nor was the ground alone requir'd to bear

Her annual income to the crooked share,

But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,

Digg'd from her entrails first the precious oar;

Which next to Hell, the prudent Gods had laid;

And that alluring ill, to sight display'd.

Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,

Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold:

And double death did wretched Man invade,

By steel assaulted, and by gold betray'd,

Now (brandish'd weapons glittering in their hands)

Mankind is broken loose from moral bands;

No rights of hospitality remain:

The guest, by him who harbour'd him, is slain,

The son-in-law pursues the father's life;

The wife her husband murders, he the wife.

The step-dame poyson for the son prepares;

The son inquires into his father's years.

Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns;

And justice, here opprest, to Heav'n returns.

TheNor were the Gods themselves more safe above;

Giants' WarAgainst beleaguer'd Heav'n the giants move.

Hills pil'd on hills, on mountains mountains lie,

To make their mad approaches to the skie.

'Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time

T' avenge with thunder their audacious crime:

Red light'ning plaid along the firmament,

And their demolish'd works to pieces rent.

Sing'd with the flames, and with the bolts

transfixt,

With native Earth, their blood the monsters mixt;

The blood, indu'd with animating heat,

Did in th' impregnant Earth new sons beget:

They, like the seed from which they sprung,

accurst,

Against the Gods immortal hatred nurst,

An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood;

Expressing their original from blood.

Which when the king of Gods beheld from high

(Withal revolving in his memory,

What he himself had found on Earth of late,

Lycaon's guilt, and his inhumane treat),

He sigh'd; nor longer with his pity strove;

But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove:

Then call'd a general council of the Gods;

Who summon'd, issue from their blest abodes,

And fill th' assembly with a shining train.

A way there is, in Heav'n's expanded plain,

Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,

And mortals, by the name of Milky, know.

The ground-work is of stars; through which the road

Lyes open to the Thunderer's abode:

The Gods of greater nations dwell around,

And, on the right and left, the palace bound;

The commons where they can: the nobler sort

With winding-doors wide open, front the court.

This place, as far as Earth with Heav'n may vie,

I dare to call the Louvre of the skie.

When all were plac'd, in seats distinctly known,

And he, their father, had assum'd the throne,

Upon his iv'ry sceptre first he leant,

Then shook his head, that shook the firmament:

Air, Earth, and seas, obey'd th' almighty nod;

And, with a gen'ral fear, confess'd the God.

At length, with indignation, thus he broke

His awful silence, and the Pow'rs bespoke.

I was not more concern'd in that debate

Of empire, when our universal state

Was put to hazard, and the giant race

Our captive skies were ready to imbrace:

For tho' the foe was fierce, the seeds of all

Rebellion, sprung from one original;

Now, wheresoever ambient waters glide,

All are corrupt, and all must be destroy'd.

Let me this holy protestation make,

By Hell, and Hell's inviolable lake,

I try'd whatever in the godhead lay:

But gangren'd members must be lopt away,

Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.

There dwells below, a race of demi-gods,

Of nymphs in waters, and of fawns in woods:

Who, tho' not worthy yet, in Heav'n to live,

Let 'em, at least, enjoy that Earth we give.

Can these be thought securely lodg'd below,

When I my self, who no superior know,

I, who have Heav'n and Earth at my command,

Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand?

At this a murmur through the synod went,

And with one voice they vote his punishment.

Thus, when conspiring traytors dar'd to doom

The fall of Caesar, and in him of Rome,

The nations trembled with a pious fear;

All anxious for their earthly Thunderer:

Nor was their care, o Caesar, less esteem'd

By thee, than that of Heav'n for Jove was deem'd:

Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain

Their murmurs, then resum'd his speech again.

The Gods to silence were compos'd, and sate

With reverence, due to his superior state.

Cancel your pious cares; already he

Has paid his debt to justice, and to me.

Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were,

Remains for me thus briefly to declare.

The clamours of this vile degenerate age,

The cries of orphans, and th' oppressor's rage,

Had reach'd the stars: I will descend, said I,

In hope to prove this loud complaint a lye.

Disguis'd in humane shape, I travell'd round

The world, and more than what I heard, I found.

O'er Maenalus I took my steepy way,

By caverns infamous for beasts of prey:

Then cross'd Cyllene, and the piny shade

More infamous, by curst Lycaon made:

Dark night had cover'd Heaven, and Earth, before

I enter'd his unhospitable door.

Just at my entrance, I display'd the sign

That somewhat was approaching of divine.

The prostrate people pray; the tyrant grins;

And, adding prophanation to his sins,

I'll try, said he, and if a God appear,

To prove his deity shall cost him dear.

'Twas late; the graceless wretch my death prepares,

When I shou'd soundly sleep, opprest with cares:

This dire experiment he chose, to prove

If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove:

But first he had resolv'd to taste my pow'r;

Not long before, but in a luckless hour,

Some legates, sent from the Molossian state,

Were on a peaceful errand come to treat:

Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh;

And lays the mangled morsels in a dish:

Some part he roasts; then serves it up, so drest,

And bids me welcome to this humane feast.

Mov'd with disdain, the table I o'er-turn'd;

And with avenging flames, the palace burn'd.

The tyrant in a fright, for shelter gains

The neighb'ring fields, and scours along the

plains.

Howling he fled, and fain he wou'd have spoke;

But humane voice his brutal tongue forsook.

About his lips the gather'd foam he churns,

And, breathing slaughters, still with rage he

burns,

But on the bleating flock his fury turns.

His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs

Cleaves to his back; a famish'd face he bears;

His arms descend, his shoulders sink away

To multiply his legs for chase of prey.

He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,

And the same rage in other members reigns.

His eyes still sparkle in a narr'wer space:

His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face

This was a single ruin, but not one

Deserves so just a punishment alone.

Mankind's a monster, and th' ungodly times

Confed'rate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.

All are alike involv'd in ill, and all

Must by the same relentless fury fall.

Thus ended he; the greater Gods assent;

By clamours urging his severe intent;

The less fill up the cry for punishment.

Yet still with pity they remember Man;

And mourn as much as heav'nly spirits can.

They ask, when those were lost of humane birth,

What he wou'd do with all this waste of Earth:

If his dispeopl'd world he would resign

To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line;

Neglected altars must no longer smoke,

If none were left to worship, and invoke.

To whom the Father of the Gods reply'd,

Lay that unnecessary fear aside:

Mine be the care, new people to provide.

I will from wondrous principles ordain

A race unlike the first, and try my skill again.

Already had he toss'd the flaming brand;

And roll'd the thunder in his spacious hand;

Preparing to discharge on seas and land:

But stopt, for fear, thus violently driv'n,

The sparks should catch his axle-tree of Heav'n.

Remembring in the fates, a time when fire

Shou'd to the battlements of Heaven aspire,

And all his blazing worlds above shou'd burn;

And all th' inferior globe to cinders turn.

His dire artill'ry thus dismist, he bent

His thoughts to some securer punishment:

Concludes to pour a watry deluge down;

And what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.

The northern breath, that freezes floods, he

binds;

With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:

The south he loos'd, who night and horror brings;

And foggs are shaken from his flaggy wings.

From his divided beard two streams he pours,

His head, and rheumy eyes distill in show'rs,

With rain his robe, and heavy mantle flow:

And lazy mists are lowring on his brow;

Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fist

He squeez'd the clouds, th' imprison'd clouds

resist:

The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;

And show'rs inlarg'd, come pouring on the ground.

Then, clad in colours of a various dye,

Junonian Iris breeds a new supply

To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends;

The bearded corn beneath the burden bends:

Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain;

And the long labours of the year are vain.

Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone

Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;

Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,

To help him with auxiliary waves.

The watry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,

Who rowl from mossie caves (their moist abodes);

And with perpetual urns his palace fill:

To whom in brief, he thus imparts his will.

Small exhortation needs; your pow'rs employ:

And this bad world, so Jove requires, destroy.

Let loose the reins to all your watry store:

Bear down the damms, and open ev'ry door.

The floods, by Nature enemies to land,

And proudly swelling with their new command,

Remove the living stones, that stopt their way,

And gushing from their source, augment the sea.

Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the

ground;

With inward trembling Earth receiv'd the wound;

And rising streams a ready passage found.

Th' expanded waters gather on the plain:

They float the fields, and over-top the grain;

Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,

Bear flocks, and folds, and lab'ring hinds away.

Nor safe their dwellings were, for, sap'd by

floods,

Their houses fell upon their houshold Gods.

The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,

High o'er their heads, behold a watry wall:

Now seas and Earth were in confusion lost;

A world of waters, and without a coast.

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is born:

And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his corn.

Others o'er chimney-tops and turrets row,

And drop their anchors on the meads below:

Or downward driv'n, they bruise the tender vine,

Or tost aloft, are knock'd against a pine.

And where of late the kids had cropt the grass,

The monsters of the deep now take their place.

Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,

And wond'ring dolphins o'er the palace glide.

On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks they brouze;

And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.

The frighted wolf now swims amongst the sheep;

The yellow lion wanders in the deep:

His rapid force no longer helps the boar:

The stag swims faster, than he ran before.

The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,

Despair of land, and drop into the main.

Now hills, and vales no more distinction know;

And levell'd Nature lies oppress'd below.

The most of mortals perish in the flood:

The small remainder dies for want of food.

A mountain of stupendous height there stands

Betwixt th' Athenian and Boeotian lands,

The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they

were,

But then a field of waters did appear:

Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise

Mounts thro' the clouds, and mates the lofty skies.

High on the summit of this dubious cliff,

Deucalion wafting, moor'd his little skiff.

He with his wife were only left behind

Of perish'd Man; they two were human kind.

The mountain nymphs, and Themis they adore,

And from her oracles relief implore.

The most upright of mortal men was he;

The most sincere, and holy woman, she.

When Jupiter, surveying Earth from high,

Beheld it in a lake of water lie,

That where so many millions lately liv'd,

But two, the best of either sex, surviv'd;

He loos'd the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies

To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies:

Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driv'n,

Discover Heav'n to Earth, and Earth to Heav'n.

The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace

On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face.

Already Triton, at his call, appears

Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;

And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.

The soveraign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,

And give the waves the signal to retire.

His writhen shell he takes; whose narrow vent

Grows by degrees into a large extent,

Then gives it breath; the blast with doubling

sound,

Runs the wide circuit of the world around:

The sun first heard it, in his early east,

And met the rattling ecchos in the west.

The waters, listning to the trumpet's roar,

Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.

A thin circumference of land appears;

And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,

And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds;

The streams, but just contain'd within their

bounds,

By slow degrees into their channels crawl;

And Earth increases, as the waters fall.

In longer time the tops of trees appear,

Which mud on their dishonour'd branches bear.

At length the world was all restor'd to view;

But desolate, and of a sickly hue:

Nature beheld her self, and stood aghast,

A dismal desart, and a silent waste.

Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look

Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke:

Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind

The best, and only creature left behind,

By kindred, love, and now by dangers joyn'd;

Of multitudes, who breath'd the common air,

We two remain; a species in a pair:

The rest the seas have swallow'd; nor have we

Ev'n of this wretched life a certainty.

The clouds are still above; and, while I speak,

A second deluge o'er our heads may break.

Shou'd I be snatcht from hence, and thou remain,

Without relief, or partner of thy pain,

How cou'dst thou such a wretched life sustain?

Shou'd I be left, and thou be lost, the sea

That bury'd her I lov'd, shou'd bury me.

Oh cou'd our father his old arts inspire,

And make me heir of his informing fire,

That so I might abolisht Man retrieve,

And perisht people in new souls might live.

But Heav'n is pleas'd, nor ought we to complain,

That we, th' examples of mankind, remain.

He said; the careful couple joyn their tears:

And then invoke the Gods, with pious prayers.

Thus, in devotion having eas'd their grief,

From sacred oracles they seek relief;

And to Cephysus' brook their way pursue:

The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew;

With living waters, in the fountain bred,

They sprinkle first their garments, and their head,

Then took the way, which to the temple led.

The roofs were all defil'd with moss, and mire,

The desart altars void of solemn fire.

Before the gradual, prostrate they ador'd;

The pavement kiss'd; and thus the saint implor'd.

O righteous Themis, if the Pow'rs above

By pray'rs are bent to pity, and to love;

If humane miseries can move their mind;

If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind;

Tell how we may restore, by second birth,

Mankind, and people desolated Earth.

Then thus the gracious Goddess, nodding, said;

Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:

And stooping lowly down, with losen'd zones,

Throw each behind your backs, your mighty mother's

bones.

Amaz'd the pair, and mute with wonder stand,

'Till Pyrrha first refus'd the dire command.

Forbid it Heav'n, said she, that I shou'd tear

Those holy reliques from the sepulcher.

They ponder'd the mysterious words again,

For some new sense; and long they sought in vain:

At length Deucalion clear'd his cloudy brow,

And said, the dark Aenigma will allow

A meaning, which, if well I understand,

From sacrilege will free the God's command:

This Earth our mighty mother is, the stones

In her capacious body, are her bones:

These we must cast behind. With hope, and fear,

The woman did the new solution hear:

The man diffides in his own augury,

And doubts the Gods; yet both resolve to try.

Descending from the mount, they first unbind

Their vests, and veil'd, they cast the stones

behind:

The stones (a miracle to mortal view,

But long tradition makes it pass for true)

Did first the rigour of their kind expel,

And suppled into softness, as they fell;

Then swell'd, and swelling, by degrees grew warm;

And took the rudiments of human form.

Imperfect shapes: in marble such are seen,

When the rude chizzel does the man begin;

While yet the roughness of the stone remains,

Without the rising muscles, and the veins.

The sappy parts, and next resembling juice,

Were turn'd to moisture, for the body's use:

Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment;

The rest, too solid to receive a bent,

Converts to bones; and what was once a vein,

Its former name and Nature did retain.

By help of pow'r divine, in little space,

What the man threw, assum'd a manly face;

And what the wife, renew'd the female race.

Hence we derive our nature; born to bear

Laborious life; and harden'd into care.

The rest of animals, from teeming Earth

Produc'd, in various forms receiv'd their birth.

The native moisture, in its close retreat,

Digested by the sun's aetherial heat,

As in a kindly womb, began to breed:

Then swell'd, and quicken'd by the vital seed.

And some in less, and some in longer space,

Were ripen'd into form, and took a sev'ral face.

Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,

And seeks, with ebbing tides, his ancient bed,

The fat manure with heav'nly fire is warm'd;

And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are form'd;

These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants find;

Some rude, and yet unfinish'd in their kind:

Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth:

One half alive; and one of lifeless earth.

For heat, and moisture, when in bodies join'd,

The temper that results from either kind

Conception makes; and fighting 'till they mix,

Their mingled atoms in each other fix.

Thus Nature's hand the genial bed prepares

With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars.

From hence the surface of the ground, with mud

And slime besmear'd (the faeces of the flood),

Receiv'd the rays of Heav'n: and sucking in

The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin:

Some were of sev'ral sorts produc'd before,

But of new monsters, Earth created more.

Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light

Thee, Python too, the wondring world to fright,

And the new nations, with so dire a sight:

So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space

Did his vast body, and long train embrace.

Whom Phoebus basking on a bank espy'd;

E're now the God his arrows had not try'd

But on the trembling deer, or mountain goat;

At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.

Though ev'ry shaft took place, he spent the store

Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before

Th' expiring serpent wallow'd in his gore.

Then, to preserve the fame of such a deed,

For Python slain, he Pythian games decred.

Where noble youths for mastership shou'd strive,

To quoit, to run, and steeds, and chariots drive.

The prize was fame: in witness of renown

An oaken garland did the victor crown.

The laurel was not yet for triumphs born;

But every green alike by Phoebus worn,

Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks

adorn.

TheThe first and fairest of his loves, was she

TransformationWhom not blind fortune, but the dire decree

of Daphne intoOf angry Cupid forc'd him to desire:

a LawrelDaphne her name, and Peneus was her sire.

Swell'd with the pride, that new success attends,

He sees the stripling, while his bow he bends,

And thus insults him: Thou lascivious boy,

Are arms like these for children to employ?

Know, such atchievements are my proper claim;

Due to my vigour, and unerring aim:

Resistless are my shafts, and Python late

In such a feather'd death, has found his fate.

Take up the torch (and lay my weapons by),

With that the feeble souls of lovers fry.

To whom the son of Venus thus reply'd,

Phoebus, thy shafts are sure on all beside,

But mine of Phoebus, mine the fame shall be

Of all thy conquests, when I conquer thee.

He said, and soaring, swiftly wing'd his flight:

Nor stopt but on Parnassus' airy height.

Two diff'rent shafts he from his quiver draws;

One to repel desire, and one to cause.

One shaft is pointed with refulgent gold:

To bribe the love, and make the lover bold:

One blunt, and tipt with lead, whose base allay

Provokes disdain, and drives desire away.

The blunted bolt against the nymph he drest:

But with the sharp transfixt Apollo's breast.

Th' enamour'd deity pursues the chace;

The scornful damsel shuns his loath'd embrace:

In hunting beasts of prey, her youth employs;

And Phoebe rivals in her rural joys.

With naked neck she goes, and shoulders bare;

And with a fillet binds her flowing hair.

By many suitors sought, she mocks their pains,

And still her vow'd virginity maintains.

Impatient of a yoke, the name of bride

She shuns, and hates the joys, she never try'd.

On wilds, and woods, she fixes her desire:

Nor knows what youth, and kindly love, inspire.

Her father chides her oft: Thou ow'st, says he,

A husband to thy self, a son to me.

She, like a crime, abhors the nuptial bed:

She glows with blushes, and she hangs her head.

Then casting round his neck her tender arms,

Sooths him with blandishments, and filial charms:

Give me, my Lord, she said, to live, and die,

A spotless maid, without the marriage tye.

'Tis but a small request; I beg no more

Than what Diana's father gave before.

The good old sire was soften'd to consent;

But said her wish wou'd prove her punishment:

For so much youth, and so much beauty join'd,

Oppos'd the state, which her desires design'd.

The God of light, aspiring to her bed,

Hopes what he seeks, with flattering fancies fed;

And is, by his own oracles, mis-led.

And as in empty fields the stubble burns,

Or nightly travellers, when day returns,

Their useless torches on dry hedges throw,

That catch the flames, and kindle all the row;

So burns the God, consuming in desire,

And feeding in his breast a fruitless fire:

Her well-turn'd neck he view'd (her neck was bare)

And on her shoulders her dishevel'd hair;

Oh were it comb'd, said he, with what a grace

Wou'd every waving curl become her face!

He view'd her eyes, like heav'nly lamps that shone,

He view'd her lips, too sweet to view alone,

Her taper fingers, and her panting breast;

He praises all he sees, and for the rest

Believes the beauties yet unseen are best:

Swift as the wind, the damsel fled away,

Nor did for these alluring speeches stay:

Stay Nymph, he cry'd, I follow, not a foe.

Thus from the lyon trips the trembling doe;

Thus from the wolf the frighten'd lamb removes,

And, from pursuing faulcons, fearful doves;

Thou shunn'st a God, and shunn'st a God, that

loves.

Ah, lest some thorn shou'd pierce thy tender foot,

Or thou shou'dst fall in flying my pursuit!

To sharp uneven ways thy steps decline;

Abate thy speed, and I will bate of mine.

Yet think from whom thou dost so rashly fly;

Nor basely born, nor shepherd's swain am I.

Perhaps thou know'st not my superior state;

And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate.

Me Claros, Delphi, Tenedos obey;

These hands the Patareian scepter sway.

The King of Gods begot me: what shall be,

Or is, or ever was, in Fate, I see.

Mine is th' invention of the charming lyre;

Sweet notes, and heav'nly numbers, I inspire.

Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart;

But ah! more deadly his, who pierc'd my heart.

Med'cine is mine; what herbs and simples grow

In fields, and forrests, all their pow'rs I know;

And am the great physician call'd, below.

Alas that fields and forrests can afford.

No remedies to heal their love-sick lord!

To cure the pains of love, no plant avails:

And his own physick, the physician falls.

She heard not half; so furiously she flies;

And on her ear th' imperfect accent dies,

Fear gave her wings; and as she fled, the wind

Increasing, spread her flowing hair behind;

And left her legs and thighs expos'd to view:

Which made the God more eager to pursue.

The God was young, and was too hotly bent

To lose his time in empty compliment:

But led by love, and fir'd with such a sight,

Impetuously pursu'd his near delight.

As when th' impatient greyhound slipt from far,

Bounds o'er the glebe to course the fearful hare,

She in her speed does all her safety lay;

And he with double speed pursues the prey;

O'er-runs her at the sitting turn, and licks

His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix:

She scapes, and for the neighb'ring covert strives,

And gaining shelter, doubts if yet she lives:

If little things with great we may compare,

Such was the God, and such the flying fair,

She urg'd by fear, her feet did swiftly move,

But he more swiftly, who was urg'd by love.

He gathers ground upon her in the chace:

Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace;

And just is fast'ning on the wish'd embrace.

The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright,

Spent with the labour of so long a flight;

And now despairing, cast a mournful look

Upon the streams of her paternal brook;

Oh help, she cry'd, in this extreamest need!

If water Gods are deities indeed:

Gape Earth, and this unhappy wretch intomb;

Or change my form, whence all my sorrows come.

Scarce had she finish'd, when her feet she found

Benumb'd with cold, and fasten'd to the ground:

A filmy rind about her body grows;

Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs:

The nymph is all into a lawrel gone;

The smoothness of her skin remains alone.

Yet Phoebus loves her still, and casting round

Her bole, his arms, some little warmth he found.

The tree still panted in th' unfinish'd part:

Not wholly vegetive, and heav'd her heart.

He fixt his lips upon the trembling rind;

It swerv'd aside, and his embrace declin'd.

To whom the God, Because thou canst not be

My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree:

Be thou the prize of honour, and renown;

The deathless poet, and the poem, crown.

Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,

And, after poets, be by victors worn.

Thou shalt returning Caesar's triumph grace;

When pomps shall in a long procession pass.

Wreath'd on the posts before his palace wait;

And be the sacred guardian of the gate.

Secure from thunder, and unharm'd by Jove,

Unfading as th' immortal Pow'rs above:

And as the locks of Phoebus are unshorn,

So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn.

The grateful tree was pleas'd with what he said;

And shook the shady honours of her head.

TheAn ancient forest in Thessalia grows;

TransformationWhich Tempe's pleasing valley does inclose:

of Io into aThrough this the rapid Peneus take his course;

HeyferFrom Pindus rolling with impetuous force;

Mists from the river's mighty fall arise:

And deadly damps inclose the cloudy skies:

Perpetual fogs are hanging o'er the wood;

And sounds of waters deaf the neighbourhood.

Deep, in a rocky cave, he makes abode

(A mansion proper for a mourning God).

Here he gives audience; issuing out decrees

To rivers, his dependant deities.

On this occasion hither they resort;

To pay their homage, and to make their court.

All doubtful, whether to congratulate

His daughter's honour, or lament her fate.

Sperchaeus, crown'd with poplar, first appears;

Then old Apidanus came crown'd with years:

Enipeus turbulent, Amphrysos tame;

And Aeas last with lagging waters came.

Then, of his kindred brooks, a num'rous throng

Condole his loss; and bring their urns along.

Not one was wanting of the wat'ry train,

That fill'd his flood, or mingled with the main:

But Inachus, who in his cave, alone,

Wept not another's losses, but his own,

For his dear Io, whether stray'd, or dead,

To him uncertain, doubtful tears he shed.

He sought her through the world; but sought in

vain;

And no where finding, rather fear'd her slain.

Her, just returning from her father's brook,

Jove had beheld, with a desiring look:

And, Oh fair daughter of the flood, he said,

Worthy alone of Jove's imperial bed,

Happy whoever shall those charms possess;

The king of Gods (nor is thy lover less)

Invites thee to yon cooler shades; to shun

The scorching rays of the meridian sun.

Nor shalt thou tempt the dangers of the grove

Alone, without a guide; thy guide is Jove.

No puny Pow'r, but he whose high command

Is unconfin'd, who rules the seas and land;

And tempers thunder in his awful hand,

Oh fly not: for she fled from his embrace

O'er Lerna's pastures: he pursu'd the chace

Along the shades of the Lyrcaean plain;

At length the God, who never asks in vain,

Involv'd with vapours, imitating night,

Both Air, and Earth; and then suppress'd her

flight,

And mingling force with love, enjoy'd the full

delight.

Mean-time the jealous Juno, from on high,

Survey'd the fruitful fields of Arcady;

And wonder'd that the mist shou'd over-run

The face of day-light, and obscure the sun.

No nat'ral cause she found, from brooks, or bogs,

Or marshy lowlands, to produce the fogs;

Then round the skies she sought for Jupiter,

Her faithless husband; but no Jove was there:

Suspecting now the worst, Or I, she said,

Am much mistaken, or am much betray'd.

With fury she precipitates her flight:

Dispels the shadows of dissembled night;

And to the day restores his native light.

Th' Almighty Leacher, careful to prevent

The consequence, foreseeing her descent,

Transforms his mistress in a trice; and now

In Io's place appears a lovely cow.

So sleek her skin, so faultless was her make,

Ev'n Juno did unwilling pleasure take

To see so fair a rival of her love;

And what she was, and whence, enquir'd of Jove:

Of what fair herd, and from what pedigree?

The God, half caught, was forc'd upon a lye:

And said she sprung from Earth. She took the word,

And begg'd the beauteous heyfer of her lord.

What should he do? 'twas equal shame to Jove

Or to relinquish, or betray his love:

Yet to refuse so slight a gift, wou'd be

But more t' increase his consort's jealousie:

Thus fear, and love, by turns, his heart assail'd;

And stronger love had sure, at length, prevail'd:

But some faint hope remain'd, his jealous queen

Had not the mistress through the heyfer seen.

The cautious Goddess, of her gift possest,

Yet harbour'd anxious thoughts within her breast;

As she who knew the falshood of her Jove;

And justly fear'd some new relapse of love.

Which to prevent, and to secure her care,

To trusty Argus she commits the fair.

The head of Argus (as with stars the skies)

Was compass'd round, and wore an hundred eyes.

But two by turns their lids in slumber steep;

The rest on duty still their station keep;

Nor cou'd the total constellation sleep.

Thus, ever present, to his eyes, and mind,

His charge was still before him, tho' behind.

In fields he suffer'd her to feed by Day,

But when the setting sun to night gave way,

The captive cow he summon'd with a call;

And drove her back, and ty'd her to the stall.

On leaves of trees, and bitter herbs she fed,

Heav'n was her canopy, bare earth her bed:

So hardly lodg'd, and to digest her food,

She drank from troubled streams, defil'd with mud.

Her woeful story fain she wou'd have told,

With hands upheld, but had no hands to hold.

Her head to her ungentle keeper bow'd,

She strove to speak, she spoke not, but she low'd:

Affrighted with the noise, she look'd around,

And seem'd t' inquire the author of the sound.

Once on the banks where often she had play'd

(Her father's banks), she came, and there survey'd

Her alter'd visage, and her branching head;

And starting, from her self she wou'd have fled.

Her fellow nymphs, familiar to her eyes,

Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise.

Ev'n Inachus himself was ignorant;

And in his daughter, did his daughter want.

She follow'd where her fellows went, as she

Were still a partner of the company:

They stroak her neck; the gentle heyfer stands,

And her neck offers to their stroaking hands.

Her father gave her grass; the grass she took;

And lick'd his palms, and cast a piteous look;

And in the language of her eyes, she spoke.

She wou'd have told her name, and ask'd relief,

But wanting words, in tears she tells her grief.

Which, with her foot she makes him understand;

And prints the name of Io in the sand.

Ah wretched me! her mournful father cry'd;

She, with a sigh, to wretched me reply'd:

About her milk-white neck, his arms he threw;

And wept, and then these tender words ensue.

And art thou she, whom I have sought around

The world, and have at length so sadly found?

So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words

Thou answer'st not, no voice thy tongue affords:

But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast;

And speech deny'd, by lowing is express'd.

Unknowing, I prepar'd thy bridal bed;

With empty hopes of happy issue fed.

But now the husband of a herd must be

Thy mate, and bell'wing sons thy progeny.

Oh, were I mortal, death might bring relief:

But now my God-head but extends my grief:

Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see,

And makes me curse my immortality!

More had he said, but fearful of her stay,

The starry guardian drove his charge away,

To some fresh pasture; on a hilly height

He sate himself, and kept her still in sight.

The Eyes ofNow Jove no longer cou'd her suff'rings bear;

ArgusBut call'd in haste his airy messenger,

transform'dThe son of Maia, with severe decree

into aTo kill the keeper, and to set her free.

Peacock'sWith all his harness soon the God was sped,

TrainHis flying hat was fastned on his head,

Wings on his heels were hung, and in his hand

He holds the vertue of the snaky wand.

The liquid air his moving pinions wound,

And, in the moment, shoot him on the ground.

Before he came in sight, the crafty God

His wings dismiss'd, but still retain'd his rod:

That sleep-procuring wand wise Hermes took,

But made it seem to sight a sherpherd's hook.

With this, he did a herd of goats controul;

Which by the way he met, and slily stole.

Clad like a country swain, he pip'd, and sung;

And playing, drove his jolly troop along.

With pleasure, Argus the musician heeds;

But wonders much at those new vocal reeds.

And whosoe'er thou art, my friend, said he,

Up hither drive thy goats, and play by me:

This hill has browz for them, and shade for thee.

The God, who was with ease induc'd to climb,

Began discourse to pass away the time;

And still betwixt, his tuneful pipe he plies;

And watch'd his hour, to close the keeper's eyes.

With much ado, he partly kept awake;

Not suff'ring all his eyes repose to take:

And ask'd the stranger, who did reeds invent,

And whence began so rare an instrument?

TheThen Hermes thus: A nymph of late there was

TransformationWhose heav'nly form her fellows did surpass.

of SyrinxThe pride and joy of fair Arcadia's plains,

into ReedsBelov'd by deities, ador'd by swains:

Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursu'd,

As oft she did the lustful Gods delude:

The rural, and the woodland Pow'rs disdain'd;

With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain'd:

Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe's self she seems,

So tall, so streight, such well-proportion'd limbs:

The nicest eye did no distinction know,

But that the goddess bore a golden bow:

Distinguish'd thus, the sight she cheated too.

Descending from Lycaeus, Pan admires

The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.

A crown of pine upon his head he wore;

And thus began her pity to implore.

But e'er he thus began, she took her flight

So swift, she was already out of sight.

Nor stay'd to hear the courtship of the God;

But bent her course to Ladon's gentle flood:

There by the river stopt, and tir'd before;

Relief from water nymphs her pray'rs implore.

Now while the lustful God, with speedy pace,

Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,

He fill'd his arms with reeds, new rising on the

place.

And while he sighs, his ill success to find,

The tender canes were shaken by the wind;

And breath'd a mournful air, unheard before;

That much surprizing Pan, yet pleas'd him more.

Admiring this new musick, Thou, he said,

Who canst not be the partner of my bed,

At least shall be the confort of my mind:

And often, often to my lips be joyn'd.

He form'd the reeds, proportion'd as they are,

Unequal in their length, and wax'd with care,

They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.

While Hermes pip'd, and sung, and told his tale,

The keeper's winking eyes began to fail,

And drowsie slumber on the lids to creep;

'Till all the watchman was at length asleep.

Then soon the God his voice, and song supprest;

And with his pow'rful rod confirm'd his rest:

Without delay his crooked faulchion drew,

And at one fatal stroke the keeper slew.

Down from the rock fell the dissever'd head,

Opening its eyes in death; and falling, bled;

And mark'd the passage with a crimson trail:

Thus Argus lies in pieces, cold, and pale;

And all his hundred eyes, with all their light,

Are clos'd at once, in one perpetual night.

These Juno takes, that they no more may fail,

And spreads them in her peacock's gaudy tail.

Impatient to revenge her injur'd bed,

She wreaks her anger on her rival's head;

With Furies frights her from her native home;

And drives her gadding, round the world to roam:

Nor ceas'd her madness, and her flight, before

She touch'd the limits of the Pharian shore.

At length, arriving on the banks of Nile,

Wearied with length of ways, and worn with toil,

She laid her down; and leaning on her knees,

Invok'd the cause of all her miseries:

And cast her languishing regards above,

For help from Heav'n, and her ungrateful Jove.

She sigh'd, she wept, she low'd; 'twas all she

cou'd;

And with unkindness seem'd to tax the God.

Last, with an humble pray'r, she beg'd repose,

Or death at least, to finish all her woes.

Jove heard her vows, and with a flatt'ring look,

In her behalf to jealous Juno spoke,

He cast his arms about her neck, and said,

Dame, rest secure; no more thy nuptial bed

This nymph shall violate; by Styx I swear,

And every oath that binds the Thunderer.

The Goddess was appeas'd; and at the word

Was Io to her former shape restor'd.

The rugged hair began to fall away;

The sweetness of her eyes did only stay,

Tho' not so large; her crooked horns decrease;

The wideness of her jaws and nostrils cease:

Her hoofs to hands return, in little space:

The five long taper fingers take their place,

And nothing of the heyfer now is seen,

Beside the native whiteness of the skin.

Erected on her feet she walks again:

And two the duty of the four sustain.

She tries her tongue; her silence softly breaks,

And fears her former lowings when she speaks:

A Goddess now, through all th' Aegyptian State:

And serv'd by priests, who in white linnen wait.

Her son was Epaphus, at length believ'd

The son of Jove, and as a God receiv'd;

With sacrifice ador'd, and publick pray'rs,

He common temples with his mother shares.

Equal in years, and rival in renown

With Epaphus, the youthful Phaeton

Like honour claims; and boasts his sire the sun.

His haughty looks, and his assuming air,

The son of Isis could no longer bear:

Thou tak'st thy mother's word too far, said he,

And hast usurp'd thy boasted pedigree.

Go, base pretender to a borrow'd name.

Thus tax'd, he blush'd with anger, and with shame;

But shame repress'd his rage: the daunted youth

Soon seeks his mother, and enquires the truth:

Mother, said he, this infamy was thrown

By Epaphus on you, and me your son.

He spoke in publick, told it to my face;

Nor durst I vindicate the dire disgrace:

Even I, the bold, the sensible of wrong,

Restrain'd by shame, was forc'd to hold my tongue.

To hear an open slander, is a curse:

But not to find an answer, is a worse.

If I am Heav'n-begot, assert your son

By some sure sign; and make my father known,

To right my honour, and redeem your own.

He said, and saying cast his arms about

Her neck, and beg'd her to resolve the doubt.

'Tis hard to judge if Clymene were mov'd

More by his pray'r, whom she so dearly lov'd,

Or more with fury fir'd, to find her name

Traduc'd, and made the sport of common fame.

She stretch'd her arms to Heav'n, and fix'd her

eyes

On that fair planet that adorns the skies;

Now by those beams, said she, whose holy fires

Consume my breast, and kindle my desires;

By him, who sees us both, and clears our sight,

By him, the publick minister of light,

I swear that Sun begot thee; if I lye,

Let him his chearful influence deny:

Let him no more this perjur'd creature see;

And shine on all the world but only me.

If still you doubt your mother's innocence,

His eastern mansion is not far from hence;

With little pains you to his Leve go,

And from himself your parentage may know.

With joy th' ambitious youth his mother heard,

And eager, for the journey soon prepar'd.

He longs the world beneath him to survey;

To guide the chariot; and to give the day:

From Meroe's burning sands he bends his course,

Nor less in India feels his father's force:

His travel urging, till he came in sight;

And saw the palace by the purple light.



The End of the First Book.

BOOK THE SECOND



THE Sun's bright palace, on high columns rais'd,

With burnish'd gold and flaming jewels blaz'd;

The folding gates diffus'd a silver light,

And with a milder gleam refresh'd the sight;

Of polish'd iv'ry was the cov'ring wrought:

The Story ofThe matter vied not with the sculptor's thought,

PhaetonFor in the portal was display'd on high

(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;

A waving sea th' inferiour Earth embrac'd,

And Gods and Goddesses the waters grac'd.

Aegeon here a mighty whale bestrode;

Triton, and Proteus (the deceiving God)

With Doris here were carv'd, and all her train,

Some loosely swimming in the figur'd main,

While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,

And some on fishes through the waters glide:

Tho' various features did the sisters grace,

A sister's likeness was in ev'ry face.

On Earth a diff'rent landskip courts the eyes,

Men, towns, and beasts in distant prospects rise,

And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural

deities.

O'er all, the Heav'n's refulgent image shines;

On either gate were six engraven signs.

Here Phaeton still gaining on th' ascent,

To his suspected father's palace went,

'Till pressing forward through the bright abode,

He saw at distance the illustrious God:

He saw at distance, or the dazling light

Had flash'd too strongly on his aking sight.

The God sits high, exalted on a throne

Of blazing gems, with purple garments on;

The Hours, in order rang'd on either hand,

And Days, and Months, and Years, and Ages stand.

Here Spring appears with flow'ry chaplets bound;

Here Summer in her wheaten garland crown'd;

Here Autumn the rich trodden grapes besmear;

And hoary Winter shivers in the reer.

Phoebus beheld the youth from off his throne;

That eye, which looks on all, was fix'd in one.

He saw the boy's confusion in his face,

Surpriz'd at all the wonders of the place;

And cries aloud, "What wants my son? for know

My son thou art, and I must call thee so."

"Light of the world," the trembling youth replies,

"Illustrious parent! since you don't despise

The parent's name, some certain token give,

That I may Clymene's proud boast believe,

Nor longer under false reproaches grieve."

The tender sire was touch'd with what he said,

And flung the blaze of glories from his head,

And bid the youth advance: "My son," said he,

"Come to thy father's arms! for Clymene

Has told thee true; a parent's name I own,

And deem thee worthy to be called my son.

As a sure proof, make some request, and I,

Whate'er it be, with that request comply;

By Styx I swear, whose waves are hid in night,

And roul impervious to my piercing sight."

The youth transported, asks, without delay,

To guide the sun's bright chariot for a day.

The God repented of the oath he took,

For anguish thrice his radiant head he shook;

"My son," says he, "some other proof require,

Rash was my promise, rash is thy desire.

I'd fain deny this wish, which thou hast made,

Or, what I can't deny, wou'd fain disswade.

Too vast and hazardous the task appears,

Nor suited to thy strength, nor to thy years.

Thy lot is mortal, but thy wishes fly

Beyond the province of mortality:

There is not one of all the Gods that dares

(However skill'd in other great affairs)

To mount the burning axle-tree, but I;

Not Jove himself, the ruler of the sky,

That hurles the three-fork'd thunder from above,

Dares try his strength: yet who so strong as Jove?

The steeds climb up the first ascent with pain,

And when the middle firmament they gain,

If downward from the Heav'ns my head I bow,

And see the Earth and Ocean hang below,

Ev'n I am seiz'd with horror and affright,

And my own heart misgives me at the sight.

A mighty downfal steeps the ev'ning stage,

And steddy reins must curb the horses' rage.

Tethys herself has fear'd to see me driv'n

Down headlong from the precipice of Heav'n.

Besides, consider what impetuous force

Turns stars and planets in a diff'rent course.

I steer against their motions; nor am I

Born back by all the current of the sky.

But how cou'd you resist the orbs that roul

In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?

But you perhaps may hope for pleasing woods,

And stately dooms, and cities fill'd with Gods;

While through a thousand snares your progress lies,

Where forms of starry monsters stock the skies:

For, shou'd you hit the doubtful way aright,

The bull with stooping horns stands opposite;

Next him the bright Haemonian bow is strung,

And next, the lion's grinning visage hung:

The scorpion's claws, here clasp a wide extent;

And here the crab's in lesser clasps are bent.

Nor wou'd you find it easie to compose

The mettled steeds, when from their nostrils flows

The scorching fire, that in their entrails glows.

Ev'n I their head-strong fury scarce restrain,

When they grow warm and restif to the rein.

Let not my son a fatal gift require,

But, O! in time, recall your rash desire;

You ask a gift that may your parent tell,

Let these my fears your parentage reveal;

And learn a father from a father's care:

Look on my face; or if my heart lay bare,

Cou'd you but look, you'd read the father there.

Chuse out a gift from seas, or Earth, or skies,

For open to your wish all Nature lies,

Only decline this one unequal task,

For 'tis a mischief, not a gift, you ask.

You ask a real mischief, Phaeton:

Nay hang not thus about my neck, my son:

I grant your wish, and Styx has heard my voice,

Chuse what you will, but make a wiser choice."

Thus did the God th' unwary youth advise;

But he still longs to travel through the skies.

When the fond father (for in vain he pleads)

At length to the Vulcanian Chariot leads.

A golden axle did the work uphold,

Gold was the beam, the wheels were orb'd with gold.

The spokes in rows of silver pleas'd the sight,

The seat with party-colour'd gems was bright;

Apollo shin'd amid the glare of light.

The youth with secret joy the work surveys,

When now the moon disclos'd her purple rays;

The stars were fled, for Lucifer had chased

The stars away, and fled himself at last.

Soon as the father saw the rosy morn,

And the moon shining with a blunter horn,

He bid the nimble Hours, without delay,

Bring forth the steeds; the nimble Hours obey:

From their full racks the gen'rous steeds retire,

Dropping ambrosial foams, and snorting fire.

Still anxious for his son, the God of day,

To make him proof against the burning ray,

His temples with celestial ointment wet,

Of sov'reign virtue to repel the heat;

Then fix'd the beamy circle on his head,

And fetch'd a deep foreboding sigh, and said,

"Take this at least, this last advice, my son,

Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on:

The coursers of themselves will run too fast,

Your art must be to moderate their haste.

Drive 'em not on directly through the skies,

But where the Zodiac's winding circle lies,

Along the midmost Zone; but sally forth

Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north.

The horses' hoofs a beaten track will show,

But neither mount too high, nor sink too low.

That no new fires, or Heav'n or Earth infest;

Keep the mid way, the middle way is best.

Nor, where in radiant folds the serpent twines,

Direct your course, nor where the altar shines.

Shun both extreams; the rest let Fortune guide,

And better for thee than thy self provide!

See, while I speak, the shades disperse away,

Aurora gives the promise of a day;

I'm call'd, nor can I make a longer stay.

Snatch up the reins; or still th' attempt forsake,

And not my chariot, but my counsel, take,

While yet securely on the Earth you stand;

Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand.

Let me alone to light the world, while you

Enjoy those beams which you may safely view."

He spoke in vain; the youth with active heat

And sprightly vigour vaults into the seat;

And joys to hold the reins, and fondly gives

Those thanks his father with remorse receives.

Mean-while the restless horses neigh'd aloud,

Breathing out fire, and pawing where they stood.

Tethys, not knowing what had past, gave way,

And all the waste of Heav'n before 'em lay.

They spring together out, and swiftly bear

The flying youth thro' clouds and yielding air;

With wingy speed outstrip the eastern wind,

And leave the breezes of the morn behind.

The youth was light, nor cou'd he fill the seat,

Or poise the chariot with its wonted weight:

But as at sea th' unballass'd vessel rides,

Cast to and fro, the sport of winds and tides;

So in the bounding chariot toss'd on high,

The youth is hurry'd headlong through the sky.

Soon as the steeds perceive it, they forsake

Their stated course, and leave the beaten track.

The youth was in a maze, nor did he know

Which way to turn the reins, or where to go;

Nor wou'd the horses, had he known, obey.

Then the sev'n stars first felt Apollo's ray,

And wish'd to dip in the forbidden sea.

The folded serpent next the frozen pole,

Stiff and benum'd before, began to rowle,

And raged with inward heat, and threaten'd war,

And shot a redder light from ev'ry star;

Nay, and 'tis said Bootes too, that fain

Thou woud'st have fled, tho' cumber'd with thy

wane.

Th' unhappy youth then, bending down his head,

Saw Earth and Ocean far beneath him spread.

His colour chang'd, he startled at the sight,

And his eyes darken'd by too great a light.

Now cou'd he wish the fiery steeds untry'd,

His birth obscure, and his request deny'd:

Now wou'd he Merops for his father own,

And quit his boasted kindred to the sun.

So fares the pilot, when his ship is tost

In troubled seas, and all its steerage lost,

He gives her to the winds, and in despair

Seeks his last refuge in the Gods and pray'r.

What cou'd he do? his eyes, if backward cast,

Find a long path he had already past;

If forward, still a longer path they find:

Both he compares, and measures in his mind;

And sometimes casts an eye upon the east,

And sometimes looks on the forbidden west,

The horses' names he knew not in the fright,

Nor wou'd he loose the reins, nor cou'd he hold 'em

right.

Now all the horrors of the Heav'ns he spies,

And monstrous shadows of prodigious size,

That, deck'd with stars, lye scatter'd o'er the

skies.

There is a place above, where Scorpio bent

In tail and arms surrounds a vast extent;

In a wide circuit of the Heav'ns he shines,

And fills the space of two coelestial signs.

Soon as the youth beheld him vex'd with heat

Brandish his sting, and in his poison sweat,

Half dead with sudden fear he dropt the reins;

The horses felt 'em loose upon their mains,

And, flying out through all the plains above,

Ran uncontroul'd where-e're their fury drove;

Rush'd on the stars, and through a pathless way

Of unknown regions hurry'd on the day.

And now above, and now below they flew,

And near the Earth the burning chariot drew.

The clouds disperse in fumes, the wond'ring Moon

Beholds her brother's steeds beneath her own;

The highlands smoak, cleft by the piercing rays,

Or, clad with woods, in their own fewel blaze.

Next o'er the plains, where ripen'd harvests grow,

The running conflagration spreads below.

But these are trivial ills: whole cities burn,

And peopled kingdoms into ashes turn.

The mountains kindle as the car draws near,

Athos and Tmolus red with fires appear;

Oeagrian Haemus (then a single name)

And virgin Helicon increase the flame;

Taurus and Oete glare amid the sky,

And Ida, spight of all her fountains, dry.

Eryx and Othrys, and Cithaeron, glow,

And Rhodope, no longer cloath'd in snow;

High Pindus, Mimas, and Parnassus, sweat,

And Aetna rages with redoubled heat.

Ev'n Scythia, through her hoary regions warm'd,

In vain with all her native frost was arm'd.

Cover'd with flames the tow'ring Appennine,

And Caucasus, and proud Olympus, shine;

And, where the long-extended Alpes aspire,

Now stands a huge continu'd range of fire.

Th' astonisht youth, where-e'er his eyes cou'd

turn,

Beheld the universe around him burn:

The world was in a blaze; nor cou'd he bear

The sultry vapours and the scorching air,

Which from below, as from a furnace, flow'd;

And now the axle-tree beneath him glow'd:

Lost in the whirling clouds that round him broke,

And white with ashes, hov'ring in the smoke.

He flew where-e'er the horses drove, nor knew

Whither the horses drove, or where he flew.

'Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor begun

To change his hue, and blacken in the sun.

Then Libya first, of all her moisture drain'd,

Became a barren waste, a wild of sand.

The water-nymphs lament their empty urns,

Boeotia, robb's of silve Dirce, mourns,

Corinth Pyrene's wasted spring bewails,

And Argos grieves whilst Amymone fails.

The floods are drain'd from ev'ry distant coast,

Ev'n Tanais, tho' fix'd in ice, was lost.

Enrag'd Caicus and Lycormas roar,

And Xanthus, fated to be burnt once more.

The fam'd Maeander, that unweary'd strays

Through mazy windings, smoaks in ev'ry maze.

From his lov'd Babylon Euphrates flies;

The big-swoln Ganges and the Danube rise

In thick'ning fumes, and darken half the skies.

In flames Ismenos and the Phasis roul'd,

And Tagus floating in his melted gold.

The swans, that on Cayster often try'd

Their tuneful songs, now sung their last and dy'd.

The frighted Nile ran off, and under ground

Conceal'd his head, nor can it yet be found:

His sev'n divided currents all are dry,

And where they row'ld, sev'n gaping trenches lye:

No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain,

Nor Tiber, of his promis'd empire vain.

The ground, deep-cleft, admits the dazling ray,

And startles Pluto with the flash of day.

The seas shrink in, and to the sight disclose

Wide naked plains, where once their billows rose;

Their rocks are all discover'd, and increase

The number of the scatter'd Cyclades.

The fish in sholes about the bottom creep,

Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap

Gasping for breath, th' unshapen Phocae die,

And on the boiling wave extended lye.

Nereus, and Doris with her virgin train,

Seek out the last recesses of the main;

Beneath unfathomable depths they faint,

And secret in their gloomy caverns pant.

Stern Neptune thrice above the waves upheld

His face, and thrice was by the flames repell'd.

The Earth at length, on ev'ry side embrac'd

With scalding seas that floated round her waste,

When now she felt the springs and rivers come,

And crowd within the hollow of her womb,

Up-lifted to the Heav'ns her blasted head,

And clapt her hand upon her brows, and said

(But first, impatient of the sultry heat,

Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat):

"If you, great king of Gods, my death approve,

And I deserve it, let me die by Jove;

If I must perish by the force of fire,

Let me transfix'd with thunder-bolts expire.

See, whilst I speak, my breath the vapours choak

(For now her face lay wrapt in clouds of smoak),

See my singe'd hair, behold my faded eye,

And wither'd face, where heaps of cinders lye!

And does the plow for this my body tear?

This the reward for all the fruits I bear,

Tortur'd with rakes, and harrass'd all the year?

That herbs for cattle daily I renew,

And food for Man, and frankincense for you?

But grant me guilty; what has Neptune done?

Why are his waters boiling in the sun?

The wavy empire, which by lot was giv'n,

Why does it waste, and further shrink from Heav'n?

If I nor he your pity can provoke,

See your own Heav'ns, the Heav'ns begin to smoke!

Shou'd once the sparkles catch those bright abodes,

Destruction seizes on the Heav'ns and Gods;

Atlas becomes unequal to his freight,

And almost faints beneath the glowing weight.

If Heav'n, and Earth, and sea, together burn,

All must again into their chaos turn.

Apply some speedy cure, prevent our fate,

And succour Nature, ere it be too late."

She cea'sd, for choak'd with vapours round her

spread,

Down to the deepest shades she sunk her head.

Jove call'd to witness ev'ry Pow'r above,

And ev'n the God, whose son the chariot drove,

That what he acts he is compell'd to do,

Or universal ruin must ensue.

Strait he ascends the high aetherial throne,

From whence he us'd to dart his thunder down,

From whence his show'rs and storms he us'd to pour,

But now cou'd meet with neither storm nor show'r.

Then, aiming at the youth, with lifted hand,

Full at his head he hurl'd the forky brand,

In dreadful thund'rings. Thus th' almighty sire

Suppress'd the raging of the fires with fire.

At once from life and from the chariot driv'n,

Th' ambitious boy fell thunder-struck from Heav'n.

The horses started with a sudden bound,

And flung the reins and chariot to the ground:

The studded harness from their necks they broke,

Here fell a wheel, and here a silver spoke,

Here were the beam and axle torn away;

And, scatter'd o'er the Earth, the shining

fragments lay.

The breathless Phaeton, with flaming hair,

Shot from the chariot, like a falling star,

That in a summer's ev'ning from the top

Of Heav'n drops down, or seems at least to drop;

'Till on the Po his blasted corps was hurl'd,

Far from his country, in the western world.

Phaeton'sThe Latian nymphs came round him, and, amaz'd,

SistersOn the dead youth, transfix'd with thunder, gaz'd;

transform'dAnd, whilst yet smoaking from the bolt he lay,

into TreesHis shatter'd body to a tomb convey,

And o'er the tomb an epitaph devise:

"Here he, who drove the sun's bright chariot, lies;

His father's fiery steeds he cou'd not guide,

But in the glorious enterprize he dy'd."

Apollo hid his face, and pin'd for grief,

And, if the story may deserve belief,

The space of one whole day is said to run,

From morn to wonted ev'n, without a sun:

The burning ruins, with a fainter ray,

Supply the sun, and counterfeit a day,

A day, that still did Nature's face disclose:

This comfort from the mighty mischief rose.

But Clymene, enrag'd with grief, laments,

And as her grief inspires, her passion vents:

Wild for her son, and frantick in her woes,

With hair dishevel'd round the world she goes,

To seek where-e'er his body might be cast;

'Till, on the borders of the Po, at last

The name inscrib'd on the new tomb appears.

The dear dear name she bathes in flowing tears,

Hangs o'er the tomb, unable to depart,

And hugs the marble to her throbbing heart.

Her daughters too lament, and sigh, and mourn

(A fruitless tribute to their brother's urn),

And beat their naked bosoms, and complain,

And call aloud for Phaeton in vain:

All the long night their mournful watch they keep,

And all the day stand round the tomb, and weep.

Four times, revolving, the full moon return'd;

So long the mother and the daughters mourn'd:

When now the eldest, Phaethusa, strove

To rest her weary limbs, but could not move;

Lampetia wou'd have help'd her, but she found

Her self with-held, and rooted to the ground:

A third in wild affliction, as she grieves,

Wou'd rend her hair, but fills her hands with

leaves;

One sees her thighs transform'd, another views

Her arms shot out, and branching into boughs.

And now their legs, and breasts, and bodies stood

Crusted with bark, and hard'ning into wood;

But still above were female heads display'd,

And mouths, that call'd the mother to their aid.

What cou'd, alas! the weeping mother do?

From this to that with eager haste she flew,

And kiss'd her sprouting daughters as they grew.

She tears the bark that to each body cleaves,

And from their verdant fingers strips the leaves:

The blood came trickling, where she tore away

The leaves and bark: the maids were heard to say,

"Forbear, mistaken parent, oh! forbear;

A wounded daughter in each tree you tear;

Farewell for ever." Here the bark encreas'd,

Clos'd on their faces, and their words suppress'd.

The new-made trees in tears of amber run,

Which, harden'd into value by the sun,

Distill for ever on the streams below:

The limpid streams their radiant treasure show,

Mixt in the sand; whence the rich drops convey'd

Shine in the dress of the bright Latian maid.

TheCycnus beheld the nymphs transform'd, ally'd

TransformationTo their dead brother on the mortal side,

of Cycnus intoIn friendship and affection nearer bound;

a SwanHe left the cities and the realms he own'd,

Thro' pathless fields and lonely shores to range,

And woods made thicker by the sisters' change.

Whilst here, within the dismal gloom, alone,

The melancholy monarch made his moan,

His voice was lessen'd, as he try'd to speak,

And issu'd through a long-extended neck;

His hair transforms to down, his fingers meet

In skinny films, and shape his oary feet;

From both his sides the wings and feathers break;

And from his mouth proceeds a blunted beak:

All Cycnus now into a Swan was turn'd,

Who, still remembring how his kinsman burn'd,

To solitary pools and lakes retires,

And loves the waters as oppos'd to fires.

Mean-while Apollo in a gloomy shade

(The native lustre of his brows decay'd)

Indulging sorrow, sickens at the sight

Of his own sun-shine, and abhors the light;

The hidden griefs, that in his bosom rise,

Sadden his looks and over-cast his eyes,

As when some dusky orb obstructs his ray,

And sullies in a dim eclipse the day.

Now secretly with inward griefs he pin'd,

Now warm resentments to his griefs he joyn'd,

And now renounc'd his office to mankind.

"Ere since the birth of time," said he, "I've born

A long ungrateful toil, without return;

Let now some other manage, if he dare,

The fiery steeds, and mount the burning carr;

Or, if none else, let Jove his fortune try,

And learn to lay his murd'ring thunder by;

Then will he own, perhaps, but own too late,

My son deserv'd not so severe a fate."

The Gods stand round him, as he mourns, and pray

He would resume the conduct of the day,

Nor let the world be lost in endless night:

Jove too himself descending from his height,

Excuses what had happen'd, and intreats,

Majestically mixing pray'rs and threats.

Prevail'd upon at length, again he took

The harness'd steeds, that still with horror shook,

And plies 'em with the lash, and whips 'em on,

And, as he whips, upbraids 'em with his son.

The Story ofThe day was settled in its course; and Jove

CalistoWalk'd the wide circuit of the Heavens above,

To search if any cracks or flaws were made;

But all was safe: the Earth he then survey'd,

And cast an eye on ev'ry diff'rent coast,

And ev'ry land; but on Arcadia most.

Her fields he cloath'd, and chear'd her blasted

face

With running fountains, and with springing grass.

No tracks of Heav'n's destructive fire remain,

The fields and woods revive, and Nature smiles

again.

But as the God walk'd to and fro the Earth,

And rais'd the plants, and gave the spring its

birth,

By chance a fair Arcadian nymph he view'd,

And felt the lovely charmer in his blood.

The nymph nor spun, nor dress'd with artful pride,

Her vest was gather'd up, her hair was ty'd;

Now in her hand a slender spear she bore,

Now a light quiver on her shoulders wore;

To chaste Diana from her youth inclin'd,

The sprightly warriors of the wood she joyn'd.

Diana too the gentle huntress lov'd,

Nor was there one of all the nymphs that rov'd

O'er Maenalus, amid the maiden throng,

More favour'd once; but favour lasts not long.

The sun now shone in all its strength, and drove

The heated virgin panting to a grove;

The grove around a grateful shadow cast:

She dropt her arrows, and her bow unbrac'd;

She flung her self on the cool grassy bed;

And on the painted quiver rais'd her head,

Jove saw the charming huntress unprepar'd,

Stretch'd on the verdant turf, without a guard.

"Here I am safe," he cries, "from Juno's eye;

Or shou'd my jealous queen the theft descry,

Yet wou'd I venture on a theft like this,

And stand her rage for such, for such a bliss!"

Diana's shape and habit strait he took,

Soften'd his brows, and smooth'd his awful look,

And mildly in a female accent spoke.

"How fares my girl? How went the morning chase?"

To whom the virgin, starting from the grass,

"All hail, bright deity, whom I prefer

To Jove himself, tho' Jove himself were here."

The God was nearer than she thought, and heard

Well-pleas'd himself before himself preferr'd.

He then salutes her with a warm embrace;

And, e're she half had told the morning chase,

With love enflam'd, and eager on his bliss,

Smother'd her words, and stop'd her with a kiss;

His kisses with unwonted ardour glow'd,

Nor cou'd Diana's shape conceal the God.

The virgin did whate'er a virgin cou'd

(Sure Juno must have pardon'd, had she view'd);

With all her might against his force she strove;

But how can mortal maids contend with Jove?

Possest at length of what his heart desir'd,

Back to his Heav'ns, th' exulting God retir'd.

The lovely huntress, rising from the grass,

With down-cast eyes, and with a blushing face,

By shame confounded, and by fear dismay'd,

Flew from the covert of the guilty shade,

And almost, in the tumult of her mind,

Left her forgotten bow and shafts behind.

But now Diana, with a sprightly train

Of quiver'd virgins, bounding o'er the plain,

Call'd to the nymph; the nymph began to fear

A second fraud, a Jove disguis'd in her;

But, when she saw the sister nymphs, suppress'd

Her rising fears, and mingled with the rest.

How in the look does conscious guilt appear!

Slowly she mov'd, and loiter'd in the rear;

Nor lightly tripp'd, nor by the Goddess ran,

As once she us'd, the foremost of the train.

Her looks were flush'd, and sullen was her mien,

That sure the virgin Goddess (had she been

Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen.

'Tis said the nymphs saw all, and guess'd aright:

And now the moon had nine times lost her light,

When Dian, fainting in the mid-day beams,

Found a cool covert, and refreshing streams

That in soft murmurs through the forest flow'd,

And a smooth bed of shining gravel show'd.

A covert so obscure, and streams so clear,

The Goddess prais'd: "And now no spies are near

Let's strip, my gentle maids, and wash," she cries.

Pleas'd with the motion, every maid complies;

Only the blushing huntress stood confus'd,

And form'd delays, and her delays excus'd;

In vain excus'd: her fellows round her press'd,

And the reluctant nymph by force undress'd,

The naked huntress all her shame reveal'd,

In vain her hands the pregnant womb conceal'd;

"Begone!" the Goddess cries with stern disdain,

"Begone! nor dare the hallow'd stream to stain":

She fled, for ever banish'd from the train.

This Juno heard, who long had watch'd her time

To punish the detested rival's crime;

The time was come; for, to enrage her more,

A lovely boy the teeming rival bore.

The Goddess cast a furious look, and cry'd,

"It is enough! I'm fully satisfy'd!

This boy shall stand a living mark, to prove

My husband's baseness and the strumpet's love:

But vengeance shall awake: those guilty charms

That drew the Thunderer from Juno's arms,

No longer shall their wonted force retain,

Nor please the God, nor make the mortal vain."

This said, her hand within her hair she wound,

Swung her to Earth, and drag'd her on the ground:

The prostrate wretch lifts up her arms in pray'r;

Her arms grow shaggy, and deform'd with hair,

Her nails are sharpen'd into pointed claws,

Her hands bear half her weight, and turn to paws;

Her lips, that once cou'd tempt a God, begin

To grow distorted in an ugly grin.

And, lest the supplicating brute might reach

The ears of Jove, she was depriv'd of speech:

Her surly voice thro' a hoarse passage came

In savage sounds: her mind was still the same,

The furry monster fix'd her eyes above,

And heav'd her new unwieldy paws to Jove,

And beg'd his aid with inward groans; and tho'

She could not call him false, she thought him so.

How did she fear to lodge in woods alone,

And haunt the fields and meadows, once her own!

How often wou'd the deep-mouth'd dogs pursue,

Whilst from her hounds the frighted huntress flew!

How did she fear her fellow-brutes, and shun

The shaggy bear, tho' now her self was one!

How from the sight of rugged wolves retire,

Although the grim Lycaon was her sire!

But now her son had fifteen summers told,

Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold;

When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,

He chanc'd to rouze his mother where she lay.

She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,

And fondly gaz'd: the boy was in a fright,

And aim'd a pointed arrow at her breast,

And would have slain his mother in the beast;

But Jove forbad, and snatch'd 'em through the air

In whirlwinds up to Heav'n, and fix'd 'em there!

Where the new constellations nightly rise,

And add a lustre to the northern skies.

When Juno saw the rival in her height,

Spangled with stars, and circled round with light,

She sought old Ocean in his deep abodes,

And Tethys, both rever'd among the Gods.

They ask what brings her there: "Ne'er ask," says

she,

"What brings me here, Heav'n is no place for me.

You'll see, when night has cover'd all things o'er,

Jove's starry bastard and triumphant whore

Usurp the Heav'ns; you'll see 'em proudly rowle

And who shall now on Juno's altars wait,

When those she hates grow greater by her hate?

I on the nymph a brutal form impress'd,

Jove to a goddess has transform'd the beast;

This, this was all my weak revenge could do:

But let the God his chaste amours pursue,

And, as he acted after Io's rape,

Restore th' adultress to her former shape;

Then may he cast his Juno off, and lead

The great Lycaon's offspring to his bed.

But you, ye venerable Pow'rs, be kind,

And, if my wrongs a due resentment find,

Receive not in your waves their setting beams,

Nor let the glaring strumpet taint your streams."

The Goddess ended, and her wish was giv'n.

Back she return'd in triumph up to Heav'n;

Her gawdy peacocks drew her through the skies.

Their tails were spotted with a thousand eyes;

The eyes of Argus on their tails were rang'd,

At the same time the raven's colour chang'd.

The Story ofThe raven once in snowy plumes was drest,

Coronis, andWhite as the whitest dove's unsully'd breast,

Birth ofFair as the guardian of the Capitol,

AesculapiusSoft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl;

His tongue, his prating tongue had chang'd him

quite

To sooty blackness, from the purest white.

The story of his change shall here be told;

In Thessaly there liv'd a nymph of old,

Coronis nam'd; a peerless maid she shin'd,

Confest the fairest of the fairer kind.

Apollo lov'd her, 'till her guilt he knew,

While true she was, or whilst he thought her true.

But his own bird the raven chanc'd to find

The false one with a secret rival joyn'd.

Coronis begg'd him to suppress the tale,

But could not with repeated pray'rs prevail.

His milk-white pinions to the God he ply'd;

The busy daw flew with him, side by side,

And by a thousand teizing questions drew

Th' important secret from him as they flew.

The daw gave honest counsel, tho' despis'd,

And, tedious in her tattle, thus advis'd:

"Stay, silly bird, th' ill-natur'd task refuse,

Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.

Be warn'd by my example: you discern

What now I am, and what I was shall learn.

My foolish honesty was all my crime;

Then hear my story. Once upon a time,

The two-shap'd Ericthonius had his birth

(Without a mother) from the teeming Earth;

Minerva nurs'd him, and the infant laid

Within a chest, of twining osiers made.

The daughters of king Cecrops undertook

To guard the chest, commanded not to look

On what was hid within. I stood to see

The charge obey'd, perch'd on a neighb'ring tree.

The sisters Pandrosos and Herse keep

The strict command; Aglauros needs would peep,

And saw the monstrous infant, in a fright,

And call'd her sisters to the hideous sight:

A boy's soft shape did to the waste prevail,

But the boy ended in a dragon's tail.

I told the stern Minerva all that pass'd;

But for my pains, discarded and disgrac'd,

The frowning Goddess drove me from her sight,

And for her fav'rite chose the bird of night.

Be then no tell-tale; for I think my wrong

Enough to teach a bird to hold her tongue.

But you, perhaps, may think I was remov'd,

As never by the heav'nly maid belov'd:

But I was lov'd; ask Pallas if I lye;

Tho' Pallas hate me now, she won't deny:

For I, whom in a feather'd shape you view,

Was once a maid (by Heav'n the story's true)

A blooming maid, and a king's daughter too.

A crowd of lovers own'd my beauty's charms;

My beauty was the cause of all my harms;

Neptune, as on his shores I wont to rove,

Observ'd me in my walks, and fell in love.

He made his courtship, he confess'd his pain,

And offer'd force, when all his arts were vain;

Swift he pursu'd: I ran along the strand,

'Till, spent and weary'd on the sinking sand,

I shriek'd aloud, with cries I fill'd the air

To Gods and men; nor God nor man was there:

A virgin Goddess heard a virgin's pray'r.

For, as my arms I lifted to the skies,

I saw black feathers from my fingers rise;

I strove to fling my garment on the ground;

My garment turn'd to plumes, and girt me round:

My hands to beat my naked bosom try;

Nor naked bosom now nor hands had I:

Lightly I tript, nor weary as before

Sunk in the sand, but skim'd along the shore;

'Till, rising on my wings, I was preferr'd

To be the chaste Minerva's virgin bird:

Preferr'd in vain! I am now in disgrace:

Nyctimene the owl enjoys my place.

On her incestuous life I need not dwell

(In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell),

And of her dire amours you must have heard,

For which she now does penance in a bird,

That conscious of her shame, avoids the light,

And loves the gloomy cov'ring of the night;

The birds, where-e'er she flutters, scare away

The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day."

The raven, urg'd by such impertinence,

Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,

And curst the harmless daw; the daw withdrew:

The raven to her injur'd patron flew,

And found him out, and told the fatal truth

Of false Coronis and the favour'd youth.

The God was wroth, the colour left his look,

The wreath his head, the harp his hand forsook:

His silver bow and feather'd shafts he took,

And lodg'd an arrow in the tender breast,

That had so often to his own been prest.

Down fell the wounded nymph, and sadly groan'd,

And pull'd his arrow reeking from the wound;

And weltring in her blood, thus faintly cry'd,

"Ah cruel God! tho' I have justly dy'd,

What has, alas! my unborn infant done,

That he should fall, and two expire in one?"

This said, in agonies she fetch'd her breath.

The God dissolves in pity at her death;

He hates the bird that made her falshood known,

And hates himself for what himself had done;

The feather'd shaft, that sent her to the Fates,

And his own hand, that sent the shaft, he hates.

Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain,

And tries the compass of his art in vain.

Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,

The pile made ready, and the kindling fire.

With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept,

And, if a God could weep, the God had wept.

Her corps he kiss'd, and heav'nly incense brought,

And solemniz'd the death himself had wrought.

But lest his offspring should her fate partake,

Spight of th' immortal mixture in his make,

He ript her womb, and set the child at large,

And gave him to the centaur Chiron's charge:

Then in his fury black'd the raven o'er,

And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.

OcyrrhoeOld Chiron took the babe with secret joy,

transform'dProud of the charge of the celestial boy.

into a MareHis daughter too, whom on the sandy shore

The nymph Charicle to the centaur bore,

With hair dishevel'd on her shoulders, came

To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name;

She knew her father's arts, and could rehearse

The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.

Once, as the sacred infant she survey'd,

The God was kindled in the raving maid,

And thus she utter'd her prophetick tale:

"Hail, great physician of the world, all-hail;

Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come

Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the tomb;

Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfin'd!

Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.

Thy daring art shall animate the dead,

And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:

Then shalt thou dye, but from the dark abode

Rise up victorious, and be twice a God.

And thou, my sire, not destin'd by thy birth

To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,

How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to dye,

And quit thy claim to immortality;

When thou shalt feel, enrag'd with inward pains,

The Hydra's venom rankling in thy veins?

The Gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,

And give thee over to the pow'r of Fate."

Thus entring into destiny, the maid

The secrets of offended Jove betray'd:

More had she still to say; but now appears

Oppress'd with sobs and sighs, and drown'd in

tears.

"My voice," says she, "is gone, my language fails;

Through ev'ry limb my kindred shape prevails:

Why did the God this fatal gift impart,

And with prophetick raptures swell my heart!

What new desires are these? I long to pace

O'er flow'ry meadows, and to feed on grass;

I hasten to a brute, a maid no more;

But why, alas! am I transform'd all o'er?

My sire does half a human shape retain,

And in his upper parts preserve the man."

Her tongue no more distinct complaints affords,

But in shrill accents and mis-shapen words

Pours forth such hideous wailings, as declare

The human form confounded in the mare:

'Till by degrees accomplish'd in the beast,

She neigh'd outright, and all the steed exprest.

Her stooping body on her hands is born,

Her hands are turn'd to hoofs, and shod in horn,

Her yellow tresses ruffle in a mane,

And in a flowing tail she frisks her train,

The mare was finish'd in her voice and look,

And a new name from the new figure took.

TheSore wept the centuar, and to Phoebus pray'd;

TransformationBut how could Phoebus give the centaur aid?

of Battus to aDegraded of his pow'r by angry Jove,

Touch stoneIn Elis then a herd of beeves he drove;

And wielded in his hand a staff of oak,

And o'er his shoulders threw the shepherd's cloak;

On sev'n compacted reeds he us'd to play,

And on his rural pipe to waste the day.

As once attentive to his pipe he play'd,

The crafty Hermes from the God convey'd

A drove, that sep'rate from their fellows stray'd.

The theft an old insidious peasant view'd

(They call'd him Battus in the neighbourhood),

Hir'd by a vealthy Pylian prince to feed

His fav'rite mares, and watch the gen'rous breed.

The thievish God suspected him, and took

The hind aside, and thus in whispers spoke:

"Discover not the theft, whoe'er thou be,

And take that milk-white heifer for thy fee."

"Go, stranger," cries the clown, "securely on,

That stone shall sooner tell," and show'd a stone.

The God withdrew, but strait return'd again,

In speech and habit like a country swain;

And cries out, "Neighbour, hast thou seen a stray

Of bullocks and of heifers pass this way?

In the recov'ry of my cattle join,

A bullock and a heifer shall be thine."

The peasant quick replies, "You'll find 'em there

In yon dark vale"; and in the vale they were.

The double bribe had his false heart beguil'd:

The God, successful in the tryal, smil'd;

"And dost thou thus betray my self to me?

Me to my self dost thou betray?" says he:

Then to a Touch stone turns the faithless spy;

And in his name records his infamy.

The Story ofThis done, the God flew up on high, and pass'd

Aglauros,O'er lofty Athens, by Minerva grac'd,

transform'dAnd wide Munichia, whilst his eyes survey

into a StatueAll the vast region that beneath him lay.

'Twas now the feast, when each Athenian maid

Her yearly homage to Minerva paid;

In canisters, with garlands cover'd o'er,

High on their heads, their mystick gifts they bore:

And now, returning in a solemn train,

The troop of shining virgins fill'd the plain.

The God well pleas'd beheld the pompous show,

And saw the bright procession pass below;

Then veer'd about, and took a wheeling flight,

And hover'd o'er them: as the spreading kite,

That smells the slaughter'd victim from on high,

Flies at a distance, if the priests are nigh,

And sails around, and keeps it in her eye:

So kept the God the virgin quire in view,

And in slow winding circles round them flew.

As Lucifer excells the meanest star,

Or, as the full-orb'd Phoebe, Lucifer;

So much did Herse all the rest outvy,

And gave a grace to the solemnity.

Hermes was fir'd, as in the clouds he hung:

So the cold bullet, that with fury slung

From Balearick engines mounts on high,

Glows in the whirl, and burns along the sky.

At length he pitch'd upon the ground, and show'd

The form divine, the features of a God.

He knew their vertue o'er a female heart,

And yet he strives to better them by art.

He hangs his mantle loose, and sets to show

The golden edging on the seam below;

Adjusts his flowing curls, and in his hand

Waves, with an air, the sleep-procuring wand;

The glitt'ring sandals to his feet applies,

And to each heel the well-trim'd pinion ties.

His ornaments with nicest art display'd,

He seeks th' apartment of the royal maid.

The roof was all with polish'd iv'ry lin'd,

That richly mix'd, in clouds of tortoise shin'd.

Three rooms, contiguous, in a range were plac'd,

The midmost by the beauteous Herse grac'd;

Her virgin sisters lodg'd on either side.

Aglauros first th' approaching God descry'd,

And, as he cross'd her chamber, ask'd his name,

And what his business was, and whence he came.

"I come," reply'd the God, "from Heav'n, to woo

Your sister, and to make an aunt of you;

I am the son and messenger of Jove;

My name is Mercury, my bus'ness love;

Do you, kind damsel, take a lover's part,

And gain admittance to your sister's heart."

She star'd him in the face with looks amaz'd,

As when she on Minerva's secret gaz'd,

And asks a mighty treasure for her hire;

And, 'till he brings it, makes the God retire.

Minerva griev'd to see the nymph succeed;

And now remembring the late impious deed,

When, disobedient to her strict command,

She touch'd the chest with an unhallow'd hand;

In big-swoln sighs her inward rage express'd,

That heav'd the rising Aegis on her breast;

Then sought out Envy in her dark abode,

Defil'd with ropy gore and clots of blood:

Shut from the winds, and from the wholesome skies,

In a deep vale the gloomy dungeon lies,

Dismal and cold, where not a beam of light

Invades the winter, or disturbs the night.

Directly to the cave her course she steer'd;

Against the gates her martial lance she rear'd;

The gates flew open, and the fiend appear'd.

A pois'nous morsel in her teeth she chew'd,

And gorg'd the flesh of vipers for her food.

Minerva loathing turn'd away her eye;

The hideous monster, rising heavily,

Came stalking forward with a sullen pace,

And left her mangled offals on the place.

Soon as she saw the goddess gay and bright,

She fetch'd a groan at such a chearful sight.

Livid and meagre were her looks, her eye

In foul distorted glances turn'd awry;

A hoard of gall her inward parts possess'd,

And spread a greenness o'er her canker'd breast;

Her teeth were brown with rust, and from her

tongue,

In dangling drops, the stringy poison hung.

She never smiles but when the wretched weep,

Nor lulls her malice with a moment's sleep,

Restless in spite: while watchful to destroy,

She pines and sickens at another's joy;

Foe to her self, distressing and distrest,

She bears her own tormentor in her breast.

The Goddess gave (for she abhorr'd her sight)

A short command: "To Athens speed thy flight;

On curst Aglauros try thy utmost art,

And fix thy rankest venoms in her heart."

This said, her spear she push'd against the ground,

And mounting from it with an active bound,

Flew off to Heav'n: the hag with eyes askew

Look'd up, and mutter'd curses as she flew;

For sore she fretted, and began to grieve

At the success which she her self must give.

Then takes her staff, hung round with wreaths of

thorn,

And sails along, in a black whirlwind born,

O'er fields and flow'ry meadows: where she steers

Her baneful course, a mighty blast appears,

Mildews and blights; the meadows are defac'd,

The fields, the flow'rs, and the whole years laid

waste:

On mortals next, and peopled towns she falls,

And breathes a burning plague among their walls.

When Athens she beheld, for arts renown'd,

With peace made happy, and with plenty crown'd,

Scarce could the hideous fiend from tears forbear,

To find out nothing that deserv'd a tear.

Th' apartment now she enter'd, where at rest

Aglauros lay, with gentle sleep opprest.

To execute Minerva's dire command,

She stroak'd the virgin with her canker'd hand,

Then prickly thorns into her breast convey'd,

That stung to madness the devoted maid:

Her subtle venom still improves the smart,

Frets in the blood, and festers in the heart.

To make the work more sure, a scene she drew,

And plac'd before the dreaming virgin's view

Her sister's marriage, and her glorious fate:

Th' imaginary bride appears in state;

The bride-groom with unwonted beauty glows:

For envy magnifies what-e'er she shows.

Full of the dream, Aglauros pin'd away

In tears all night, in darkness all the day;

Consum'd like ice, that just begins to run,

When feebly smitten by the distant sun;

Or like unwholsome weeds, that set on fire

Are slowly wasted, and in smoke expire.

Giv'n up to envy (for in ev'ry thought

The thorns, the venom, and the vision wrought)

Oft did she call on death, as oft decreed,

Rather than see her sister's wish succeed,

To tell her awfull father what had past:

At length before the door her self she cast;

And, sitting on the ground with sullen pride,

A passage to the love-sick God deny'd.

The God caress'd, and for admission pray'd,

And sooth'd in softest words th' envenom'd maid.

In vain he sooth'd: "Begone!" the maid replies,

"Or here I keep my seat, and never rise."

"Then keep thy seat for ever," cries the God,

And touch'd the door, wide op'ning to his rod.

Fain would she rise, and stop him, but she found

Her trunk too heavy to forsake the ground;

Her joynts are all benum'd, her hands are pale,

And marble now appears in ev'ry nail.

As when a cancer in the body feeds,

And gradual death from limb to limb proceeds;

So does the chilness to each vital parte

Spread by degrees, and creeps into her heart;

'Till hard'ning ev'ry where, and speechless grown,

She sits unmov'd, and freezes to a stone.

But still her envious hue and sullen mien

Are in the sedentary figure seen.

Europa's RapeWhen now the God his fury had allay'd,

And taken vengeance of the stubborn maid,

From where the bright Athenian turrets rise

He mounts aloft, and re-ascends the skies.

Jove saw him enter the sublime abodes,

And, as he mix'd among the crowd of Gods,

Beckon'd him out, and drew him from the rest,

And in soft whispers thus his will exprest.

"My trusty Hermes, by whose ready aid

Thy sire's commands are through the world convey'd.

Resume thy wings, exert their utmost force,

And to the walls of Sidon speed thy course;

There find a herd of heifers wand'ring o'er

The neighb'ring hill, and drive 'em to the shore."

Thus spoke the God, concealing his intent.

The trusty Hermes, on his message went,

And found the herd of heifers wand'ring o'er

A neighb'ring hill, and drove 'em to the shore;

Where the king's daughter, with a lovely train

Of fellow-nymphs, was sporting on the plain.

The dignity of empire laid aside,

(For love but ill agrees with kingly pride)

The ruler of the skies, the thund'ring God,

Who shakes the world's foundations with a nod,

Among a herd of lowing heifers ran,

Frisk'd in a bull, and bellow'd o'er the plain.

Large rowles of fat about his shoulders clung,

And from his neck the double dewlap hung.

His skin was whiter than the snow that lies

Unsully'd by the breath of southern skies;

Small shining horns on his curl'd forehead stand,

As turn'd and polish'd by the work-man's hand;

His eye-balls rowl'd, not formidably bright,

But gaz'd and languish'd with a gentle light.

His ev'ry look was peaceful, and exprest

The softness of the lover in the beast.

Agenor's royal daughter, as she plaid

Among the fields, the milk-white bull survey'd,

And view'd his spotless body with delight,

And at a distance kept him in her sight.

At length she pluck'd the rising flow'rs, and fed

The gentle beast, and fondly stroak'd his head.

He stood well-pleas'd to touch the charming fair,

But hardly could confine his pleasure there.

And now he wantons o'er the neighb'ring strand,

Now rowls his body on the yellow sand;

And, now perceiving all her fears decay'd,

Comes tossing forward to the royal maid;

Gives her his breast to stroke, and downward turns

His grizly brow, and gently stoops his horns.

In flow'ry wreaths the royal virgin drest

His bending horns, and kindly clapt his breast.

'Till now grown wanton and devoid of fear,

Not knowing that she prest the Thunderer,

She plac'd her self upon his back, and rode

O'er fields and meadows, seated on the God.

He gently march'd along, and by degrees

Left the dry meadow, and approach'd the seas;

Where now he dips his hoofs and wets his thighs,

Now plunges in, and carries off the prize.

The frighted nymph looks backward on the shoar,

And hears the tumbling billows round her roar;

But still she holds him fast: one hand is born

Upon his back; the other grasps a horn:

Her train of ruffling garments flies behind,

Swells in the air, and hovers in the wind.

Through storms and tempests he the virgin bore,

And lands her safe on the Dictean shore;

Where now, in his divinest form array'd,

In his true shape he captivates the maid;

Who gazes on him, and with wond'ring eyes

Beholds the new majestick figure rise,

His glowing features, and celestial light,

And all the God discover'd to her sight.



The End of the Second Book.

BOOK THE THIRD



WHEN now Agenor had his daughter lost,

He sent his son to search on ev'ry coast;

And sternly bid him to his arms restore

The darling maid, or see his face no more,

But live an exile in a foreign clime;

Thus was the father pious to a crime.

The Story ofThe restless youth search'd all the world around;

of CadmusBut how can Jove in his amours be found?

When, tir'd at length with unsuccessful toil,

To shun his angry sire and native soil,

He goes a suppliant to the Delphick dome;

There asks the God what new appointed home

Should end his wand'rings, and his toils relieve.

The Delphick oracles this answer give.

"Behold among the fields a lonely cow,

Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plow;

Mark well the place where first she lays her down,

There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,

And from thy guide Boeotia call the land,

In which the destin'd walls and town shall stand."

No sooner had he left the dark abode,

Big with the promise of the Delphick God,

When in the fields the fatal cow he view'd,

Nor gall'd with yokes, nor worn with servitude:

Her gently at a distance he pursu'd;

And as he walk'd aloof, in silence pray'd

To the great Pow'r whose counsels he obey'd.

Her way thro' flow'ry Panope she took,

And now, Cephisus, cross'd thy silver brook;

When to the Heav'ns her spacious front she rais'd,

And bellow'd thrice, then backward turning gaz'd

On those behind, 'till on the destin'd place

She stoop'd, and couch'd amid the rising grass.

Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails

The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,

And thanks the Gods, and turns about his eye

To see his new dominions round him lye;

Then sends his servants to a neighb'ring grove

For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove.

O'er the wide plain there rose a shady wood

Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood

A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,

O'er-run with brambles, and perplex'd with thorn:

Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,

With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.

Deep in the dreary den, conceal'd from day,

Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,

Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;

Fire broke in flashes when he glanc'd his eyes:

His tow'ring crest was glorious to behold,

His shoulders and his sides were scal'd with gold;

Three tongues he brandish'd when he charg'd his

foes;

His teeth stood jaggy in three dreadful rowes.

The Tyrians in the den for water sought,

And with their urns explor'd the hollow vault:

From side to side their empty urns rebound,

And rowse the sleeping serpent with the sound.

Strait he bestirs him, and is seen to rise;

And now with dreadful hissings fills the skies,

And darts his forky tongues, and rowles his glaring

eyes.

The Tyrians drop their vessels in the fright,

All pale and trembling at the hideous sight.

Spire above spire uprear'd in air he stood,

And gazing round him over-look'd the wood:

Then floating on the ground in circles rowl'd;

Then leap'd upon them in a mighty fold.

Of such a bulk, and such a monstrous size

The serpent in the polar circle lyes,

That stretches over half the northern skies.

In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,

In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly:

All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;

Some die entangled in the winding train;

Some are devour'd, or feel a loathsom death,

Swoln up with blasts of pestilential breath.

And now the scorching sun was mounted high,

In all its lustre, to the noon-day sky;

When, anxious for his friends, and fill'd with

cares,

To search the woods th' impatient chief prepares.

A lion's hide around his loins he wore,

The well poiz'd javelin to the field he bore,

Inur'd to blood; the far-destroying dart;

And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart.

Soon as the youth approach'd the fatal place,

He saw his servants breathless on the grass;

The scaly foe amid their corps he view'd,

Basking at ease, and feasting in their blood.

"Such friends," he cries, "deserv'd a longer date;

But Cadmus will revenge or share their fate."

Then heav'd a stone, and rising to the throw,

He sent it in a whirlwind at the foe:

A tow'r, assaulted by so rude a stroke,

With all its lofty battlements had shook;

But nothing here th' unwieldy rock avails,

Rebounding harmless from the plaited scales,

That, firmly join'd, preserv'd him from a wound,

With native armour crusted all around.

With more success, the dart unerring flew,

Which at his back the raging warriour threw;

Amid the plaited scales it took its course,

And in the spinal marrow spent its force.

The monster hiss'd aloud, and rag'd in vain,

And writh'd his body to and fro with pain;

He bit the dart, and wrench'd the wood away;

The point still buried in the marrow lay.

And now his rage, increasing with his pain,

Reddens his eyes, and beats in ev'ry vein;

Churn'd in his teeth the foamy venom rose,

Whilst from his mouth a blast of vapours flows,

Such as th' infernal Stygian waters cast.

The plants around him wither in the blast.

Now in a maze of rings he lies enrowl'd,

Now all unravel'd, and without a fold;

Now, like a torrent, with a mighty force

Bears down the forest in his boist'rous course.

Cadmus gave back, and on the lion's spoil

Sustain'd the shock, then forc'd him to recoil;

The pointed jav'lin warded off his rage:

Mad with his pains, and furious to engage,

The serpent champs the steel, and bites the spear,

'Till blood and venom all the point besmear.

But still the hurt he yet receiv'd was slight;

For, whilst the champion with redoubled might

Strikes home the jav'lin, his retiring foe

Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the blow.

The dauntless heroe still pursues his stroke,

And presses forward, 'till a knotty oak

Retards his foe, and stops him in the rear;

Full in his throat he plung'd the fatal spear,

That in th' extended neck a passage found,

And pierc'd the solid timber through the wound.

Fix'd to the reeling trunk, with many a stroke

Of his huge tail he lash'd the sturdy oak;

'Till spent with toil, and lab'ring hard for

breath,

He now lay twisting in the pangs of death.

Cadmus beheld him wallow in a flood

Of swimming poison, intermix'd with blood;

When suddenly a speech was heard from high

(The speech was heard, nor was the speaker nigh),

"Why dost thou thus with secret pleasure see,

Insulting man! what thou thy self shalt be?"

Astonish'd at the voice, he stood amaz'd,

And all around with inward horror gaz'd:

When Pallas swift descending from the skies,

Pallas, the guardian of the bold and wise,

Bids him plow up the field, and scatter round

The dragon's teeth o'er all the furrow'd ground;

Then tells the youth how to his wond'ring eyes

Embattled armies from the field should rise.

He sows the teeth at Pallas's command,

And flings the future people from his hand.

The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows;

And now the pointed spears advance in rows;

Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,

Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts;

O'er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,

A growing host, a crop of men and arms.

So through the parting stage a figure rears

Its body up, and limb by limb appears

By just degrees; 'till all the man arise,

And in his full proportion strikes the eyes.

Cadmus surpriz'd, and startled at the sight

Of his new foes, prepar'd himself for fight:

When one cry'd out, "Forbear, fond man, forbear

To mingle in a blind promiscuous war."

This said, he struck his brother to the ground,

Himself expiring by another's wound;

Nor did the third his conquest long survive,

Dying ere scarce he had begun to live.

The dire example ran through all the field,

'Till heaps of brothers were by brothers kill'd;

The furrows swam in blood: and only five

Of all the vast increase were left alive.

Echion one, at Pallas's command,

Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand,

And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,

Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners takes;

So founds a city on the promis'd earth,

And gives his new Boeotian empire birth.

Here Cadmus reign'd; and now one would have

guess'd

The royal founder in his exile blest:

Long did he live within his new abodes,

Ally'd by marriage to the deathless Gods;

And, in a fruitful wife's embraces old,

A long increase of children's children told:

But no frail man, however great or high,

Can be concluded blest before he die.

Actaeon was the first of all his race,

Who griev'd his grandsire in his borrow'd face;

Condemn'd by stern Diana to bemoan

The branching horns, and visage not his own;

To shun his once lov'd dogs, to bound away,

And from their huntsman to become their prey,

And yet consider why the change was wrought,

You'll find it his misfortune, not his fault;

Or, if a fault, it was the fault of chance:

For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?

TheIn a fair chace a shady mountain stood,

TransformationWell stor'd with game, and mark'd with trails of

of Actaeonblood;

into a StagHere did the huntsmen, 'till the heat of day,

Pursue the stag, and load themselves with rey:

When thus Actaeon calling to the rest:

"My friends," said he, "our sport is at the best,

The sun is high advanc'd, and downward sheds

His burning beams directly on our heads;

Then by consent abstain from further spoils,

Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils,

And ere to-morrow's sun begins his race,

Take the cool morning to renew the c