If his dispeopled 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 driven,
The sparks should catch his axle-tree of Heaven.
Remembering, in the Fates, a time, when fire
Should to the battlements of Heaven aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all th' inferior globe to cinders turn.
His dire artillery thus dismiss'd, be bent
His thoughts to some securer punishment :
Concludes to pour a watery 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 horrour brings;
And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours;
His head and rheumy eyes distil in showers.
With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow,
And lazy mists are lowering 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 showers enlarg'd come pouring on the ground.
Then, clad in colours of a various die,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply,
To feed the clouds impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burthen 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 watery tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes,
And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom in brief he thus imparts his will:
"Smallexhortation needs; your powers employ:
And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy.
Let loose the reins to all your watery store:
Bear down the dams, and open every door."
The floods, by nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones that stopp'd 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 overtop the grain:
Then, rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear flocks, and folds, and labouring hinds away.
Nor safe their dwellings were; for, sapp'd by floods,
Their houses fell upon their household gods.
The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their heads behold a watery 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 borne,
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 driven, they bruise the tender vine;
Or, toss'd aloft, are knock'd against a pine.
And where of late the kids had cropp'd the grass,
The monsters of the deep now take their place.
Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,
And wandering 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 among 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 through the clouds, and meets 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 driven
Discover Heaven to Earth, and Earth to Heaven.
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 sovereign 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 echos in the west.
The waters, listening 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.
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.hu/books/content?id=gLY5AAAAIAAJ&hl=hu&output=html_text&pg=PA83&img=1&zoom=3&q=o%27er&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U2kYXcoUPQp7cU7CyyyEJBlpGqxKg&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=8,315,6,8)
At length the world was all restor❜d to view,
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:
Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,
A dismal desert, and a silent waste.
Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look,
Bebeld, 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 join'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.
Should I be snatch'd from hence, and thou remain,
Without relief, or partner of thy pain,
How could'st thou such a wretched life sustain ?
Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea,
That bury'd her I lov'd, should bury me.
Oh could our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolish'd man retrieve,
And perish'd people in new souls might live!
But Heaven is pleas'd, nor ought we to complain,
That we, th' examples of mankind, remain."
He said: the careful couple join 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 Cephisus' 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 desert 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 powers above
By prayers are bent to pity, and to love;
If human 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."
Tuen thus the gracious goddess, nodding, said;
"Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:
And stooping lowly down, with loosen'd zones,
Throw each behind your backs your mighty mo-
ther's bones."
Amaz'd the pair, and mute with wonder, stand,
Till Pyrrha first refus'd the dire command.
"Forbid it Heaven," said she, " that I should tear
Those holy relics from the sepulchre."
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 enigma 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:
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 chisel 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 power 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 etherial 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 several face.
Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
And seeks with ebbing tides his ancient bed,
The fat manure with heavenly 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 feces of the flood)
Receiv'd the rays of Heaven; and, sucking in
The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin:
Some were of several sorts produc'd before;
But of new monsters Earth created more.
Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light
Thee, Python too, the wondering 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,
Ere 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 every 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 decreed,
These we must cast behind." With hope, and fear, Where noble youths for mastership should strive,
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)
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.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF DAPHNE
INTO A LAUREL.
THE first and fairest of his loves was she
Whom not blind Fortune, but the dire decree
Of angry Cupid forc'd him to desire:
Daphne 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 achievements 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 thy 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 on 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 different 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 inake 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 transfix'd Apollo's breast.
Th' enamour'd deity pursues the chase;
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 wood 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 thyself, 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,
Soothes him with blandishments and filial charms:
"Give me, my lord," she said, " to lie, and die,
A spotless maid, without the marriage-tie.
'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 would 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 misled.
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 the fruitless fire:
Her well-turn'd neck he view'd (her neck was bare)
And on her shoulders her dishevell❜d hair:
"Oh, were it comb'd," said he, “with what a grace
Would every waving curl become her face!"
He view'd her eyes, like heavenly 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:
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.hu/books/content?id=gLY5AAAAIAAJ&hl=hu&output=html_text&pg=PA84&img=1&zoom=3&q=o%27er&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U0YaC9fcjnIZVCWfISVJwDOwUxWwQ&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=567,286,12,8)
Stay, nymph," he cry'd," I follow, not a foe:
Thus from the lion trips the trembling doe;
Thus from the wolf the frighten'd lamb removes,
And from pursuing falcons fearful doves;
Thou shuun'st a god, and shunn'st a god, that
loves.
Ah, lest some thorn should pierce thy tender foot,
Or thou should'st 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, Delphos, Tenedos obey:
These hands the Patarcian sceptre 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 heavenly numbers I inspire.
Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart;
But ah! more deadly his, who pierc'd my heart
Medicine is mine, what herbs and simples grow
In fields and forests, all their powers 1 know;
And am the great physician call'd below.
Alas, that fields and forests can afford
No remedies to heal their love-sick lord!
To cure the pains of love, no plant avails;
And his own physic the physician fails."
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 by such a sight,
Impetuously pursued 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 neighbouring 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 chase:
Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace;
And just is fastening 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 extremest need,
If water-gods are deities indeed:
Gape, Earth, and this unhappy wretch entomb :
Or change my form whence all my sorrows come.
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.hu/books/content?id=gLY5AAAAIAAJ&hl=hu&output=html_text&pg=PA85&img=1&zoom=3&q=o%27er&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U000NX0O1lBZpJa5DPZuefPWjJg3A&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=7,697,13,20)
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 laurel 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 fix'd 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 Cæsar's triumph grace;
When pomps shall in a long procession pass:
Wreath'd on the post before his palace wait;
And be the sacred guardian of the gate:
Secure from thunder, and unharm'd by Jove,
Unfading as th' immortal powers 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.
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 power, 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 pursued the chase
Along the shades of the Lyrcæan 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
And, mingling force with love, enjoy'd the full
Mean-time the jealous Juno, from on high
Survey'd the fruitful fields of Arcady;
And wonder'd that the mist should over-run
The face of day-light, and obscure the Sun.
No natural 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,
THE TRANSFORMATION OF IO INTO AN Transforms his mistress in a trice: and now
Ax ancient forest in Thessalia grows,
Which Tempe's pleasant valley does enclose ;'
Through this the rapid Peneus takes his course,
From Pindus rolling with impetuous force:
Mists from the river's mighty fall arise;
And deadly damps enclose 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 dependent 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.
Sperchæus, crown'd with poplar, first appears;
Then old Apidanus came crown'd with years:
Enipeus turbulent, Amphrysos tame;
And as last with lagging waters came.
Then of his kindred brooks a numerous throng
Condole his loss, and bring their urns along.
Not one was wanting of the watery 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 lo, whether stray'd or dead,
To him uncertain, doubtful tears he shed.
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, inquir'd of Jove:
Of what fair herd, and from what pedigree?
The god half-caught was forc'd upon a lie;
And said, she sprung from earth. She took the
word,
And begg'd the beauteous heifer 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, would be
But more t' increase his consort's jealousy:
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 heifer seen,
The cautious goddess of her gift possest,
Yet barbour'd anxious thoughts within her breast;
As she who knew the falsehood 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 could the total constellation sleep.
Thus, ever present to his eyes and mind,
He sought her through the world, but sought in His charge was still before him, though behind,
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)
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,
Heaven was her canopy, bare earth her bed;
So hardly lodg'd: and to digest her food,
She drank from troubled streams defil'd with mi.
Her woful story fain she would 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 herself she would 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 stroke her neck; the gentle heifer stands,
And her neck offers to their stroking 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 would 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 bellowing sons thy progeny.
Oh, were 1 mortal, Death might bring relief!
But now my godhead 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 OF ARGUS TRANSFORMED INTO A PEACOCK'S TRAIN.
Now Jove no longer could her sufferings bear:
But call'd in haste his airy messenger,
The son of Maïa, with severe decree
To kill the keeper, and to set her free.
With all his harness soon the god was sped;
His flying hat was fasten'd on his head;
Wings on his heels were hung, and in his hand
He holds the virtue 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 shepherd's hook.
With this he did a herd of goats control,
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 brouze 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 suffering all his eyes repose to take: And ask'd the stranger, who did reeds invent, And whence became so rare an instrument.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF SYRINX INTO
THEN Hermes thus; "A nymph of late there was
Whose heavenly form her fellows did surpass.
The pride and joy of fair Arcadia's plains;
Belov'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 wood-land powers disdain'd;
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain❜d;
Like Phoebe clad, ev'n Phoebe's self she seems,
So tall, so straight, 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 Lycæus, Pan admires
The matchless nymph, and burns with new desire
A crown of pine upon his head he wore;
And thus began her pity to implore.
But, ere 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 beat her course to Ladon's gentle flood:
There by the river stopt, and tir'd before,
Relief from water-nymphs her prayers implore.
"Now while the lustful god, with speedy pace
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
He fills his arms with reeds, new rising on the plac
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 surprising Pan, yet pleas'd him mo
Admiring this new music, Thou,' he said,
Who canst not be the partner of my bed, At least shall be the consort of my mind; And often, often, to my lips be join'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 ta The keeper's winking eyes began to fail, And drowsy 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 powerful rod confirm'd his rest: Without delay his crooked falchion 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 bied; And mark'd the passage with a crimson trail: Thus Argus lies in pieces, cold and pale;
|