Thus Achelous ends; his audience hear

With admiration, and, admiring, fear

The powers of heaven; except Ixion's son,

Who laughed at all the gods, believed in none;

He shook his impious head, and thus replies,--

These legends are no more than pious lies;

You attribute too much to heavenly sway,

To think they give us forms, and take away.--

The rest, of better minds, their sense declared

Against this doctrine, and with horror heard.

Then Lelex rose, an old experienced man,

And thus with sober gravity began;--

Heaven's power is infinite; earth, air, and sea,

The manufacture mass, the making power obey.

By proof to clear your doubt;--In Phrygian ground

Two neighbouring trees, with walls encompassed round,

Stand on a moderate rise, with wonder shown,

One a hard oak, a softer linden one;

I saw the place and them, by Pittheus sent

To Phrygian realms, my grandsire's government.

Not far from thence is seen a lake, the haunt

Of coots, and of the fishing cormorant.

Here Jove with Hermes came; but in disguise

Of mortal men concealed their deities;

One laid aside his thunder, one his rod,

And many toilsome steps together trod;

For harbour at a thousand doors they knocked,

Not one of all the thousand but was locked;

At last an hospitable house they found, }

A homely shed; the roof, not far from ground, }

Was thatched with reeds and straw together bound. }

There Baucis and Philemon lived, and there

Had lived long married, and a happy pair;

Now old in love; though little was their store, }

Inured to want, their poverty they bore, }

Nor aimed at wealth, professing to be poor. }

For master or for servant here to call,

Was all alike, where only two were all.

Command was none, where equal love was paid,

Or rather both commanded, both obeyed.

From lofty roofs the gods repulsed before,

Now stooping, entered through the little door;

The man their hearty welcome first expressed, }

A common settle[25] drew for either guest, }

Inviting each his weary limbs to rest. }

But, ere they sat, officious Baucis lays

Two cushions stuffed with straw, the seat to raise;

Coarse, but the best she had; then takes the load

Of ashes from the hearth, and spreads abroad

The living coals, and, lest they should expire,

With leaves and barks she feeds her infant-fire;

It smokes, and then with trembling breath she blows,

Till in a cheerful blaze the flames arose.

With brushwood and with chips she strengthens these,

And adds at last the boughs of rotten trees.

The fire thus formed, she sets the kettle on,

Like burnished gold the little seether shone;

Next took the coleworts which her husband got

From his own ground, a small well-watered spot;

She stripped the stalks of all their leaves; the best

She culled, and then with handy care she dressed.

High o'er the hearth a chine of bacon hung;

Good old Philemon seized it with a prong,

And from the sooty rafter drew it down,

Then cut a slice, but scarce enough for one;

Yet a large portion of a little store,

Which, for their sake alone, he wished were more.

This in the pot he plunged without delay,

To tame the flesh, and drain the salt away.

The time between, before the fire they sat,

And shortened the delay by pleasing chat.

A beam there was, on which a beechen pail

Hung by the handle, on a driven nail;

This filled with water, gently warmed, they set }

Before their guests; in this they bathed their feet, }

And after with clean towels dried their sweat: }

This done, the host produced the genial bed, }

Sallow the foot, the borders, and the sted, }

Which with no costly coverlet they spread, }

But coarse old garments; yet such robes as these

They laid alone, at feasts, on holidays.

The good old housewife, tucking up her gown,

The table sets; the invited gods lie down.

The trivet-table of a foot was lame,

A blot which prudent Baucis overcame,

Who thrust beneath the limping leg a sherd,

So was the mended board exactly reared;

Then rubbed it o'er with newly gathered mint,

A wholesome herb, that breathed a grateful scent.

Pallas[26] began the feast, where first was seen

The party-coloured olive, black and green;

Autumnal cornels next in order served,

In lees of wine well pickled and preserved;

A garden-sallad was the third supply,

Of endive, radishes, and succory;

Then curds and cream, the flower of country fare, }

And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care }

Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare. }

All these in earthen-ware were served to board; }

And, next in place, an earthen pitcher, stored }

With liquor of the best the cottage could afford. }

This was the table's ornament and pride,

With figures wrought; like pages at his side

Stood beechen bowls; and these were shining clean,

Varnished with wax without, and lined within.

By this the boiling kettle had prepared,

And to the table sent the smoking lard;

On which, with eager appetite, they dine,

A savoury bit, that served to relish wine;

The wine itself was suiting to the rest,

Still working in the must, and lately pressed.

The second course succeeds like that before,

Plumbs, apples, nuts, and, of their wintry-store,

Dry figs and grapes, and wrinkled dates were set

In canisters, to enlarge the little treat;

All these a milk-white honey-comb surround,

Which in the midst the country-banquet crowned.

But the kind hosts their entertainment grace

With hearty welcome, and an open face;

In all they did, you might discern with ease

A willing mind, and a desire to please.

Mean time the beechen bowls went round, and still,

Though often emptied, were observed to fill;

Filled without hands, and of their own accord

Ran without feet, and danced about the board.

Devotion seized the pair, to see the feast

With wine, and of no common grape, increased;

And up they held their hands, and fell to prayer,

Excusing, as they could, their country fare.

One goose they had, 'twas all they could allow, }

A wakeful sentry, and on duty now, }

Whom to the gods for sacrifice they vow: }

Her, with malicious zeal, the couple viewed;

She ran for life, and, limping, they pursued;

Full well the fowl perceived their bad intent,

And would not make her master's compliment;

But, persecuted, to the powers she flies,

And close between the legs of Jove she lies.

He, with a gracious ear, the suppliant heard,

And saved her life; then what he was declared,

And owned the god. The neighbourhood, said he,

Shall justly perish for impiety;

You stand alone exempted; but obey

With speed, and follow where we lead the way;

Leave these accursed, and to the mountain's height

Ascend, nor once look backward in your flight.--

They haste, and what their tardy feet denied,

The trusty staff (their better leg) supplied.

An arrow's flight they wanted to the top,

And there secure, but spent with travel, stop;

Then turn their now no more forbidden eyes:--

Lost in a lake, the floated level lies;

A watery desert covers all the plains,

Their cot alone, as in an isle, remains:

Wondering, with peeping eyes, while they deplore

Their neighbours' fate, and country now no more,

Their little shed, scarce large enough for two,

Seems, from the ground increased, in height and bulk to grow.

A stately temple shoots within the skies;

The crotchets of their cot in columns rise;

The pavement polished marble they behold,

The gates with sculpture graced, the spires and tiles of gold.

Then thus the sire of gods, with looks serene,

Speak thy desire, thou only just of men;

And thou, O woman, only worthy found

To be with such a man in marriage bound.--

Awhile they whisper; then, to Jove addressed,

Philemon thus prefers their joint request:--

We crave to serve before your sacred shrine,

And offer at your altars rites divine,

And since not any action of our life

Has been polluted with domestic strife,

We beg one hour of death; that neither she,

With widow's tears, may live to bury me,

Nor weeping I, with withered arms, may bear

My breathless Baucis to the sepulchre.

The godheads sign their suit. They run their race

In the same tenour all the appointed space;

Then, when their hour was come, while they relate

These past adventures at the temple-gate,

Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen

Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green;

Old Baucis looked where old Philemon stood,

And saw his lengthened arms a sprouting wood;

New roots their fastened feet begin to bind,

Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind;

Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,

They give and take at once their last adieu;

At once, farewell, O faithful spouse, they said;

At once the encroaching rinds their closing lips invade.

Even yet, an ancient Tyanæan shows

A spreading oak, that near a linden grows;

The neighbourhood confirm the prodigy,

Grave men, not vain of tongue, or like to lie.

I saw myself the garlands on their boughs,

And tablets hung for gifts of granted vows;

And offering fresher up, with pious prayer, }

The good, said I, are God's peculiar care, }

And such as honour heaven, shall heavenly honour share. }

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Called in more modern times a _settee_. The old word,

_settle_, occurs in the first part of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress;"

where Christian, at the bottom of the Hill of Difficulty, finds an

arbour with a _settle_.

[26] To whom the olive was sacred.

THE FABLE OF IPHIS AND IANTHE.

FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

The fame of this, perhaps, through Crete had flown;

But Crete had newer wonders of her own,

In Iphis changed; for near the Gnossian bounds,

As loud report the miracle resounds,

At Phæstus dwelt a man of honest blood, }

But meanly born, and not so rich as good, }

Esteemed and loved by all the neighbourhood; }

Who to his wife, before the time assigned

For child-birth came, thus bluntly spoke his mind:--

If heaven, said Lygdus, will vouchsafe to hear, }

I have but two petitions to prefer; }

Short pains for thee, for me a son and heir. }

Girls cost as many throes in bringing forth;

Beside, when born, the tits are little worth;

Weak puling things, unable to sustain

Their share of labour, and their bread to gain.

If, therefore, thou a creature shalt produce,

Of so great charges, and so little use,

Bear witness, heaven, with what reluctancy,

Her hapless innocence I doom to die.--

He said, and tears the common grief display,

Of him who bade, and her who must obey.

Yet Telethusa still persists, to find

Fit arguments to move a father's mind;

To extend his wishes to a larger scope,

And in one vessel not confine his hope.

Lygdus continues hard; her time drew near,

And she her heavy load could scarcely bear;

When slumbering, in the latter shades of night,

Before the approaches of returning light,

She saw, or thought she saw, before her bed,

A glorious train, and Isis at their head;

Her moony horns were on her forehead placed,

And yellow sheaves her shining temples graced;

A mitre, for a crown, she wore on high;

The dog, and dappled bull, were waiting by;

Osiris, sought along the banks of Nile;

The silent god; the sacred Crocodile;

And, last, a long procession moving on,

With timbrels, that assist the labouring moon.

Her slumbers seemed dispelled, and, broad awake,

She heard a voice, that thus distinctly spake:--

My votary, thy babe from death defend,

Nor fear to save whate'er the gods will send;

Delude with art thy husband's dire decree; }

When danger calls, repose thy trust on me; }

And know, thou hast not served a thankless deity.-- }

This promise made, with night the goddess fled;

With joy the woman wakes, and leaves her bed;

Devoutly lifts her spotless hands on high,

And prays the powers their gift to ratify.

Now grinding pains proceed to bearing throes,

Till its own weight the burden did disclose.

'Twas of the beauteous kind, and brought to light

With secrecy, to shun the father's sight.

The indulgent mother did her care employ,

And passed it on her husband for a boy.

The nurse was conscious of the fact alone;

The father paid his vows as for a son;

And called him Iphis, by a common name,

Which either sex with equal right may claim.

Iphis his grandsire was; the wife was pleased,

Of half the fraud by fortune's favour eased;

The doubtful name was used without deceit,

And truth was covered with a pious cheat.

The habit showed a boy, the beauteous face

With manly fierceness mingled female grace.

Now thirteen years of age were swiftly run, }

When the fond father thought the time drew on }

Of settling in the world his only son. }

Ianthe was his choice; so wondrous fair,

Her form alone with Iphis could compare;

A neighbour's daughter of his own degree,

And not more blessed with Fortune's goods than he.

They soon espoused; for they with ease were joined,

Who were before contracted in the mind.

Their age the same, their inclinations too,

And bred together in one school, they grew.

Thus, fatally disposed to mutual fires,

They felt, before they knew, the same desires.

Equal their flame, unequal was their care;

One loved with hope, one languished in despair.

The maid accused the lingering days alone;

For whom she thought a man, she thought her own,

But Iphis bends beneath a greater grief;

As fiercely burns, but hopes for no relief.

E'en her despair adds fuel to her fire;

A maid with madness does a maid desire.

And, scarce refraining tears, Alas, said she,

What issue of my love remains for me!

How wild a passion works within my breast!

With what prodigious flames am I possest!

Could I the care of Providence deserve,

Heaven must destroy me, if it would preserve.

And that's my fate, or sure it would have sent

Some usual evil for my punishment;

Not this unkindly curse; to rage and burn,

Where nature shews no prospect of return.

Nor cows for cows consume with fruitless fire;

Nor mares, when hot, their fellow-mares desire;

The father of the fold supplies his ewes; }

The stag through secret woods his hind pursues; }

And birds for mates the males of their own species choose.}

Her females nature guards from female flame, }

And joins two sexes to preserve the game; }

Would I were nothing, or not what I am! }

Crete, famed for monsters, wanted of her store,

Till my new love produced one monster more.

The daughter of the Sun a bull desired;[27]

And yet e'en then a male a female fired:

Her passion was extravagantly new;

But mine is much the madder of the two.

To things impossible she was not bent,

But found the means to compass her intent.

To cheat his eyes she took a different shape;

Yet still she gained a lover, and a leap.

Should all the wit of all the world conspire,

Should Dædalus assist my wild desire,

What art can make me able to enjoy,

Or what can change Ianthe to a boy?

Extinguish then thy passion, hopeless maid,

And recollect thy reason for thy aid.

Know what thou art, and love as maidens ought,

And drive these golden wishes from thy thought.

Thou canst not hope thy fond desires to gain;

Where hope is wanting, wishes are in vain.

And yet no guards against our joys conspire;

No jealous husband hinders our desire;

My parents are propitious to my wish,

And she herself consenting to the bliss.

All things concur to prosper our design;

All things to prosper any love but mine.

And yet I never can enjoy the fair;

'Tis past the power of heaven to grant my prayer.

Heaven has been kind, as far as heaven can be;

Our parents with our own desires agree;

But nature, stronger, than the gods above,

Refuses her assistance to my love:

She sets the bar that causes all my pain;

One gift refused makes all their bounty vain.

And now the happy day is just at hand,

To bind our hearts in Hymen's holy band;

Our hearts, but not our bodies; thus accursed,

In midst of water I complain of thirst.

Why comest thou, Juno, to these barren rites,

To bless a bed defrauded of delights?

And why should Hymen lift his torch on high,

To see two brides in cold embraces lie?--

Thus love-sick Iphis her vain passion mourns;

With equal ardour fair Ianthe burns;

Invoking Hymen's name, and Juno's power,

To speed the work, and haste the happy hour.

She hopes, while Telethusa fears the day,

And strives to interpose some new delay;

Now feigns a sickness, now is in a fright

For this bad omen, or that boding sight.

But having done whate'er she could devise,

And emptied all her magazine of lies,

The time approached; the next ensuing day

The fatal secret must to light betray.

Then Telethusa had recourse to prayer,

She and her daughter with dishevelled hair;

Trembling with fear, great Isis they adored,

Embraced her altar, and her aid implored.

Fair queen, who dost on fruitful Egypt smile, }

Who sway'st the sceptre of the Pharian isle, }

And sevenfold falls of disemboguing Nile; }

Relieve, in this our last distress, she said,

A suppliant mother, and a mournful maid.

Thou, goddess, thou wert present to my sight;

Revealed I saw thee by thy own fair light;

I saw thee in my dream, as now I see,

With all thy marks of awful majesty;

The glorious train that compassed thee around;

And heard the hollow timbrel's holy sound.

Thy words I noted, which I still retain;

Let not thy sacred oracles be vain.

That Iphis lives, that I myself am free

From shame and punishment, I owe to thee.

On thy protection all our hopes depend;

Thy counsel saved us, let thy power defend.

Her tears pursued her words, and, while she spoke,

The goddess nodded, and her altar shook;

The temple doors, as with a blast of wind,

Were heard to clap; the lunar horns, that bind

The brows of Isis, cast a blaze around;

The trembling timbrel made a murmuring sound.

Some hopes these happy omens did impart;

Forth went the mother with a beating heart,

Not much in fear, nor fully satisfied;

But Iphis followed with a larger stride:

The whiteness of her skin forsook her face;

Her looks emboldened with an awful grace;

Her features and her strength together grew,

And her long hair to curling locks withdrew.

Her sparkling eyes with manly vigour shone;

Big was her voice, audacious was her tone.

The latent parts, at length revealed, began

To shoot, and spread, and burnish into man.

The maid becomes a youth;--no more delay

Your vows, but look, and confidently pay.--

Their gifts the parents to the temple bear;

The votive tables this inscription wear;--

Iphis, the man, has to the goddess paid

The vows, that Iphis offered when a maid.

Now when the star of day had shown his face,

Venus and Juno with their presence grace

The nuptial rites, and Hymen from above

Descended to complete their happy love;

The gods of marriage lend their mutual aid,

And the warm youth enjoys the lovely maid.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Pasiphae.

PYGMALION AND THE STATUE.

FROM THE TENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

_The Propætides, for their impudent behaviour, being turned into stone

by Venus, Pygmalion, Prince of Cyprus, detested all women for their

sake, and resolved never to marry. He falls in love with a statue of

his own making, which is changed into a maid, whom he marries. One

of his descendants is Cinyras, the father of Myrrha; the daughter

incestuously loves her own father, for which she is changed into a

tree, which bears her name. These two stories immediately follow each

other, and are admirably well connected._

Pygmalion, loathing their lascivious life,

Abhorred all womankind, but most a wife;

So single chose to live, and shunned to wed,

Well pleased to want a consort of his bed.

Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill,

In sculpture exercised his happy skill;

And carved in ivory such a maid, so fair,

As nature could not with his art compare,

Were she to work; but in her own defence,

Must take her pattern here, and copy hence.

Pleased with his idol, he commends, admires,

Adores; and last, the thing adored desires.

A very virgin in her face was seen,

And, had she moved, a living maid had been:

One would have thought she could have stirred, but strove

With modesty, and was ashamed to move.

Art, hid with art, so well performed the cheat,

It caught the carver with his own deceit.

He knows 'tis madness, yet he must adore,

And still the more he knows it, loves the more;

The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft,

Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft.

Fired with this thought, at once he strained the breast,

And on the lips a burning kiss impressed.

'Tis true, the hardened breast resists the gripe,

And the cold lips return a kiss unripe;

But when, retiring back, he looked again,

To think it ivory was a thought too mean;

So would believe she kissed, and courting more,

Again embraced her naked body o'er;

And, straining hard the statue, was afraid

His hands had made a dint, and hurt the maid;

Explored her, limb by limb, and feared to find

So rude a gripe had left a livid mark behind.

With flattery now he seeks her mind to move,

And now with gifts, the powerful bribes of love:

He furnishes her closet first; and fills

The crowded shelves with rarities of shells;

Adds orient pearls, which from the conchs he drew,

And all the sparkling stones of various hue;

And parrots, imitating human tongue,[28]

And singing-birds in silver cages hung;

And every fragrant flower, and odorous green,

Were sorted well, with lumps of amber laid between;

Rich fashionable robes her person deck;

Pendents her ears, and pearls adorn her neck;

Her tapered fingers too with rings are graced,

And an embroidered zone surrounds her slender waste.

Thus like a queen arrayed, so richly dressed,

Beauteous she showed, but naked showed the best.

Then from the floor he raised a royal bed,

With coverings of Sidonian purple spread;

The solemn rites performed, he calls her bride,

With blandishments invites her to his side,

And as she were with vital sense possessed,

Her head did on a plumy pillow rest.

The feast of Venus came, a solemn day,

To which the Cypriots due devotion pay;

With gilded horns the milk-white heifers led,

Slaughtered before the sacred altars, bled;

Pygmalion, offering, first approached the shrine,

And then with prayers implored the powers divine;--

Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want,

If all we can require, be yours to grant,

Make this fair statue mine,--he would have said, }

But changed his words for shame, and only prayed, }

Give me the likeness of my ivory maid!-- }

The golden Goddess, present at the prayer,

Well knew he meant the inanimated fair,

And gave the sign of granting his desire;

For thrice in cheerful flames ascends the fire.

The youth, returning to his mistress, hies, }

And impudent in hope, with ardent eyes, }

And beating breast, by the dear statue lies. }

He kisses her white lips, renews the bliss,

And looks and thinks they redden at the kiss;

He thought them warm before: nor longer stays,

But next his hand on her hard bosom lays;

Hard as it was, beginning to relent,

It seemed the breast beneath his fingers bent;

He felt again, his fingers made a print,

'Twas flesh, but flesh so firm, it rose against the dint.

The pleasing task he fails not to renew;

Soft, and more soft at every touch it grew;

Like pliant wax, when chafing hands reduce

The former mass to form, and frame to use.

He would believe, but yet is still in pain, }

And tries his argument of sense again, }

Presses the pulse, and feels the leaping vein. }

Convinced, o'erjoyed, his studied thanks and praise,

To her who made the miracle, he pays;

Then lips to lips he joined; now freed from fear,

He found the savour of the kiss sincere.

At this the wakened image oped her eyes,

And viewed at once the light and lover with surprise.

The goddess, present at the match she made,

So blessed the bed, such fruitfulness conveyed,

That ere ten moons had sharpened either horn,

To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born;

Paphos his name, who, grown to manhood, walled

The city Paphos, from the founder called.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] The parrots are of Dryden's introduction.

CINYRAS AND MYRRHA.

OUT OF THE TENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

_There needs no connection of this story with the former; for the

beginning of this immediately follows the end of the last: The reader

is only to take notice, that Orpheus, who relates both, was by birth

a Thracian; and his country far distant from Cyprus, where Myrrha was

born, and from Arabia, whither she fled. You will see the reason of

this note, soon after the first lines of this fable._

Nor him alone produced the fruitful queen;

But Cinyras, who like his sire had been

A happy prince, had he not been a sire.

Daughters and fathers, from my song retire!

I sing of horror; and, could I prevail,

You should not hear, or not believe my tale.

Yet if the pleasure of my song be such,

That you will hear, and credit me too much,

Attentive listen to the last event,

And with the sin believe the punishment:

Since nature could behold so dire a crime,

I gratulate at least my native clime,

That such a land, which such a monster bore,

So far is distant from our Thracian shore.

Let Araby extol her happy coast,

Her cinnamon and sweet amomum boast;

Her fragrant flowers, her trees with precious tears, }

Her second harvests, and her double years; }

How can the land be called so blessed, that Myrrha bears?}

Not all her odorous tears can cleanse her crime,

Her plant alone deforms the happy clime;

Cupid denies to have inflamed thy heart,

Disowns thy love, and vindicates his dart;

Some fury gave thee those infernal pains,

And shot her venomed vipers in thy veins.

To hate thy sire, had merited a curse;

But such an impious love deserved a worse.

The neighbouring monarchs, by thy beauty led,

Contend in crowds, ambitious of thy bed;

The world is at thy choice, except but one,

Except but him thou canst not choose alone.

She knew it too, the miserable maid, }

Ere impious love her better thoughts betrayed, }

And thus within her secret soul she said:-- }

Ah, Myrrha! whither would thy wishes tend?

Ye Gods, ye sacred laws, my soul defend

From such a crime as all mankind detest,

And never lodged before in human breast!

But is it sin? Or makes my mind alone

The imagined sin? For nature makes it none.

What tyrant then these envious laws began,

Made not for any other beast but man!

The father-bull his daughter may bestride,

The horse may make his mother-mare a bride;

What piety forbids the lusty ram,

Or more salacious goat, to rut their dam?

The hen is free to wed her chick she bore,

And make a husband, whom she hatched before.

All creatures else are of a happier kind, }

Whom nor ill-natured laws from pleasure bind, }

Nor thoughts of sin disturb their peace of mind. }

But man a slave of his own making lives;

The fool denies himself what nature gives;

Too busy senates, with an over-care

To make us better than our kind can bear,

Have dashed a spice of envy in the laws,

And, straining up too high, have spoiled the cause.

Yet some wise nations break their cruel chains,

And own no laws, but those which love ordains;

Where happy daughters with their sires are joined,

And piety is doubly paid in kind.

O that I had been born in such a clime,

Not here, where 'tis the country makes the crime!...

But whither would my impious fancy stray?

Hence hopes, and ye forbidden thoughts, away!

His worth deserves to kindle my desires,

But with the love that daughters bear to sires.

Then had not Cinyras my father been,

What hindered Myrrha's hopes to be his queen?

But the perverseness of my fate is such,

That he's not mine, because he's mine too much:

Our kindred-blood debars a better tie;

He might be nearer, were he not so nigh.

Eyes and their objects never must unite,

Some distance is required to help the sight.

Fain would I travel to some foreign shore, }

Never to see my native country more, }

So might I to myself myself restore; }

So might my mind these impious thoughts remove,

And, ceasing to behold, might cease to love.

But stay I must, to feed my famished sight,

To talk, to kiss; and more, if more I might:...

More, impious maid! What more canst thou design? }

To make a monstrous mixture in thy line, }

And break all statutes human and divine? }

Canst thou be called (to save thy wretched life)

Thy mother's rival, and thy father's wife?

Confound so many sacred names in one,

Thy brother's mother! sister to thy son!

And fear'st thou not to see the infernal bands,

Their heads with snakes, with torches armed their hands,

Full at thy face the avenging brands to bear,

And shake the serpents from their hissing hair?

But thou in time the increasing ill controul,

Nor first debauch the body by the soul;

Secure the sacred quiet of thy mind,

And keep the sanctions nature has designed.

Suppose I should attempt, the attempt were vain;

No thoughts like mine his sinless soul profane,

Observant of the right; and O, that he

Could cure my madness, or be mad like me!--

Thus she; but Cinyras, who daily sees

A crowd of noble suitors at his knees,

Among so many, knew not whom to choose,

Irresolute to grant, or to refuse;

But, having told their names, inquired of her,

Who pleased her best, and whom she would prefer?

The blushing maid stood silent with surprise,

And on her father fixed her ardent eyes,

And, looking, sighed; and, as she sighed, began

Round tears to shed, that scalded as they ran.

The tender sire, who saw her blush, and cry,

Ascribed it all to maiden-modesty;

And dried the falling drops, and, yet more kind,

He stroked her cheeks, and holy kisses joined:

She felt a secret venom fire her blood,

And found more pleasure than a daughter should;

And, asked again, what lover of the crew

She liked the best? she answered, one like you.

Mistaking what she meant, her pious will

He praised, and bade her so continue still:

The word of "pious" heard, she blushed with shame

Of secret guilt, and could not bear the name.

'Twas now the mid of night, when slumbers close

Our eyes, and sooth our cares with soft repose;

But no repose could wretched Myrrha find,

Her body rolling, as she rolled her mind:

Mad with desire, she ruminates her sin,

And wishes all her wishes o'er again:

Now she despairs, and now resolves to try;

Would not, and would again, she knows not why;

Stops and returns, makes and retracts the vow;

Fain would begin, but understands not how:

As when a pine is hewn upon the plains,

And the last mortal stroke alone remains,

Labouring in pangs of death, and threatening all,

This way and that she nods, considering where to fall;

So Myrrha's mind, impelled on either side,

Takes every bent, but cannot long abide:

Irresolute on which she should rely,

At last, unfixed in all, is only fixed to die.

On that sad thought she rests; resolved on death,

She rises, and prepares to choke her breath:

Then while about the beam her zone she ties,

Dear Cinyras, farewell, she softly cries;

For thee I die, and only wish to be

Not hated, when thou know'st I die for thee:

Pardon the crime, in pity to the cause.--

This said, about her neck the noose she draws.

The nurse, who lay without, her faithful guard,

Though not the words, the murmurs overheard,

And sighs and hollow sounds; surprised with fright,

She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light;

Unlocks the door, and, entering out of breath,

The dying saw, and instruments of death.

She shrieks, she cuts the zone with trembling haste,

And in her arms her fainting charge embraced;

Next (for she now had leisure for her tears)

She weeping asked, in these her blooming years,

What unforeseen misfortune caused her care,

To loathe her life, and languish in despair

The maid, with downcast eyes, and mute with grief,

For death unfinished, and ill-timed relief,

Stood sullen to her suit: the beldame pressed

The more to know, and bared her withered breast;

Adjured her, by the kindly food she drew

From those dry founts, her secret ill to shew.

Sad Myrrha sighed, and turned her eyes aside;

The nurse still urged, and would not be denied;

Nor only promised secrecy, but prayed

She might have leave to give her offered aid.

Good will, she said, my want of strength supplies,

And diligence shall give what age denies.

If strong desires thy mind to fury move,

With charms and medicines I can cure thy love;

If envious eyes their hurtful rays have cast,

More powerful verse shall free thee from the blast;

If heaven, offended, sends thee this disease,

Offended heaven with prayers we can appease.

What then remains, that can these cares procure?

Thy house is flourishing; thy fortune sure;

Thy careful mother yet in health survives,

And, to thy comfort, thy kind father lives.--

The virgin started at her father's name,

And sighed profoundly, conscious of the shame;

Nor yet the nurse her impious love divined,

But yet surmised, that love disturbed her mind.

Thus thinking, she pursued her point, and laid

And lull'd within her lap the mourning maid;

Then softly soothed her thus,--I guess your grief;

You love, my child; your love shall find relief.

My long experienced age shall be your guide;

Rely on that, and lay distrust aside;

No breath of air shall on the secret blow,

Nor shall (what most you fear) your father know.

Struck once again, as with a thunder-clap,

The guilty virgin bounded from her lap,

And threw her body prostrate on the bed,

And, to conceal her blushes, hid her head:

There silent lay, and warned her with her hand

To go; but she received not the command;

Remaining still importunate to know.

Then Myrrha thus; Or ask no more, or go;

I pr'ythee go, or, staying, spare my shame;

What thou wouldst hear, is impious even to name.--

At this, on high the beldame holds her hands,

And trembling, both with age and terrour, stands;

Adjures, and, falling at her feet, intreats,

Sooths her with blandishments, and frights with threats,

To tell the crime intended, or disclose

What part of it she knew, if she no farther knows;

And last, if conscious to her counsel made,

Confirms anew the promise of her aid.

Now Myrrha raised her head; but soon, oppressed }

With shame, reclined it on her nurse's breast; }

Bathed it with tears, and strove to have confessed: }

Twice she began, and stopped; again she tried;

The faultering tongue its office still denied;

At last her veil before her face she spread, }

And drew a long preluding sigh, and said, }

O happy mother, in thy marriage bed!... }

Then groaned, and ceased.--The good old woman shook,

Stiff were her eyes, and ghastly was her look;

Her hoary hair upright with horror stood,

Made (to her grief) more knowing than she would;

Much she reproached, and many things she said,

To cure the madness of the unhappy maid:

In vain; for Myrrha stood convict of ill;

Her reason vanquished, but unchanged her will;

Perverse of mind, unable to reply,

She stood resolved or to possess, or die.

At length the fondness of a nurse prevailed

Against her better sense, and virtue failed:

Enjoy, my child, since such is thy desire,

Thy love, she said; she durst not say, thy sire.

Live, though unhappy, live on any terms;

Then with a second oath her faith confirms.

The solemn feast of Ceres now was near,

When long white linen stoles the matrons wear;

Ranked in procession walk the pious train,

Offering first-fruits, and spikes of yellow grain;

For nine long nights the nuptial bed they shun,

And, sanctifying harvest, lie alone.

Mixed with the crowd, the queen forsook her lord,

And Ceres' power with secret rites adored.

The royal couch now vacant for a time,

The crafty crone, officious in her crime,

The curst occasion took; the king she found

Easy with wine, and deep in pleasure drowned,

Prepared for love; the beldame blew the flame,

Confessed the passion, but concealed the name.

Her form she praised; the monarch asked her years,

And she replied, the same that Myrrha bears.

Wine and commended beauty fired his thought;

Impatient, he commands her to be brought.

Pleased with her charge performed, she hies her home,

And gratulates the nymph, the task was overcome.

Myrrha was joyed the welcome news to hear;

But, clogged with guilt, the joy was insincere

So various, so discordant is the mind,

That in our will, a different will we find.

Ill she presaged, and yet pursued her lust;

For guilty pleasures give a double gust.

'Twas depth of night; Arctophylax had driven

His lazy wain half round the northern heaven,

When Myrrha hastened to the crime desired.

The moon beheld her first, and first retired;

The stars, amazed, ran backward from the sight,

And, shrunk within their sockets, lost their light.

Icarius first withdraws his holy flame;

The Virgin sign, in heaven the second name,

Slides down the belt, and from her station flies,

And night with sable clouds involves the skies.

Bold Myrrha still pursues her black intent; }

She stumbled thrice, (an omen of the event;) }

Thrice shrieked the funeral owl, yet on she went, }

Secure of shame, because secure of sight;

Even bashful sins are impudent by night.

Linked hand in hand, the accomplice and the dame,

Their way exploring, to the chamber came;

The door was ope, they blindly grope their way,

Where dark in bed the expecting monarch lay:

Thus far her courage held, but here forsakes;

Her faint knees knock at every step she makes.

The nearer to her crime, the more within

She feels remorse, and horror of her sin;

Repents too late her criminal desire,

And wishes, that unknown she could retire.

Her, lingering thus, the nurse, who feared delay

The fatal secret might at length betray,

Pulled forward, to complete the work begun,

And said to Cinyras,--Receive thy own!...

Thus saying, she delivered kind to kind,

Accursed, and their devoted bodies joined.

The sire, unknowing of the crime, admits

His bowels, and profanes the hallowed sheets.

He found she trembled, but believed she strove, }

With maiden modesty, against her love; }

And sought, with flattering words, vain fancies to remove.}

Perhaps he said, My daughter, cease thy fears,--

Because the title suited with her years;

And, Father,--she might whisper him again,

That names might not be wanting to the sin.

Full of her sire, she left the incestuous bed,

And carried in her womb the crime she bred.

Another, and another night she came;

For frequent sin had left no sense of shame;

Till Cinyras desired to see her face,

Whose body he had held in close embrace,

And brought a taper; the revealer, light,

Exposed both crime, and criminal, to sight.

Grief, rage, amazement, could no speech afford,

But from the sheath he drew the avenging sword;

The guilty fled; the benefit of night,

That favoured first the sin, secured the flight.

Long wandering through the spacious fields, she bent

Her voyage to the Arabian continent;

Then passed the region which Panchæa joined,

And flying left the palmy plains behind.

Nine times the moon had mewed her horns; at length

With travel weary, unsupplied with strength,

And with the burden of her womb oppressed,

Sabæan fields afford her needful rest;

There, loathing life, and yet of death afraid,

In anguish of her spirit, thus she prayed:--

Ye powers, if any so propitious are

To accept my penitence, and hear my prayer,

Your judgments, I confess, are justly sent;

Great sins deserve as great a punishment:

Yet, since my life the living will profane,

And since my death the happy dead will stain,

A middle state your mercy may bestow,

Betwixt the realms above, and those below;

Some other form to wretched Myrrha give,

Nor let her wholly die, nor wholly live.--

The prayers of penitents are never vain;

At least, she did her last request obtain;

For, while she spoke, the ground began to rise,

And gathered round her feet, her legs, and thighs;

Her toes in roots descend, and, spreading wide,

A firm foundation for the trunk provide;

Her solid bones convert to solid wood,

To pith her marrow, and to sap her blood;

Her arms are boughs, her fingers change their kind,

Her tender skin is hardened into rind.

And now the rising tree her womb invests,

Now, shooting upwards still, invades her breasts,

And shades the neck; and, weary with delay,

She sunk her head within, and met it half the way.

And though with outward shape she lost her sense,

With bitter tears she wept her last offence;

And still she weeps, nor sheds her tears in vain;

For still the precious drops her name retain.

Mean time the misbegotten infant grows,

And, ripe for birth, distends with deadly throes

The swelling rind, with unavailing strife,

To leave the wooden womb, and pushes into life.

The mother-tree, as if oppressed with pain,

Writhes here and there, to break the bark, in vain;

And, like a labouring woman, would have prayed,

But wants a voice to call Lucina's aid;

The bending bole sends out a hollow sound,

And trickling tears fall thicker on the ground.

The mild Lucina came uncalled, and stood

Beside the struggling boughs, and heard the groaning wood;

Then reached her midwife-hand, to speed the throes,

And spoke the powerful spells that babes to birth disclose.

The bark divides, the living load to free,

And safe delivers the convulsive tree.

The ready nymphs receive the crying child,

And wash him in the tears the parent plant distilled.

They swathed him with their scarfs; beneath him spread

The ground with herbs; with roses raised his head.

The lovely babe was born with every grace;

Even envy must have praised so fair a face:

Such was his form, as painters, when they show

Their utmost art, on naked loves bestow;

And that their arms no difference might betray,

Give him a bow, or his from Cupid take away.

Time glides along, with undiscovered haste,

The future but a length behind the past,

So swift are years; the babe, whom just before

His grandsire got, and whom his sister bore;

The drop, the thing which late the tree inclosed;

And late the yawning bark to life exposed;

A babe, a boy, a beauteous youth appears;[29]

And lovelier than himself at riper years.

Now to the queen of love he gave desires,

And, with her pains, revenged his mother's fires.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Adonis.

CEYX AND ALCYONE.

OUT OF THE TENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

CONNECTION OF THIS FABLE WITH THE FORMER.

_Ceyx, the son of Lucifer, (the morning star,) and king of Trachin,

in Thessaly, was married to Alcyone, daughter to Æolus, god of the

winds. Both the husband and the wife loved each other with an entire

affection. Dædalion, the elder brother of Ceyx, whom he succeeded,

having been turned into a falcon by Apollo, and Chione, Dædalion's

daughter, slain by Diana. Ceyx prepares a ship to sail to Claros,

there to consult the oracle of Apollo, and (as Ovid seems to intimate)

to enquire how the anger of the Gods might be atoned._

These prodigies affect the pious prince;

But, more perplexed with those that happened since,

He purposes to seek the Clarian God, }

Avoiding Delphos, his more famed abode; }

Since Phlegian robbers made unsafe the road. }

Yet could not he from her he loved so well,

The fatal voyage, he resolved, conceal;

But when she saw her lord prepared to part,

A deadly cold ran shivering to her heart;

Her faded cheeks are changed to boxen hue,

And in her eyes the tears are ever new;

She thrice essayed to speak; her accents hung,

And, faultering, died unfinished on her tongue,

Or vanished into sighs; with long delay

Her voice returned; and found the wonted way.

Tell me, my lord, she said, what fault unknown }

Thy once beloved Alcyone has done? }

Whither, ah whither is thy kindness gone! }

Can Ceyx then sustain to leave his wife,

And unconcerned forsake the sweets of life?

What can thy mind to this long journey move,

Or need'st thou absence to renew thy love?

Yet, if thou goest by land, though grief possess

My soul even then, my fears will be the less.

But ah! be warned to shun the watery way,

The face is frightful of the stormy sea.

For late I saw a drift disjointed planks,

And empty tombs erected on the banks.

Nor let false hopes to trust betray thy mind,

Because my sire in caves constrains the wind,

Can with a breath a clamorous rage appease,

They fear his whistle, and forsake the seas:

Not so; for, once indulged, they sweep the main,

Deaf to the call, or, hearing, hear in vain;

But bent on mischief, bear the waves before,

And, not content with seas, insult the shore;

When ocean, air, and earth, at once engage,

And rooted forests fly before their rage;

At once the clashing clouds to battle move,

And lightnings run across the fields above:

I know them well, and marked their rude comport,

While yet a child, within my father's court;

In times of tempest they command alone,

And he but sits precarious on the throne;

The more I know, the more my fears augment,

And fears are oft prophetic of the event.

But if not fears, or reasons will prevail,

If fate has fixed thee obstinate to sail,

Go not without thy wife, but let me bear }

My part of danger with an equal share, }

And present suffer what I only fear; }

Then o'er the bounding billows shall we fly,

Secure to live together, or to die.--

These reasons moved her starlike husband's heart,

But still he held his purpose to depart;

For as he loved her equal to his life,

He would not to the seas expose his wife;

Nor could be wrought his voyage to refrain,

But sought by arguments to sooth her pain:

Nor these availed; at length he lights on one,

With which so difficult a cause he won:--

My love, so short an absence cease to fear,

For, by my father's holy flame I swear,

Before two moons their orb with light adorn,

If heaven allow me life, I will return.--

This promise of so short a stay prevails;

He soon equips the ship, supplies the sails,

And gives the word to launch; she trembling views

This pomp of death, and parting tears renews;

Last, with a kiss, she took a long farewell,

Sighed, with a sad presage, and swooning fell.

While Ceyx seeks delays, the lusty crew, }

Raised on their banks, their oars in order drew }

To their broad breasts,--the ship with fury flew. }

The queen, recovered, rears her humid eyes,

And first her husband on the poop espies,

Shaking his hand at distance on the main;

She took the sign, and shook her hand again.

Still as the ground recedes, retracts her view

With sharpened sight, till she no longer knew

The much-loved face; that comfort lost, supplies

With less, and with the galley feeds her eyes;

The galley borne from view by rising gales,

She followed with her sight the flying sails;

When even the flying sails were seen no more,

Forsaken of all sight, she left the shore.

Then on her bridal bed her body throws,

And sought in sleep her wearied eyes to close;

Her husband's pillow, and the widowed part

Which once he pressed, renewed the former smart.

And now a breeze from shore began to blow;

The sailors ship their oars, and cease to row;

Then hoist their yards atrip, and all their sails

Let fall, to court the wind, and catch the gales.

By this the vessel half her course had run,

And as much rested till the rising sun;

Both shores were lost to sight, when at the close

Of day, a stiffer gale at east arose;

The sea grew white, the rolling waves from far,

Like heralds, first denounce the watery war.

This seen, the master soon began to cry,

Strike, strike the top-sail; let the main sheet fly,

And furl your sails.--The winds repel the sound,

And in the speaker's mouth the speech is drowned.

Yet of their own accord, as danger taught,

Each in his way, officiously they wrought;

Some stow their oars, or stop the leaky sides;

Another, bolder yet, the yard bestrides,

And folds the sails; a fourth, with labour, laves

The intruding seas, and waves ejects on waves.

In this confusion while their work they ply,

The winds augment the winter of the sky,

And wage intestine wars; the suffering seas

Are tossed, and mingled as their tyrants please.

The master would command, but, in despair

Of safety, stands amazed with stupid care,

Nor what to bid, or what forbid, he knows,

The ungoverned tempest to such fury grows;

Vain is his force, and vainer is his skill,

With such a concourse comes the flood of ill;

The cries of men are mixed with rattling shrouds;

Seas dash on seas, and clouds encounter clouds;

At once from east to west, from pole to pole,

The forky lightnings flash, the roaring thunders roll.

Now waves on waves ascending scale the skies,

And, in the fires above, the water fries;

When yellow sands are sifted from below,

The glittering billows give a golden show;

And when the fouler bottom spews the black,

The Stygian dye the tainted waters take;

Then frothy white appear the flatted seas,

And change their colour, changing their disease.

Like various fits the Trachin vessel finds,

And now sublime she rides upon the winds;

As from a lofty summit looks from high,

And from the clouds beholds the nether sky;

Now from the depth of hell they lift their sight,

And at a distance see superior light;

The lashing billows make a loud report,

And beat her sides, as battering rams a fort;

Or as a lion, bounding in his way,

With force augmented bears against his prey,

Sidelong to seize; or, unappalled with fear,

Springs on the toils, and rushes on the spear;

So seas impelled by winds, with added power,

Assault the sides, and o'er the hatches tower.

The planks, their pitchy coverings washed away,

Now yield; and now a yawning breach display;

The roaring waters with a hostile tide

Rush through the ruins of her gaping side.

Meantime, in sheets of rain the sky descends,

And ocean, swelled with waters, upwards tends,

One rising, falling one; the heavens and sea

Meet at their confines, in the middle way;

The sails are drunk with showers, and drop with rain;

Sweet waters mingle with the briny main.

No star appears to lend his friendly light;

Darkness and tempest make a double night;

But flashing fires disclose the deep by turns,

And, while the lightnings blaze, the water burns.

Now all the waves their scattered force unite;

And, as a soldier, foremost in the fight,

Makes way for others, and, an host alone,

Still presses on, and, urging, gains the town;

So while the invading billows come a-breast,

The hero tenth advanced before the rest,

Sweeps all before him with impetuous sway,

And from the walls descends upon the prey;

Part following enter, part remain without,

With envy hear their fellows' conquering shout,

And mount on others' backs, in hope to share

The city, thus become the seat of war.

An universal cry resounds aloud,

The sailors run in heaps, a helpless crowd;

Art fails, and courage falls, no succour near;

As many waves, as many deaths appear.

One weeps, and yet despairs of late relief;

One cannot weep, his fears congeal his grief;

But, stupid, with dry eyes expects his fate. }

One with loud shrieks laments his lost estate, }

And calls those happy whom their funerals wait. }

This wretch with prayers and vows the gods implores,

And even the skies he cannot see, adores.

That other on his friends his thoughts bestows,

His careful father, and his faithful spouse.

The covetous worldling in his anxious mind

Thinks only on the wealth he left behind.

All Ceyx his Alcyone employs,

For her he grieves, yet in her absence joys;

His wife he wishes, and would still be near,

Not her with him, but wishes him with her:

Now with last looks he seeks his native shore,

Which fate has destined him to see no more;

He sought, but in the dark tempestuous night

He knew not whither to direct his sight.

So whirl the seas, such darkness blinds the sky,

That the black night receives a deeper dye.

The giddy ship ran round; the tempest tore

Her mast, and over-board the rudder bore.

One billow mounts; and with a scornful brow,

Proud of her conquest gained, insults the waves below;

Nor lighter falls, than if some giant tore

Pindus and Athos, with the freight they bore,

And tossed on seas; pressed with the ponderous blow,

Down sinks the ship within the abyss below;

Down with the vessel sink into the main

The many, never more to rise again.

Some few on scattered planks, with fruitless care

Lay hold, and swim; but, while they swim, despair.

Even he, who late a sceptre did command,

Now grasps a floating fragment in his hand;

And while he struggles on the stormy main,

Invokes his father, and his wife, in vain:

But yet his consort is his greater care;

Alcyone he names amidst his prayer;

Names as a charm against the waves and wind,

Most in his mouth, and ever in his mind.

Tired with his toil, all hopes of safety past,

From prayers to wishes he descends at last,--

That his dead body, wafted to the sands,

Might have its burial from her friendly hands.

As oft as he can catch a gulph of air,

And peep above the seas, he names the fair;

And, even when plunged beneath, on her he raves,

Murmuring Alcyone below the waves:

At last a falling billow stops his breath,

Breaks o'er his head, and whelms him underneath.

Bright Lucifer[30] unlike himself appears

That night, his heavenly form obscured with tears;

And since he was forbid to leave the skies,

He muffled with a cloud his mournful eyes.

Mean time Alcyone (his fate unknown)

Computes how many nights he had been gone;

Observes the waning moon with hourly view,

Numbers her age, and wishes for a new;

Against the promised time provides with care,

And hastens in the woof the robes he was to wear;

And for herself employs another loom, }

New-dressed to meet her lord returning home, }

Flattering her heart with joys that never were to come }

She fumed the temples with an odorous flame, }

And oft before the sacred altars came, }

To pray for him, who was an empty name; }

All powers implored, but far above the rest,

To Juno she her pious vows addressed,

Her much-loved lord from perils to protect,

And safe o'er seas his voyage to direct;

Then prayed that she might still possess his heart,

And no pretending rival share a part.

This last petition heard, of all her prayer;

The rest, dispersed by winds, were lost in air.

But she, the goddess of the nuptial bed,

Tired with her vain devotions for the dead,

Resolved the tainted hand should be repelled,

Which incense offered, and her altar held:

Then Iris thus bespoke,--Thou faithful maid,

By whom the queen's commands are well conveyed,

Haste to the house of Sleep, and bid the god,

Who rules the night by visions with a nod,

Prepare a dream, in figure and in form

Resembling him who perished in the storm:

This form before Alcyone present,

To make her certain of the sad event.--

Endued with robes of various hue she flies,

And flying draws an arch, a segment of the skies;

Then leaves her bending bow, and from the steep

Descends to search the silent house of Sleep.

Near the Cimmerians, in his dark abode,

Deep in a cavern, dwells the drowsy god;

Whose gloomy mansion nor the rising sun,

Nor setting, visits, nor the lightsome noon;

But lazy vapours round the region fly,

Perpetual twilight, and a doubtful sky;

No crowing cock does there his wings display,

Nor with his horny bill provoke the day;

Nor watchful dogs, nor the more wakeful geese,

Disturb with nightly noise the sacred peace;

Nor beast of nature, nor the tame, are nigh,

Nor trees with tempests rocked, nor human cry;

But safe repose, without an air of breath,

Dwells here, and a dumb quiet next to death.

An arm of Lethe, with a gentle flow,

Arising upwards from the rock below,

The palace moats, and o'er the pebbles creeps,

And with soft murmurs calls the coming sleeps;

Around its entry nodding poppies grow,

And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow;

Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains,

And passing sheds it on the silent plains:

No door there was the unguarded house to keep,

On creaking hinges turned, to break his sleep.

But in the gloomy court was raised a bed,

Stuffed with black plumes, and on an ebon sted;

Black was the covering too, where lay the god,

And slept supine, his limbs displayed abroad;

About his head fantastic visions fly,

Which various images of things supply,

And mock their forms; the leaves on trees not more,

Nor bearded ears in fields, nor sands upon the shore.

The virgin, entering bright, indulged the day

To the brown cave, and brushed the dreams away;

The god, disturbed with this new glare of light

Cast sudden on his face, unsealed his sight,

And raised his tardy head, which sunk again,

And, sinking on his bosom, knocked his chin;

At length shook off himself, and asked the dame

(And asking yawned,) for what intent she came?

To whom the goddess thus:--O sacred Rest,

Sweet pleasing Sleep, of all the powers the best!

O peace of mind, repairer of decay, }

Whose balms renew the limbs to labours of the day, }

Care shuns thy soft approach, and sullen flies away! }

Adorn a dream, expressing human form,

The shape of him who suffered in the storm,

And send it flitting to the Trachin court,

The wreck of wretched Ceyx to report:

Before his queen bid the pale spectre stand,

Who begs a vain relief at Juno's hand.--

She said, and scarce awake her eyes could keep,

Unable to support the fumes of sleep;

But fled, returning by the way she went,

And swerved along her bow with swift ascent.

The god, uneasy till he slept again,

Resolved at once to rid himself of pain;

And, though against his custom, called aloud,

Exciting Morpheus from the sleepy crowd;

Morpheus, of all his numerous train, expressed

The shape of man, and imitated best;

The walk, the words, the gesture could supply,

The habit mimic, and the mien bely;

Plays well, but all his action is confined;

Extending not beyond our human kind.

Another birds, and beasts, and dragons, apes,

And dreadful images, and monster shapes:

This dæmon, Icelos, in heaven's high hall

The gods have named; but men Phobeter call:

A third is Phantasus, whose actions roll

On meaner thoughts, and things devoid of soul;

Earth, fruits, and flowers, he represents in dreams,

And solid rocks unmoved, and running streams.

These three to kings and chiefs their scenes display,

The rest before the ignoble commons play:

Of these the chosen Morpheus is dispatched;

Which done, the lazy monarch overwatched,

Down from his propping elbow drops his head,

Dissolved in sleep, and shrinks within his bed.

Darkling the dæmon glides, for flight prepared,

So soft that scarce his fanning wings are heard.

To Trachin, swift as thought, the flitting shade

Through air his momentary journey made:

Then lays aside the steerage of his wings,

Forsakes his proper form, assumes the king's;

And pale as death, despoiled of his array, }

Into the queen's apartment takes his way, }

And stands before the bed at dawn of day: }

Unmoved his eyes, and wet his beard appears, }

And shedding vain, but seeming real tears; }

The briny water dropping from his hairs; }

Then staring on her, with a ghastly look

And hollow voice, he thus the Queen bespoke.

Knowest thou not me? Not yet, unhappy wife?

Or are my features perished with my life?

Look once again, and for thy husband lost,

Lo! all that's left of him, thy husband's ghost!

Thy vows for my return were all in vain; }

Thy stormy south o'ertook us in the main; }

And never shalt thou see thy loving lord again. }

Bear witness, heaven, I called on thee in death,

And, while I called, a billow stopped my breath.

Think not that flying fame reports my fate;

I, present I, appear, and my own wreck relate.

Rise, wretched widow, rise, nor undeplored }

Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford; }

But rise, prepared in black to mourn thy perished lord. }

Thus said the player-god; and, adding art

Of voice and gesture, so performed his part,

She thought (so like her love the shade appears)

That Ceyx spake the words, and Ceyx shed the tears.

She groaned, her inward soul with grief opprest,

She sighed, she wept, and sleeping beat her breast:

Then stretched her arms to embrace his body bare,

Her clasping arms inclose but empty air:

At this, not yet awake, she cried,--Oh stay,

One is our fate, and common is our way!--

So dreadful was the dream, so loud

she spoke, That, starting sudden up, the slumber broke;

Then cast her eyes around, in hope to view

Her vanished lord, and find the vision true;

For now the maids, who waited her commands,

Ran in with lighted tapers in their hands.

Tired with the search, not finding what she seeks,

With cruel blows she pounds her blubbered cheeks;

Then from her beaten breast the linen tare,

And cut the golden caul that bound her hair.

Her nurse demands the cause; with louder cries

She prosecutes her griefs, and thus replies.

No more Alcyone, she suffered death

With her loved lord, when Ceyx lost his breath:

No flattery, no false comfort, give me none,

My shipwrecked Ceyx is for ever gone;

I saw, I saw him manifest in view,

His voice, his figure, and his gestures knew:

His lustre lost, and every living grace,

Yet I retained the features of his face:

Though with pale cheeks, wet beard, and dropping hair,

None but my Ceyx could appear so fair;

I would have strained him with a strict embrace,

But through my arms he slipt, and vanished from the place;

There, even just there he stood;--and as she spoke,

Where last the spectre was, she cast her look;

Fain would she hope, and gazed upon the ground,

If any printed footsteps might be found;

Then sighed, and said;--This I too well foreknew,

And my prophetic fear presaged too true;

'Twas what I begged, when with a bleeding heart

I took my leave, and suffered thee to part,

Or I to go along, or thou to stay,

Never, ah never to divide our way!

Happier for me, that, all our hours assigned,

Together we had lived, even not in death disjoined!

So had my Ceyx still been living here,

Or with my Ceyx I had perished there;

Now I die absent, in the vast profound,

And me without myself the seas have drowned:

The storms were not so cruel; should I strive

To lengthen life, and such a grief survive!

But neither will I strive, nor wretched thee

In death forsake, but keep thee company.

If not one common sepulchre contains

Our bodies, or one urn our last remains,

Yet Ceyx and Alcyone shall join,

Their names remembered in one common line.--

No farther voice her mighty grief affords,

For sighs come rushing in betwixt her words,

And stopt her tongue; but what her tongue denied,

Soft tears, and groans, and dumb complaints supplied.

'Twas morning; to the port she takes her way,

And stands upon the margin of the sea;

That place, that very spot of ground she sought,

Or thither by her destiny was brought,

Where last he stood; and while she sadly said, }

'Twas here he left me, lingering here, delayed }

His parting kiss, and there his anchors weighed. }

Thus speaking, while her thoughts past actions trace,

And call to mind, admonished by the place,

Sharp at her utmost ken she cast her eyes,

And somewhat floating from afar descries;

It seemed a corpse adrift, to distant sight,

But at a distance who could judge aright?

It wafted nearer yet, and then she knew,

That what before she but surmised was true;

A corpse it was, but whose it was, unknown,

Yet moved, howe'er, she made the case her own;

Took the bad omen of a shipwrecked man,

As for a stranger wept, and thus began:

Poor wretch, on stormy seas to lose thy life,

Unhappy thou, but more thy widowed wife!--

At this she paused; for now the flowing tide

Had brought the body nearer to the side:

The more she looks, the more her fears increase

At nearer sight, and she's herself the less:

Now driven ashore, and at her feet it lies;

She knows too much, in knowing whom she sees,--

Her husband's corpse; at this she loudly shrieks,

'Tis he, 'tis he, she cries, and tears her cheeks,

Her hair, her vest; and, stooping to the sands,

About his neck she casts her trembling hands.

And is it thus, O dearer than my life,

Thus, thus return'st thou to thy longing wife!--

She said, and to the neighbouring mole she strode,

Raised there to break the incursions of the flood;

Headlong from hence to plunge herself she springs,

But shoots along supported on her wings;

A bird new-made about the banks she plies,

Not far from shore, and short excursions tries;

Nor seeks in air her humble flight to raise,

Content to skim the surface of the seas;

Her bill, though slender, sends a creaking noise,

And imitates a lamentable voice;

Now lighting where the bloodless body lies,

She with a funeral note renews her cries.

At all her stretch her little wings she spread,

And with her feathered arms embraced the dead;

Then flickering to his pallid lips, she strove

To print a kiss, the last essay of love;

Whether the vital touch revived the dead,

Or that the moving waters raised his head

To meet the kiss, the vulgar doubt alone,

For sure a present miracle was shown.

The gods their shapes to winter-birds translate,

But both obnoxious to their former fate.

Their conjugal affection still is tied,

And still the mournful race is multiplied;

They bill, they tread; Alcyone compressed,

Seven days sits brooding on her floating nest,

A wintery queen: her sire at length is kind,

Calms every storm, and hushes every wind;

Prepares his empire for his daughter's ease,

And for his hatching nephews smooths the seas.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Ceyx was the son of the Morning Star.

ÆSACUS

TRANSFORMED INTO A CORMORANT.

FROM THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

These some old man sees wanton in the air,

And praises the unhappy constant pair;

Then to his friend the long-necked Cormorant shows,

The former tale reviving other woes:

That sable bird, he cries, which cuts the flood

With slender legs, was once of royal blood;

His ancestors from mighty Tros proceed,

The brave Laomedon and Ganymede,

Whose beauty tempted Jove to steal the boy,

And Priam, hapless prince! who fell with Troy;

Himself was Hector's brother, and, had fate

But given this hopeful youth a longer date,

Perhaps had rivalled warlike Hector's worth,

Though on the mother's side of meaner birth;

Fair Alyxothoé, a country maid,

Bare Æsacus by stealth in Ida's shade.

He fled the noisy town, and pompous court, }

Loved the lone hills, and simple rural sport, }

And seldom to the city would resort. }

Yet he no rustic clownishness profest,

Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast;

The youth had long the nymph Hesperio wooed,

Oft through the thicket, or the mead, pursued.

Her haply on her father's bank he spied,

While fearless she her silver tresses dried;

Away she fled; not stags with half such speed,

Before the prowling wolf, scud o'er the mead;

Not ducks, when they the safer flood forsake,

Pursued by hawks, so swift regain the lake,

As fast he followed in the hot career;

Desire the lover winged, the virgin fear.

A snake unseen now pierced her heedless foot, }

Quick through the veins the venomed juices shoot; }

She fell, and 'scaped by death his fierce pursuit. }

Her lifeless body, frighted, he embraced,

And cried,--Not this I dreaded, but thy haste;

O had my love been less, or less thy fear!

The victory thus bought is far too dear.

Accursed snake! yet I more cursed than he!

He gave the wound; the cause was given by me.

Yet none shall say, that unrevenged you died.-- }

He spoke; then climbed a cliff's o'er-hanging side, }

And, resolute, leaped on the foaming tide. }

Tethys received him gently on the wave;

The death he sought denied, and feathers gave.

Debarred the surest remedy of grief,

And forced to live, he curst the unasked relief;

Then on his airy pinions upward flies, }

And at a second fall successless tries, }

The downy plume a quick descent denies. }

Enraged, he often dives beneath the wave,

And there in vain expects to find a grave.

His ceaseless sorrow for the unhappy maid

Meager'd his look, and on his spirits preyed.

Still near the sounding deep he lives; his name

From frequent diving and emerging came.

THE

TWELFTH BOOK

OF

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES,

WHOLLY TRANSLATED.

CONNECTION TO THE END OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK.

_Æsacus, the son of Priam, loving a country life, forsakes the

court; living obscurely, he falls in love with a nymph, who, flying

from him, was killed by a serpent; for grief of this, he would have

drowned himself; but, by the pity of the gods, is turned into a

Cormorant. Priam, not hearing of Æsacus, believes him to be dead,

and raises a tomb to preserve his memory. By this transition, which

is one of the finest in all Ovid, the poet naturally falls into the

story of the Trojan war, which is summed up in the present book;

but so very briefly in many places, that Ovid seems more short than

Virgil, contrary to his usual style. Yet the House of Fame, which

is here described, is one of the most beautiful pieces in the whole

Metamorphoses. The fight of Achilles and Cygnus, and the fray betwixt

the Lapithæ and Centaurs, yield to no other part of this poet; and

particularly the loves and death of Cyllarus and Hylonome, the male

and female Centaur, are wonderfully moving._

Priam, to whom the story was unknown,

As dead, deplored his metamorphosed son;

A Cenotaph his name and title kept,

And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers, wept.

This pious office Paris did not share;

Absent alone, and author of the war,

Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew

To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue.

A thousand ships were manned, to sail the sea; }

Nor had their just resentments found delay, }

Had not the winds and waves opposed their way. }

At Aulis, with united powers, they meet,

But there, cross winds or calms detained the fleet.

Now, while they raise an altar on the shore,

And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore,

A boding sign the priests and people see:

A snake of size immense ascends a tree,

And in the leafy summit spied a nest,

Which, o'er her callow young, a sparrow pressed.

Eight were the birds unfledged; their mother flew,

And hovered round her care, but still in view;

Till the fierce reptile first devoured the brood,

Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her blood.

This dire ostent the fearful people view;

Calchas alone, by Phœbus taught, foreknew

What heaven decreed; and, with a smiling glance,

Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance.

O Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours,

But long delays shall first afflict our powers;

Nine years of labour the nine birds portend,

The tenth shall in the town's destruction end.

The serpent, who his maw obscene had filled,

The branches in his curled embraces held;

But as in spires he stood, he turned to stone;

The stony snake retained the figure still his own.

Yet not for this the wind-bound navy weighed;

Slack were their sails, and Neptune disobeyed.

Some thought him loth the town should be destroyed,

Whose building had his hands divine employed;

Not so the seer, who knew, and known foreshowed,

The virgin Phœbe, with a virgin's blood,

Must first be reconciled; the common cause

Prevailed; and pity yielding to the laws,

Fair Iphigenia, the devoted maid,

Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes arrayed.

All mourn her fate, but no relief appeared;

The royal victim bound, the knife already reared;

When that offended Power, who caused their woe,

Relenting ceased her wrath, and stopped the coming blow.

A mist before the ministers she cast,

And in the virgin's room a hind she placed.

The oblation slain, and Phœbe reconciled,

The storm was hushed, and dimpled ocean smiled;

A favourable gale arose from shore,

Which to the port desired the Grecian gallies bore.

Full in the midst of this created space,

Betwixt heaven, earth, and skies, there stands a place

Confining on all three, with triple bound; }

Whence all things, though remote, are viewed around, }

And thither bring their undulating sound; }

The palace of loud fame; her seat of power,

Placed on the summit of a lofty tower.

A thousand winding entries, long and wide,

Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide;

A thousand crannies in the walls are made;

Nor gate nor bars exclude the busy trade.

'Tis built of brass, the better to diffuse

The spreading sounds, and multiply the news;

Where echoes in repeated echoes play:

A mart for ever full, and open night and day.

Nor silence is within, nor voice express,

But a deaf noise of sounds that never cease;

Confused, and chiding, like the hollow roar

Of tides, receding from the insulted shore;

Or like the broken thunder, heard from far,

When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.

The courts are filled with a tumultuous din

Of crowds, or issuing forth, or entering in;

A thorough-fare of news; where some devise

Things never heard; some mingle truth with lies;

The troubled air with empty sounds they beat;

Intent to hear, and eager to repeat.

Error sits brooding there, with added train

Of vain credulity, and joys as vain;

Suspicion, with sedition joined, are near;

And rumours raised, and murmurs mixed, and panic fear.

Fame sits aloft, and sees the subject ground,

And seas about, and skies above, enquiring all around.

The goddess gives the alarm; and soon is known

The Grecian fleet, descending on the town.

Fixed on defence, the Trojans are not slow

To guard their shore from an expected foe.

They meet in fight; by Hector's fatal hand

Protesilaus falls, and bites the strand;

Which with expence of blood the Grecians won,

And proved the strength unknown of Priam's son;

And to their cost the Trojan leaders felt

The Grecian heroes, and what deaths they dealt.

From these first onsets, the Sigæan shore

Was strewed with carcases, and stained with gore.

Neptunian Cygnus troops of Greeks had slain;

Achilles in his car had scoured the plain,

And cleared the Trojan ranks; where'er he fought,

Cygnus, or Hector, through the fields he sought:

Cygnus he found; on him his force essayed;

For Hector was to the tenth year delayed.

His white-maned steeds, that bowed beneath the yoke,

He cheered to courage, with a gentle stroke;

Then urged his fiery chariot on the foe,

And rising shook his lance, in act to throw.

But first he cried,--O youth, be proud to bear

Thy death, ennobled by Pelides' spear.--

The lance pursued the voice without delay;

Nor did the whizzing weapon miss the way,

But pierced his cuirass, with such fury sent,

And signed his bosom with a purple dint.

At this the seed of Neptune;--Goddess-born,

For ornament, not use, these arms are worn;

This helm, and heavy buckler, I can spare,

As only decorations of the war;

So Mars is armed, for glory, not for need.

'Tis somewhat more from Neptune to proceed,

Than from a daughter of the sea to spring;

Thy sire is mortal; mine is Ocean's king.

Secure of death, I should contemn thy dart,

Though naked, and impassible depart.--

He said, and threw; the trembling weapon passed }

Through nine bull-hides, each under other placed, }

On his broad shield, and stuck within the last. }

Achilles wrenched it out; and sent again

The hostile gift; the hostile gift was vain.

He tried a third, a tough well-chosen spear;

The inviolable body stood sincere,

Though Cygnus then did no defence provide,

But scornful offered his unshielded side.

Not otherwise the impatient hero fared,

Than as a bull, encompassed with a guard,

Amid the circus roars; provoked from far

By sight of scarlet, and a sanguine war.

They quit their ground, his bended horns elude,

In vain pursuing, and in vain pursued.

Before to farther fight he would advance,

He stood considering, and surveyed his lance.

Doubts if he wielded not a wooden spear

Without a point; he looked, the point was there.

This is my hand, and this my lance, he said, }

By which so many thousand foes are dead. }

O whither is their usual virtue fled! }

I had it once; and the Lyrnessian wall,

And Tenedos, confessed it in their fall.

Thy streams, Caicus, rolled a crimson flood;

And Thebes ran red with her own natives' blood.

Twice Telephus employed their piercing steel,

To wound him first, and afterward to heal.

The vigour of this arm was never vain; }

And that my wonted prowess I retain, }

Witness these heaps of slaughter on the plain.-- }

He said, and, doubtful of his former deeds,

To some new trial of his force proceeds.

He chose Menætes from among the rest;

At him he lanced his spear, and pierced his breast;

On the hard earth the Lycian knocked his head,

And lay supine; and forth the spirit fled.

Then thus the hero: Neither can I blame

The hand, or javelin; both are still the same.

The same I will employ against this foe,

And wish but with the same success to throw.--

So spoke the chief, and while he spoke he threw;

The weapon with unerring fury flew,

At his left shoulder aimed; nor entrance found;

But back, as from a rock, with swift rebound

Harmless returned; a bloody mark appeared,

Which with false joy the flattered hero cheered.

Wound there was none; the blood that was in view,

The lance before from slain Menætes drew.

Headlong he leaps from off his lofty car,

And in close fight on foot renews the war;

Raging with high disdain, repeats his blows;

Nor shield nor armour can their force oppose;

Huge cantlets of his buckler strew the ground,

And no defence in his bored arms is found.

But on his flesh no wound or blood is seen;

The sword itself is blunted on the skin.

This vain attempt the chief no longer bears;

But round his hollow temples and his ears,

His buckler beats: the son of Neptune, stunned

With these repeated buffets, quits his ground;

A sickly sweat succeeds, and shades of night;

Inverted nature swims before his sight:

The insulting victor presses on the more,

And treads the steps the vanquished trod before,

Nor rest, nor respite gives. A stone there lay

Behind his trembling foe, and stopped his way;

Achilles took the advantage which he found,

O'er-turned, and pushed him backward on the ground.

His buckler held him under, while he pressed,

With both his knees above, his panting breast;

Unlaced his helm; about his chin the twist

He tied, and soon the strangled soul dismissed.

With eager haste he went to strip the dead;

The vanquished body from his arms was fled.

His sea-god sire, t'immortalize his fame,

Had turned it to the bird that bears his name.[31]

A truce succeeds the labours of this day,

And arms suspended with a long delay.

While Trojan walls are kept with watch and ward,

The Greeks before their trenches mount the guard.

The feast approached; when to the blue-eyed Maid, }

His vows for Cygnus slain the victor paid, }

And a white heifer on her altar laid. }

The reeking entrails on the fire they threw,

And to the gods the grateful odour flew;

Heaven had its part in sacrifice; the rest

Was broiled and roasted for the future feast.

The chief invited guests were set around; }

And, hunger first assuaged, the bowls were crowned, }

Which in deep draughts their cares and labours drowned. }

The mellow harp did not their ears employ,

And mute was all the warlike symphony;

Discourse, the food of souls, was their delight,

And pleasing chat prolonged the summer's night.

The subject, deeds of arms; and valour shown,

Or on the Trojan side, or on their own.

Of dangers undertaken, fame atchieved,

They talked by turns, the talk by turns relieved.

What things but these could fierce Achilles tell,

Or what could fierce Achilles hear so well?

The last great act performed, of Cygnus slain,

Did most the martial audience entertain;

Wondering to find a body, free by fate

From steel, and which could even that steel rebate.

Amazed, their admiration they renew;

And scarce Pelides could believe it true.

Then Nestor, thus;--What once this age has known,

In fated Cygnus, and in him alone,

These eyes have seen in Cæneus long before,

Whose body not a thousand swords could bore.

Cæneus in courage and in strength excelled,

And still his Othrys with his fame is filled;

But what did most his martial deeds adorn,

(Though, since, he changed his sex,) a woman born.--

A novelty so strange, and full of fate,

His listening audience asked him to relate.

Achilles thus commends their common suit:--

O father, first for prudence in repute,

Tell, with that eloquence so much thy own,

What thou hast heard, or what of Cæneus known;

What was he, whence his change of sex begun,

What trophies, joined in wars with thee, he won?

Who conquered him, and in what fatal strife

The youth, without a wound, could lose his life?--

Neleides then:--Though tardy age, and time,

Have shrunk my sinews, and decayed my prime;

Though much I have forgotten of my store,

Yet, not exhausted, I remember more.

Of all that arms atchieved, or peace designed,

That action still is fresher in my mind

Than aught beside. If reverend age can give

To faith a sanction, in my third I live.

'Twas in my second century, I surveyed

Young Cænis, then a fair Thessalian maid.

Cænis the bright was born to high command;

A princess, and a native of thy land,

Divine Achilles; every tongue proclaimed

Her beauty, and her eyes all hearts inflamed.

Peleus, thy sire, perhaps had sought her bed,

Among the rest; but he had either led

Thy mother then, or was by promise tied;

But she to him, and all, alike her love denied.

It was her fortune once, to take her way

Along the sandy margin of the sea;

The Power of Ocean viewed her as she passed,

And, loved as soon as seen, by force embraced.

So fame reports. Her virgin treasure seized,

And his new joys the ravisher so pleased,

That thus, transported, to the nymph he cried;

Ask what thou wilt, no prayer shall be denied.

This also fame relates; the haughty fair,

Who not the rape even of a god could bear,

This answer, proud, returned;--To mighty wrongs,

A mighty recompence, of right, belongs.

Give me no more to suffer such a shame;

But change the woman for a better name;

One gift for all.--She said, and, while she spoke,

A stern, majestic, manly tone she took.

A man she was; and, as the Godhead swore,

To Cæneus turned, who Cænis was before.

To this the lover adds, without request,

No force of steel should violate his breast.

Glad of the gift, the new-made warrior goes,

And arms among the Greeks, and longs for equal foes.

Now brave Pirithous, bold Ixion's son,

The love of fair Hippodame had won.

The cloud-begotten race,[32] half men, half beast,

Invited, came to grace the nuptial feast.

In a cool cave's recess the treat was made,

Whose entrance trees with spreading boughs o'er-shade.

They sat; and, summoned by the bridegroom, came,

To mix with those, the Lapithæan name:

Nor wanted I; the roofs with joy resound;

And Hymen, Iö Hymen, rung around.

Raised altars shone with holy fires; the bride,

Lovely herself (and lovely by her side

A bevy of bright nymphs, with sober grace,)

Came glittering like a star, and took her place;

Her heavenly form beheld, all wished her joy,

And little wanted, but in vain their wishes all employ.[33]

For one, most brutal of the brutal blood,

Or whether wine or beauty fired his blood,

Or both at once, beheld with lustful eyes

The bride; at once resolved to make his prize.

Down went the board, and, fastening on her hair,

He seized with sudden force the frighted fair.

'Twas Eurytus began; his bestial kind

His crime pursued; and each as pleased his mind,

Or her, whom chance presented, took; the feast

An image of a taken town expressed.

The cave resounds with female shrieks: we rise,

Mad with revenge, to make a swift reprise:

And Theseus first:--What frenzy has possessed,

O Eurytus, he cried, thy brutal breast,

To wrong Pirithous, and not him alone,

But, while I live, two friends conjoined in one?

To justify his threat, he thrusts aside

The crowd of Centaurs, and redeems the bride.

The monster nought replied; for words were vain,

And deeds could only deeds unjust maintain;

But answers with his hand, and forward pressed,

With blows redoubled, on his face and breast.

An ample goblet stood, of antique mould,

And rough with figures of the rising gold;

The hero snatched it up, and tossed in air

Full at the front of the foul ravisher:

He falls, and falling vomits forth a flood

Of wine, and foam, and brains, and mingled blood.

Half roaring, and half neighing through the hall,

Arms, arms! the double-formed with fury call,

To wreak their brother's death. A medley flight

Of bowls and jars, at first, supply the fight,

Once instruments of feasts, but now of fate;

Wine animates their rage, and arms their hate.

Bold Amycus from the robbed vestry brings

The chalices of heaven, and holy things

Of precious weight; a sconce, that hung on high,

With tapers filled, to light the sacristy,

Torn from the cord, with his unhallowed hand

He threw amid the Lapithæan band.

On Celadon the ruin fell, and left

His face of feature and of form bereft;

So, when some brawny sacrificer knocks,

Before an altar led, an offered ox,

His eye balls, rooted out, are thrown to ground, }

His nose dismantled in his mouth is found, }

His jaws, cheeks, front, one undistinguished wound. }

This, Belates, the avenger, could not brook;

But, by the foot, a maple-board he took,

And hurled at Amycus; his chin is bent

Against his chest, and down the Centaur sent

Whom, sputtering bloody teeth, the second blow

Of his drawn sword dispatched to shades below.

Grineus was near; and cast a furious look

On the side-altar, censed with sacred smoke,

And bright with flaming fires; The gods, he cried,

Have with their holy trade our hands supplied:

Why use we not their gifts?--Then from the floor

An altar-stone he heaved, with all the load it bore;

Altar and altar's freight together flew, }

Where thickest thronged the Lapithæan crew, }

And, at once, Broteas and Oryus slew. }

Oryus' mother, Mycale, was known

Down from her sphere to draw the labouring moon.

Exadius cried,--Unpunished shall not go

This fact, if arms are found against the foe.--

He looked about, where on a pine were spread

The votive horns of a stag's branching head:

At Grineus these he throws; so just they fly,

That the sharp antlers stuck in either eye.

Breathless and blind he fell; with blood besmeared,

His eye-balls beaten out hung dangling on his beard.

Fierce Rhætus from the hearth a burning brand

Selects, and whirling waves, till from his hand

The fire took flame; then dashed it from the right,

On fair Charaxus' temples, near the sight:

The whistling pest came on, and pierced the bone,

And caught the yellow hair, that shrivelled while it shone;

Caught, like dry stubble fired, or like seerwood; }

Yet from the wound ensued no purple flood }

But looked a bubbling mass of frying blood. }

His blazing locks sent forth a crackling sound,

And hissed, like red-hot iron within the smithy drowned.

The wounded warrior shook his flaming hair,

Then (what a team of horse could hardly rear,)

He heaves the threshold-stone, but could not throw;

The weight itself forbad the threatened blow;

Which, dropping from his lifted arms, came down

Full on Cometes' head, and crushed his crown.

Nor Rhætus then retained his joy; but said, }

So by their fellows may our foes be sped.-- }

Then with redoubled strokes he plies his head: }

The burning lever not deludes his pains,

But drives the battered skull within the brains.

Thus flushed, the conqueror, with force renewed,

Evagrus, Dryas, Corythus, pursued.

First, Corythus, with downy cheeks, he slew;

Whose fall when fierce Evagrus had in view,

He cried,--What palm is from a beardless prey?

Rhætus prevents what more he had to say;

And drove within his mouth the fiery death,

Which entered hissing in, and choked his breath.

At Dryas next he flew; but weary chance

No longer would the same success advance;

But, while he whirled in fiery circles round }

The brand, a sharpened stake strong Dryas found, }

And in the shoulder's joint inflicts the wound. }

The weapon struck; which, roaring out with pain, }

He drew; nor longer durst the fight maintain, }

But turned his back for fear, and fled amain. }

With him fled Orneus, with like dread possessed;

Thaumas and Medon, wounded in the breast,

And Mermeros, in the late race renowned,

Now limping ran, and tardy with his wound.

Pholus and Melaneus from fight withdrew,

And Abas maimed, who boars encountering slew;

And augur Astylos, whose art in vain }

From fight dissuaded the four-footed train, }

Now beat the hoof with Nessus on the plain; }

But to his fellow cried, Be safely slow;

Thy death deferred is due to great Alcides' bow.--

Meantime, strong Dryas urged his chance so well,

That Lycidas, Areos, Imbreus fell;

All, one by one, and fighting face to face:

Crenæus fled, to fall with more disgrace;

For, fearful while he looked behind, he bore,

Betwixt his nose and front, the blow before.

Amid the noise and tumult of the fray,

Snoring and drunk with wine, Aphidas lay.

Even then the bowl within his hand he kept,

And on a bear's rough hide securely slept.

Him Phorbas with his flying dart transfixed;

Take thy next draught with Stygian waters mixed,

And sleep thy fill, the insulting victor cried;

Surprised with death unfelt, the Centaur died:

The ruddy vomit, as he breathed his soul,

Repassed his throat, and filled his empty bowl.

I saw Petræus' arms employed around

A well-grown oak, to root it from the ground.

This way, and that, he wrenched the fibrous bands;

The trunk was like a sapling in his hands,

And still obeyed the bent; while thus he stood,

Perithous' dart drove on, and nailed him to the wood.

Lycus and Chromys fell, by him oppressed:

Helops and Dictys added to the rest

A nobler palm: Helops, through either ear

Transfixed, received the penetrating spear.

This Dictys saw; and, seized with sudden fright, }

Leapt headlong from the hill of steepy height, }

And crushed an ash beneath, that could not bear his weight. }

The shattered tree receives his fall, and strikes,

Within his full-blown paunch, the sharpened spikes.

Strong Aphareus had heaved a mighty stone,

The fragment of a rock, and would have thrown;

But Theseus, with a club of hardened oak, }

The cubit-bone of the bold Centaur broke, }

And left him maimed, nor seconded the stroke; }

Then leapt on tall Bianor's back; (who bore

No mortal burden but his own, before,)

Pressed with his knees his sides; the double man,

His speed with spurs increased, unwilling ran.

One hand the hero fastened on his locks;

His other plyed him with repeated strokes.

The club hung round his ears, and battered brows;

He falls; and, lashing up his heels, his rider throws.

The same Herculean arms Nedymnus wound,

And lay by him Lycotas on the ground;

And Hippasus, whose beard his breast invades;

And Ripheus, haunter of the woodland shades;

And Tereus, used with mountain-bears to strive;

And from their dens to draw the indignant beasts alive.

Demoleon could not bear this hateful sight,

Or the long fortune of the Athenian knight;

But pulled with all his force, to disengage

From earth a pine, the product of an age:

The root stuck fast: the broken trunk he sent

At Theseus: Theseus frustrates his intent,

And leaps aside, by Pallas warned, the blow

To shun: (for so he said; and we believed it so.)

Yet not in vain the enormous weight was cast,

Which Crantor's body sundered at the waist:

Thy father's squire, Achilles, and his care;

Whom, conquered in the Dolopeian war,

Their king, his present ruin to prevent,

A pledge of peace implored, to Peleus sent.

Thy sire, with grieving eyes, beheld his fate;

And cried, Not long, loved Crantor, shalt thou wait

Thy vowed revenge.--At once he said, and threw

His ashen-spear, which quivered as it flew,

With all his force and all his soul applied;

The sharp point entered in the Centaur's side:

Both hands, to wrench it out, the monster joined,

And wrenched it out, but left the steel behind.

Stuck in his lungs it stood; enraged he rears

His hoofs, and down to ground thy father bears.

Thus trampled under foot, his shield defends

His head; his other hand the lance portends.

Even while he lay extended on the dust,

He sped the Centaur, with one single thrust.

Two more his lance before transfixed from far,

And two his sword had slain in closer war.

To these was added Dorylas; who spread

A bull's two goring horns around his head.

With these he pushed; in blood already dyed,

Him, fearless, I approached, and thus defied;--

Now, monster, now, by proof it shall appear,

Whether thy horns are sharper, or my spear.--

At this, I threw; for want of other ward,

He lifted up his hand, his front to guard.

His hand it passed, and fixed it to his brow.

Loud shouts of ours attend the lucky blow:

Him Peleus finished, with a second wound, }

Which through the navel pierced; he reeled around, }

And dragged his dangling bowels on the ground; }

Trod what he dragged, and what he trod he crushed;

And to his mother-earth, with empty belly, rushed.

Nor could thy form, O Cyllarus, foreshow

Thy fate, if form to monsters men allow:

Just bloomed thy beard, thy beard of golden hue;

Thy locks, in golden waves, about thy shoulders flew,

Sprightly thy look; thy shapes in every part

So clean, as might instruct the sculptor's art,

As far as man extended; where began

The beast, the beast was equal to the man.

Add but a horse's head and neck, and he,

O Castor, was a courser worthy thee.

So was his back proportioned for the seat;

So rose his brawny chest; so swiftly moved his feet,

Coal-black his colour, but like jet it shone;

His legs and flowing tail were white alone.

Beloved by many maidens of his kind,

But fair Hylonome possessed his mind;

Hylonome, for features, and for face,

Excelling all the nymphs of double race.

Nor less her blandishments, than beauty, move;

At once both loving, and confessing love.

For him she dressed; for him with female care

She combed, and set in curls, her auburn hair.

Of roses, violets, and lilies mixed,

And sprigs of flowing rosemary betwixt,

She formed the chaplet, that adorned her front;

In waters of the Pegasæan fount,

And in the streams that from the fountain play,

She washed her face, and bathed her twice a day.

The scarf of furs, that hung below her side,

Was ermine, or the panther's spotted pride;

Spoils of no common beast. With equal flame

They loved; their sylvan pleasures were the same:

All day they hunted; and, when day expired,

Together to some shady cave retired.

Invited, to the nuptials both repair;

And, side by side, they both engage in war.

Uncertain from what hand, a flying dart

At Cyllarus was sent, which pierced his heart.

The javelin drawn from out the mortal wound,

He faints with staggering steps, and seeks the ground:

The fair within her arms received his fall,

And strove his wandering spirits to recal;

And while her hand the streaming blood opposed,

Joined face to face, his lips with hers she closed.

Stifled with kisses, a sweet death he dies;

She fills the fields with undistinguished cries;

At least her words were in her clamour drowned;

For my stunned ears received no vocal sound.

In madness of her grief, she seized the dart

New-drawn, and reeking from her lover's heart;

To her bare bosom the sharp point applied, }

And wounded fell; and, falling by his side }

Embraced him in her arms, and thus embracing died. }

Even still, methinks, I see Phæocomes;

Strange was his habit, and as odd his dress.[34]

Six lions hides, with thongs together fast,

His upper part defended to his waist;

And where man ended, the continued vest,

Spread on his back, the houss and trappings of a beast.

A stump too heavy for a team to draw,

(It seems a fable, though the fact I saw,)

He threw at Pholon; the descending blow

Divides the skull, and cleaves his head in two.

The brains, from nose and mouth, and either ear,

Came issuing out, as through a colendar

The curdled milk; or from the press the whey,

Driven down by weights above, is drained away.

But him, while stooping down to spoil the slain,

Pierced through the paunch, I tumbled on the plain.

Then Chthonius and Teleboas I slew;

A fork the former armed; a dart his fellow threw:

The javelin wounded me; behold the scar.

Then was my time to seek the Trojan war;

Then I was Hector's match in open field;

But he was then unborn, at least a child;

Now, I am nothing. I forbear to tell

By Periphantes how Pyretus fell,

The Centaur by the Knight; nor will I stay

On Amphix, or what deaths he dealt that day;

What honour, with a pointless lance, he won,

Stuck in the front of a four-footed man;

What fame young Macareus obtained in fight,

Or dwell on Nessus, now returned from flight;

How prophet Mopsus not alone divined,

Whose valour equalled his foreseeing mind.

Already Cæneus, with his conquering hand,

Had slaughtered five, the boldest of their band;

Pyrachmus, Helymus, Antimachus,

Bromus the brave, and stronger Stiphelus;

Their names I numbered, and remember well,

No trace remaining, by what wounds they fell.

Latreus, the bulkiest of the double race,

Whom the spoiled arms of slain Halesus grace,

In years retaining still his youthful might,

Though his black hairs were interspersed with white,

Betwixt the embattled ranks began to prance,

Proud of his helm, and Macedonian lance;

And rode the ring around, that either host

Might hear him, while he made this empty boast.

And from a strumpet shall we suffer shame?

For Cænis still, not Cæneus, is thy name;

And still the native softness of thy kind

Prevails, and leaves the woman in thy mind.

Remember what thou wert; what price was paid

To change thy sex, to make thee not a maid;

And but a man in show; go card and spin,

And leave the business of the war to men.--

While thus the boaster exercised his pride,

The fatal spear of Cæneus reached his side;

Just in the mixture of the kinds it ran,

Betwixt the nether breast and upper man.

The monster, mad with rage, and stung with smart,

His lance directed at the hero's heart:

It strook; but bounded from his hardened breast,

Like hail from tiles, which the safe house invest;

Nor seemed the stroke with more effect to come,

Than a small pebble falling on a drum.

He next his faulchion tried, in closer fight;

But the keen faulchion had no power to bite.

He thrust; the blunted point returned again:--

Since downright blows, he cried, and thrusts are vain,

I'll prove his side;--in strong embraces held,

He proved his side; his side the sword repelled;

His hollow belly echoed to the stroke: }

Untouched his body, as a solid rock; }

Aimed at his neck at last, the blade in shivers broke. }

The impassive knight stood idle, to deride }

His rage, and offered oft his naked side; }

At length, Now, monster, in thy turn, he cried, }

Try thou the strength of Cæneus:--at the word

He thrust; and in his shoulder plunged the sword.

Then writhed his hand; and, as he drove it down

Deep in his breast, made many wounds in one.

The Centaurs saw, enraged, the unhoped[35] success,

And, rushing on in crowds, together press.

At him, and him alone, their darts they threw;

Repulsed they from his fated body flew.

Amazed they stood; till Monychus began,--

O shame, a nation conquered by a man!

A woman-man; yet more a man is he,

Than all our race; and what he was, are we.

Now, what avail our nerves? the united force

Of two the strongest creatures, man and horse?

Nor goddess-born, nor of Ixion's seed

We seem, (a lover built for Juno's bed,)

Mastered by this half man. Whole mountains throw

With woods at once, and bury him below.

This only way remains. Nor need we doubt

To choke the soul within, though not to force it out.

Heap weights, instead of wounds:--he chanced to see

Where southern storms had rooted up a tree;

This, raised from earth, against the foe he threw;

The example shewn, his fellow-brutes pursue.

With forest-loads the warrior they invade; }

Othrys and Pelion soon were void of shade, }

And spreading groves were naked mountains made. }

Pressed with the burden, Cæneus pants for breath,

And on his shoulders bears the wooden death.

To heave the intolerable weight he tries;

At length it rose above his mouth and eyes.

Yet still he heaves; and, struggling with despair,

Shakes all aside, and gains a gulp of air;

A short relief, which but prolongs his pain:

He faints by fits, and then respires again.

At last, the burden only nods above,

As when an earthquake stirs the Idæan grove.

Doubtful his death; he suffocated seemed

To most; but otherwise our Mopsus deemed,

Who said he saw a yellow bird arise

From out the pile, and cleave the liquid skies.

I saw it too, with golden feathers bright,

Nor e'er before beheld so strange a sight;

Whom Mopsus viewing, as it soared around

Our troop, and heard the pinions' rattling sound,

All hail, he cried, thy country's grace and love;

Once first of men below, now first of birds above!--

Its author to the story gave belief;

For us, our courage was increased by grief:

Ashamed to see a single man, pursued

With odds, to sink beneath a multitude,

We pushed the foe, and forced to shameful flight:

Part fell, and part escaped by favour of the night.

This tale, by Nestor told, did much displease

Tlepolemus, the seed of Hercules;

For often he had heard his father say, }

That he himself was present at the fray, }

And more than shared the glories of the day. }

Old Chronicle, he said, among the rest,

You might have named Alcides at the least;

Is he not worth your praise?--The Pylian prince

Sighed ere he spoke, then made this proud defence:

My former woes, in long oblivion drowned,

I would have lost, but you renew the wound;

Better to pass him o'er, than to relate

The cause I have your mighty sire to hate.

His fame has filled the world, and reached the sky;

Which, oh, I wish with truth I could deny!

We praise not Hector, though his name we know

Is great in arms; 'tis hard to praise a foe.

He, your great father, levelled to the ground

Messenia's towers; nor better fortune found

Elis, and Pylas; that, a neighbouring state,

And this, my own; both guiltless of their fate.

To pass the rest, twelve, wanting one, he slew,

My brethren, who their birth from Neleus drew;

All youths of early promise, had they lived;

By him they perished; I alone survived.

The rest were easy conquest; but the fate

Of Periclymenos is wonderous to relate.

To him our common grandsire of the main

Had given to change his form, and, changed, resume again.

Varied at pleasure, every shape he tried,

And in all beasts Alcides still defied;

Vanquished on earth, at length he soared above,

Changed to the bird, that bears the bolt of Jove.

The new dissembled eagle, now endued

With peak and pounces, Hercules pursued,

And cuffed his manly cheeks, and tore his face,

Then, safe retired, and towered in empty space.

Alcides bore not long his flying foe,

But, bending his inevitable bow,

Reached him in air, suspended as he stood,

And in his pinion fixed the feathered wood.

Light was the wound; but in the sinew hung

The point, and his disabled wing unstrung.

He wheeled in air, and stretched his vans in vain;

His vans no longer could his flight sustain;

For, while one gathered wind, one unsupplied

Hung drooping down, nor poised his other side.

He fell; the shaft, that slightly was impressed,

Now from his heavy fall with weight increased,

Drove through his neck aslant; he spurns the ground,

And the soul issues through the weazon's wound.

Now, brave commander of the Rhodian seas,

What praise is due from me to Hercules?

Silence is all the vengeance I decree

For my slain brothers; but 'tis peace with thee.--

Thus with a flowing tongue old Nestor spoke;

Then, to full bowls each other they provoke;

At length, with weariness and wine oppressed,

They rise from table, and withdraw to rest.

The sire of Cygnus, monarch of the main, }

Meantime laments his son in battle slain; }

And vows the victor's death, nor vows in vain. }

For nine long years the smothered pain he bore;

Achilles was not ripe for fate before;

Then when he saw the promised hour was near,

He thus bespoke the god, that guides the year:--

Immortal offspring of my brother Jove,

My brightest nephew, and whom best I love,

Whose hands were joined with mine, to raise the wall

Of tottering Troy, now nodding to her fall;

Dost thou not mourn our power employed in vain,

And the defenders of our city slain?

To pass the rest, could noble Hector lie

Unpitied, dragged around his native Troy?

And yet the murderer lives; himself by far

A greater plague, than all the wasteful war:

He lives; the proud Pelides lives, to boast

Our town destroyed, our common labour lost.

O could I meet him! But I wish too late,

To prove my trident is not in his fate.

But let him try (for that's allowed) thy dart,

And pierce his only penetrable part.--

Apollo bows to the superior throne,

And to his uncle's anger adds his own;

Then, in a cloud involved, he takes his flight,

Where Greeks and Trojans mixed in mortal fight;

And found out Paris, lurking where he stood,

And stained his arrows with plebeian blood.

Phœbus to him alone the god confessed,

Then to the recreant knight he thus addressed:--

Dost thou not blush, to spend thy shafts in vain

On a degenerate and ignoble train?

If fame, or better vengeance, be thy care,

There aim, and with one arrow end the war.--

He said; and shewed from far the blazing shield }

And sword, which but Achilles none could wield; }

And how he moved a god, and mowed the standing field. }

The deity himself directs aright

The envenomed shaft, and wings the fatal flight.

Thus fell the foremost of the Grecian name,

And he, the base adulterer, boasts the fame;

A spectacle to glad the Trojan train,

And please old Priam, after Hector slain.

If by a female hand he had foreseen }

He was to die, his wish had rather been }

The lance and double axe of the fair warrior queen. }

And now, the terror of the Trojan field,

The Grecian honour, ornament, and shield,

High on a pile, the unconquered chief is placed;

The god,[36] that armed him first, consumed at last.

Of all the mighty man, the small remains

A little urn, and scarcely filled, contains;

Yet, great in Homer, still Achilles lives,

And, equal to himself, himself survives.

His buckler owns its former lord, and brings

New cause of strife betwixt contending kings;

Who worthiest, after him, his sword to wield,

Or wear his armour, or sustain his shield.

Even Diomede sat mute, with downcast eyes,

Conscious of wanted worth to win the prize;

Nor Menelaus presumed these arms to claim,

Nor he the king of men, a greater name.

Two rivals only rose; Laertes' son,

And the vast bulk of Ajax Telamon.

The king, who cherished each with equal love,

And from himself all envy would remove,

Left both to be determined by the laws,

And to the Grecian chiefs transferred the cause.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] The swan.

[32] The Centaurs, a people of Thessaly, said to be begotten

by Ixion, on the cloud which he took for Juno.

[33]

----_Felicem diximus illa

Conjuge Pirithoum: quod pæne fefellimus omen._

The translation is somewhat obscure; it means, "All wished her joy, and

it had nearly happened that all had wished it in vain."

[34] The _dress_ seems to apply to the clothing of the

Centaur's human part, the _habit_ to the furniture of the horse;

perhaps, however, _habit_ means his mode of life.

[35] _Unhoped_ for _unexpected_. See note on "death unhoped,"

in the fable of the Cock and the Fox, Vol. XI.

[36] Vulcan, the god of fire.

THE SPEECHES OF AJAX AND ULYSSES:

FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK Of OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.