Jove’s fair Sons, father’d by th’ Oebalian king,
Muses well-worth-all men’s beholdings, sing!
The dear birth that bright-ankl’d Leda bore;
Horse-taming Castor, and, the conqueror
Of tooth-tongu’d Momus, Pollux; whom beneath
Steep-brow’d Taygetus she gave half-god breath,
In love mix’d with the black-clouds King of Heaven;
Who, both of men and ships, being tempest driven,
When Winter’s wrathful empire is in force
Upon th’ implacable seas, preserve the course.
For when the gusts begin, if near the shore,
The seamen leave their ship, and, evermore
Bearing two milk-white lambs aboard, they now
Kill them ashore, and to Jove’s issue vow,
When though their ship, in height of all the roar
The winds and waves confound, can live no more
In all their hopes, then suddenly appear
Jove’s saving Sons, who both their bodies bear
’Twixt yellow wings down from the sparkling pole,
Who straight the rage of those rude winds control,
And all the high-waves couch into the breast
Of th’ hoary seas. All which sweet signs of rest
To seamen’s labours their glad souls conceive,
And end to all their irksome grievance give.
So, once more, to the swift-horse-riding race
Of royal Tyndarus, eternal grace!