It was Ariadne who addressed him, daughter of Memnos, whom Theseus,
conqueror of the minotaur had abandoned after having seduced her. The God
was so smitten with the candour and beauty of his youthful petitioner, that
he married her, and offered to her acceptance a crown of seven stars, which
after her death, was formed into a constellation. {58}
"Where the rude waves in Dian's harbour play
The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;
Here first the wretched maid was taught to prove,
The bitter pangs of ill-rewarded love,
Here saw just freed from a fallacious sleep,
Her Theseus flying o'er the distant deep;
Wistful she looked, nor what she saw, believed,
Hoped some mistake, and wished to be deceived:
While the false youth his way securely made,
His faith forgotten, and his vows unpaid;
Then sick with grief, and frantic with despair,
Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair.
The gay tiara on her temples placed,
The fine wrought cincture that her bosom graced,
The fillets, which her heaving breasts confined,
Are rent, and scattered in the lawless wind.
Such trivial cares, alas! no room can find,
Her dear, deceitful Theseus fills her mind;
For him alone she grieves the live-long day,
Sickens in thought, and pines herself away.
* * * * * *
To her relief the blooming Bacchus ran,
And with him brought his ever jovial train:
Satyrs and Fauns, in wanton chaces strove,
While the God sought his Ariadne's love.
Around in wild distorted airs they fly,
And make the mountains echo to their cry:
Some brandish high an ivy woven spear,
The limbs, some scatter, of a victim steer:
Others in slippery folds of serpents shine,
Others apart, perform the rites divine.
To wicked men denied. These, tabors take,
These in their hands, the twinkling cymbals shake;
While many swell the horn in hoarser strain,
And make the shrill, discordant pipe complain,
While Bacchus, now enamoured of his prize,
Resolved to make her partner of the skies:
She, sweetly blushing, yielded to the God,
His car he mounted and sublimely rode:
And while with eager arms he grasped the fair,
Lashed his fleet tigers through the buxom air."