Now Glaucus, with a lover’s haste, bounds o’er
The swelling waves, and seeks the Latian shore:
Messena, Rhegium, and the barren coast
Of flaming Aetna, to his sight are lost:
At length he gains the Tyrrhene seas, and views
The hills where baneful filters Circe brews;
Monsters in various forms around her press;
And thus the god salutes the sorceress:

“Oh Circe, be indulgent to my grief,
And give a lovesick deity relief.
Too well the mighty power of plants I know,
To those my figure and new fate I owe.
Against Messena, on the Ausonian coast,
I Scylla view’d, and from that hour was lost.
In tenderest sounds I sued; but still the fair
Was deaf to vows, and pitiless to prayer.
If numbers can avail, exert their power;
Or energy of plants, if plants have more.
I ask no cure; let but the virgin pine
With dying pangs, or agonies, like mine.”

No longer Circe could her flame disguise,
But to the suppliant god marine replies:
“When maids are coy, have manlier aims in view;
Leave those that fly, but those that like pursue.
If love can be by kind compliance won,
See, at your feet, the daughter of the sun.”

“Sooner,” said Glaucus, “shall the ash remove
From mountains, and the swelling surges love,
Or humble seaweed to the hills repair,
Ere I think any but my Scylla fair.”

Straight Circe reddens with a guilty shame,
And vows revenge for her rejected flame.
Fierce liking oft a spite as fierce creates;
For love refused, without aversion, hates.
To hurt her hapless rival she proceeds,
And, by the fall of Scylla, Glaucus bleeds.

Some fascinating beverage now she brews,
Composed of deadly drugs, and baneful juice.
At Rhegium she arrives; the ocean braves,
And treads with unwet feet the boiling waves.
Upon the beach a winding bay there lies,
Shelter’d from seas, and shaded from the skies:
This station Scylla chose; a soft retreat
From chilling winds, and raging Cancer’s heat.
The vengeful sorceress visits this recess;
Her charm infuses, and infects the place.
Soon as the nymph wades in, her nether parts
Turn into dogs, then at herself she starts;
A ghastly horror in her eyes appears,
But yet she knows not who it is she fears:
In vain she offers from herself to run,
And drags about her what she strives to shun.

Oppress’d with grief the pitying god appears,
And swells the rising surges with his tears;
From the detested sorceress he flies;
Her art reviles, and her address denies;
While hapless Scylla, changed to rocks, decrees
Destruction to those barks that beat the seas.

Here bulged the pride of famed Ulysses’ fleet,
But good Aeneas ’scaped the fate he met.
As to the Latian shore the Trojan stood,
And cut with well-timed oars the foaming flood,
He weather’d fell Charybdis; but ere long
The skies were darken’d, and the tempest strong;
Then to the Libyan coast he stretches o’er,
And makes at length the Carthaginian shore.
Here Dido, with a hospitable care,
Into her heart receives the wanderer.
From her kind arms the ungrateful hero flies,
The injured queen looks on with dying eyes,
Then to her folly falls a sacrifice.

Aeneas now sets sail, and plying gains
Fair Eryx, where his friend Acestes reigns:
First to his sire does funeral rites decree,
Then gives the signal next, and stands to sea,
Outruns the islands where volcanoes roar,
Gets clear of sirens and their faithless shore;
But loses Palinurus in the way;
Then makes Inarime and Prochyta.

The galleys now by Pithecusa pass;
The name is from the natives of the place.
The father of the gods detesting lies,
Oft with abhorrence heard their perjuries.
The abandon’d race, transform’d to beasts, began
To mimic the impertinence of man:
Flatnosed and furrow’d, with grimace they grin,
And look to what they were too near akin;
Merry in make, and busy to no end,
This moment they divert, the next offend:
So much this species of their past retains,
Though lost the language, yet the noise remains.

Now, on his right, he leaves Parthenope,
His left, Misenus jutting in the sea;
Arrives at Cuma, and with awe survey’d
The grotto of the venerable maid:
Begs leave through black Avernus to retire,
And view the much-loved manes of his sire.
Straight the divining virgin raised her eyes;
And, foaming with a holy rage, replies:

“Oh thou, whose worth thy wondrous works proclaim,
The flames thy piety, the world thy fame,
Though great be thy request, yet shalt thou see
The Elysian fields, the infernal monarchy,
Thy parent’s shade. This arm thy steps shall guide:
To suppliant virtue nothing is denied.”

She spoke, and pointing to the golden bough,
Which in the Avernian grove refulgent grew,
“Seize that,” she bids: he listens to the maid,
Then views the mournful mansions of the dead;
The shade of great Anchises, and the place
By fates determined to the Trojan race.

As back to upper light the hero came,
He thus salutes the visionary dame:
“Oh! whether some propitious deity,
Or loved by those bright rulers of the sky,
With grateful incense I shall style you one,
And doom no godhead greater than your own.
’Twas you restored me from the realms of night,
And gave me to behold the fields of light,
To feel the breezes of congenial air,
And nature’s best benevolence to share.”

“I am no deity,” replied the dame,
“But mortal, and religious rites disclaim,
Yet had avoided death’s tyrannic sway,
Had I consented to the god of day.
With promises he sought my love, and said:
‘Have all you wish, my fair Cumaean maid.’
I paused: then pointing to a heap of sand,
‘For every grain, to live a year demand.’
But, ah! unmindful of the effect of time,
Forgot to covenant for youth and prime.
The smiling bloom I boasted once is gone
And feeble age with lagging limbs creeps on.
Seven centuries have I lived; three more fulfil
The period of the years to finish still.
Who’ll think that Phoebus, dress’d in youth divine,
Had once believed his lustre less than mine?
This wither’d frame (so fates have will’d) shall waste
To nothing but prophetic words at last.”

The sibyl mounting now from nether skies,
And the famed Ilian prince at Cuma rise.
He sail’d, and near the place to anchor came,
Since call’d Cajeta from his nurse’s name;
Here did the luckless Macareus, a friend
To wise Ulysses, his long labours end;
Here, wandering, Achaemenides he meets,
And, sudden, thus his late associate greets:

“Whence came you here, oh friend, and whither bound?
All gave you lost on fair cyclopean ground;
A Greek’s at last aboard a Trojan found.”

Thus Achaemenides: “With thanks I name
Aeneas, and his piety proclaim.
I ’scaped the cyclop through the hero’s aid,
Else in his maw my mangled limbs had laid.
When first your navy under sail he found,
He raved till Aetna labour’d with the sound;
Raging, he stalk’d along the mountain’s side,
And vented clouds of breath at every stride;
His staff a mountain ash, and in the clouds,
Oft as he walks, his grisly front he shrowds;
Eyeless he groped about with vengeful haste,
And justled promontories as he pass’d:
Then heaved a rock’s high summit to the main,
And bellow’d like some bursting hurricane:

“ ‘Oh! could I seize Ulysses in his flight,
How unlamented were my loss of sight!
These jaws should piecemeal tear each panting vein,
Grind every crackling bone, and pound his brain.’

“As thus he raved my joints with horror shook;
The tide of blood my chilling heart forsook;
I saw him once disgorge huge morsels, raw,
Of wretches undigested in his maw.
From the pale breathless trunks whole limbs he tore,
His beard all clotted with o’erflowing gore.
My anxious hours I pass’d in caves, my food
Was forest fruits and wildings of the wood;
At length a sail I wafted, and aboard
My fortune found a hospitable lord.

“Now, in return, your own adventures tell,
And what, since first you put to sea, befell.”

Then Macareus: “There reign’d a prince of fame
O’er Tuscan seas, and Aeolus his name.
A largess to Ulysses he consign’d,
And in a steer’s tough hide enclosed a wind;
Nine days before the swelling gale we ran,
The tenth to make the meeting land began,
When now the merry mariners, to find
Imagined wealth within, the bag unbind.
Forthwith outrush’d a gust, which backward bore
Our galleys to the Laestrygonian shore,
Whose crown Antiphates the tyrant wore.
Some few commission’d were with speed to treat;
We to his court repair; his guards we meet.
Two, friendly flight preserved, the third was doom’d
To be by those cursed cannibals consumed.
Inhumanly our hapless friends they treat;
Our men they murder, and destroy our fleet.
In time the wise Ulysses bore away,
And dropp’d his anchor in yon faithless bay.
The thoughts of perils past we still retain,
And fear to land, till lots appoint the men.
Polites true, Elpenor given to wine,
Eurylochus, myself, the lots assign.
Design’d for dangers, and resolved to dare,
To Circe’s fatal palace we repair.

“Before the spacious front a herd we find
Of beasts, the fiercest of the savage kind.
Our trembling steps with blandishments they meet,
And fawn, unlike their species, at our feet.
Within, upon a sumptuous throne of state,
On golden columns raised, the enchantress sate;
Rich was her robe, and amiable her mien,
Her aspect awful, and she look’d a queen;
Her maids not mind the loom, nor household care,
Nor wage in needlework a Scythian war,
But cull, in canisters, disastrous flowers,
And plants from haunted heaths, and fairy bowers,
With brazen sickles reap’d at planetary hours.
Each dose the goddess weighs with watchful eye,
So nice her art in impious pharmacy.
Entering, she greets us with a gracious look,
And airs, that future amity bespoke.
Her ready nymphs serve up a rich repast;
The bowl she dashes first, then gives to taste.
Quick, to our own undoing we comply;
Her power we prove, and show the sorcery.

“Soon, in a length of face, our head extends,
Our chine stiff bristles bears, and forward bends,
A breadth of brawn new burnishes our neck;
Anon we grunt, as we begin to speak.
Alone Eurylochus refused to taste,
Nor to a beast obscene the man debased.
Hither Ulysses hastes, (so fates command,
And bears the powerful moly in his hand,
Unsheaths his cimeter, assaults the dame,
Preserves his species, and remains the same.
The nuptial rite this outrage straight attends;
The dower desired is his transfigured friends.
The incantation backward she repeats,
Inverts her rod, and what she did defeats.

“And now our skin grows smooth, our shape upright,
Our arms stretch up, our cloven feet unite;
With tears our weeping general we embrace,
Hang on his neck, and melt upon his face.
Twelve silver moons in Circe’s court we stay,
While there they waste the unwilling hours away.
’Twas here I spied a youth in Parian stone,
His head a pecker bore, the cause unknown
To passengers. A nymph of Circe’s train
The mystery thus attempted to explain:

“ ‘Picus, who once the Ausonian sceptre held,
Could rein the steed, and fit him for the field.
So like he was to what you see, that still
We doubt if real, or the sculptor’s skill.
The graces in the finish’d piece, you find,
Are but the copy of his fairer mind.
Four lustres scarce the royal youth could name,
Till every lovesick nymph confess’d a flame.
Oft for his love the mountain dryads sued,
And every silver sister of the flood:
Those of Numicus, Albula, and those
Where Almo creeps, and hasty Nar o’erflows;
Where sedgy Anio glides through smiling meads,
Where shady Farfar rustles in the reeds;
And those that love the lakes, and homage owe
To the chaste goddess of the silver bow.

“ ‘In vain each nymph her brightest charms put on,
His heart no sovereign would obey but one,
She whom Venilia, on Mount Palatine,
To Janus bore, the fairest of his line;
Nor did her face alone her charms confess,
Her voice was ravishing, and pleased no less.
Whene’er she sung, so melting were her strains,
The flocks, unfed, seem’d listening on the plains;
The rivers would stand still, the cedars bend;
And birds neglect their pinions to attend;
The savage kind in forest wilds grow tame;
And Canens, from her heavenly voice, her name.

“ ‘Hymen had now, in some ill-fated hour,
Their hands united, as their hearts before.
While their soft moments in delights they waste,
And each new day was dearer than the past,
Picus would sometimes o’er the forests rove,
And mingle sports with intervals of love.
It chanced, as once the foaming boar he chased,
His jewels sparkling on his Tyrian vest,
Lascivious Circe well the youth survey’d,
As simpling on the flowery hills she stray’d:
Her wishing eyes their silent message tell,
And from her lap the verdant mischief fell.
As she attempts at words, his courser springs
O’er hills, and lawns, and ev’n a wish outwings.

“ ‘ “Thou shalt not ’scape me so,” pronounced the dame,
“If plants have power, and spells be not a name.”
She said, and forthwith form’d a boar of air,
That sought the covert with dissembled fear.
Swift to the thicket Picus wings his way,
On foot, to chase the visionary prey.

“ ‘Now she invokes the daughters of the night,
Does noxious juices smear, and charms recite,
Such as can veil the moon’s more feeble fire,
Or shade the golden lustre of her sire.
In filthy fogs she hides the cheerful noon.
The guard at distance, and the youth alone⁠—
“By those fair eyes,” she cries, “and every grace
That finish all the wonders of your face,
Oh! I conjure thee, hear a queen complain,
Nor let the sun’s soft lineage sue in vain.”

“ ‘ “Whoe’er thou art,” replied the king, “forbear!
None can my passion with my Canens share:
She first my every tender wish possess’d,
And found the soft approaches to my breast;
In nuptials bless’d, each loose desire we shun,
Nor time can end what innocence begun.”

“ ‘ “Think not,” she cried, “to saunter out a life
Of form, with that domestic drudge⁠—a wife;
My just revenge, dull fool, ere long shall show
What ills we women, if refused, can do.
Think me a woman and a lover too.
From dear successful spite we hope for ease,
Nor fail to punish where we fail to please.”

“ ‘Now twice to east she turns, as oft to west;
Thrice waves her wand, as oft a charm express’d.
On the lost youth her magic power she tries,
Aloft he springs, and wonders how he flies.
On painted plumes the woods he seeks, and still
The monarch oak he pierces with his bill.
Thus changed, no more o’er Latian lands he reigns;
Of Picus nothing but the name remains.

“ ‘The winds from drisling damps now purge the air,
The mist subsides, the settling skies are fair;
The court their sovereign seek with arms in hand;
They threaten Circe, and their lord demand.
Quick she invokes the spirits of the air,
And twilight elves, that on dun wings repair
To charnels, and the unhallow’d sepulchre.

“ ‘Now, strange to tell, the plants sweat drops of blood,
The trees are toss’d from forests where they stood.
Blue serpents o’er the tainted herbage slide,
Pale glaring spectres on the ether ride,
Dogs howl, earth yawns, rent rocks forsake their beds,
And from their quarries heave their stubborn heads.
The sad spectators, stiffen’d with their fears,
She sees, and sudden every limb she smears,
Then each of savage beasts the figure bears.

“ ‘The sun did now to western waves retire,
In tides to temper his bright world of fire.
Canens laments her royal husband’s stay,
Ill suits fond love with absence or delay.
Where she commands, her ready people run;
She wills, retracts; bids, and forbids anon.
Restless in mind, and dying with despair,
Her breasts she beats, and tears her flowing hair.
Six days and nights she wanders on, as chance
Directs, without or sleep or sustenance.
Tiber at last beholds the weeping fair;
Her feeble limbs no more the mourner bear;
Stretch’d on his banks, she to the flood complains,
And faintly tunes her voice to dying strains.
The sickening swan thus hangs her silver wings,
And, as she droops, her elegy she sings.
Ere long sad Canens wastes to air; while fame
The place still honours with her hapless name.’

“Here did the tender tale of Picus cease;
Above belief the wonder I confess.
Again we sail, but more disasters meet,
Foretold by Circe, to our suffering fleet.
Myself unable further woes to bear,
Declined the voyage, and am refuged here.”

Thus Macareus. Now with a pious aim
Had good Aeneas raised a funeral flame,
In honour of his hoary nurse’s name.
Her epitaph he fix’d; and setting sail,
Cajeta left, and catch’d at every gale.

He steer’d at distance from the faithless shore,
Where the false goddess reigns with fatal power,
And sought those grateful groves, that shade the plain,
Where Tiber roll’s majestic to the main,
And fattens, as he runs, the fair champaign.

His kindred gods the hero’s wishes crown
With fair Lavinia, and Latinus’ throne;
But not without a war the prize he won.
Drawn up in bright array the battle stands:
Turnus with arms his promised wife demands.
Etrurians, Latians equal fortune share,
And doubtful long appears the face of war.
Both powers from neighbouring princes seek supplies,
And embassies appoint for new allies.
Aeneas, for relief, Evander moves;
His quarrel he asserts, his case approves.
The bold Rutulians, with an equal speed,
Sage Venulus despatch to Diomed.
The king, late griefs revolving in his mind,
These reasons for neutrality assign’d:

“Shall I, of one poor dotal town possess’d,
My people thin, my wretched country waste;
An exiled prince, and on a shaking throne;
Or risk my patron’s subjects, or my own?
You’ll grieve the harshness of our hap to hear;
Nor can I tell the tale without a tear.

“After famed Ilium was by Argives won,
And flames had finish’d what the sword begun;
Pallas, incensed, pursued us to the main,
In vengeance of her violated fane.
Alone Oileus forced the Trojan maid,
Yet all were punish’d for the brutal deed.
A storm begins, the raging waves run high,
The clouds look heavy, and benight the sky;
Red sheets of lightning o’er the seas are spread,
Our tackling yields, and wrecks at last succeed.
’Tis tedious our disastrous state to tell;
Ev’n Priam would have pitied what befell.
Yet Pallas saved me from the swallowing main;
At home new wrongs to meet, as fates ordain.
Chased from my country, I once more repeat
All sufferings seas could give, or war complete.
For Venus, mindful of her wound, decreed
Still new calamities should past succeed.
Agmon, impatient through successive ills,
With fury, love’s bright goddess thus reviles:
‘These plagues in spite of Diomed are sent;
The crime is his, but ours the punishment.
Let each my friends her puny spleen despise,
And dare that proud dictator of the skies.’

“The rest of Agmons insolence complain,
And of irreverence the wretch arraign.
About to answer, his blaspheming throat
Contracts, and shrieks in some disdainful note.
To his new skin a fleece of feathers clings,
Hides his late arms and lengthens into wings.
The lower features of his face extend,
Warp into horn, and in a beak descend.
Some more experience Agmon’s destiny,
And wheeling in the air, like swans they fly:
These thin remains to Daunus’ realms I bring,
And here I reign, a poor precarious king.”

Thus Diomedes. Venulus withdraws;
Unsped the service of the common cause.
Puteoli he passes, and survey’d
A cave long honour’d for its awful shade.
Here trembling reeds exclude the piercing ray,
Here streams in gentle falls through windings stray,
And with a passing breath cool zephyrs play.
The goatherd god frequents the silent place,
As once the wood nymphs of the sylvan race,
Till Appulus with a dishonest air,
And gross behaviour, banish’d thence the fair:
The bold buffoon, whene’er they tread the green,
Their motion mimics, but with jest obscene.
Loose language oft he utters; but ere long
A bark in filmy network binds his tongue.
Thus changed, a base wild olive he remains;
The shrub the coarseness of the clown retains.

Meanwhile the Latians all their power prepare,
’Gainst fortune, and the foe to push the war.
With Phrygian blood the floating-fields they stain;
But short of succours, still contend in vain.
Turnus remarks the Trojan fleet ill mann’d,
Unguarded, and at anchor near the strand;
He thought; and straight a lighted brand he bore,
And fire invades what ’scaped the waves before.
The billows from the kindling prow retire;
Pitch, rosin, searwood on red wings aspire,
And Vulcan on the seas exerts his attribute of fire.

This when the mother of the gods beheld,
Her towery crown she shook, and stood reveal’d;
Her brindled lions rein’d, unveil’d her head,
And hovering o’er her favour’d fleet, she said:
“Cease, Turnus, and the heavenly powers respect,
Nor dare to violate what I protect.
These galleys once fair trees on Ida stood,
And gave their shade to each descending god.
Nor shall consume; irrevocable fate
Allots their being no determined date.”

Straight peals of thunder heaven’s high arches rend
The hailstones leap, the showers in spouts descend.
The winds with widen’d throats the signal give;
The cables break, the smoking vessels drive.
Now, wondrous, as they beat the foaming flood,
The timbers soften into flesh and blood;
The yards and oars new arms and legs design;
A trunk the hull; the slender keel a spine:
The prow a female face; and by degrees
The gallies rise green daughters of the seas.
Sometimes on coral beds they sit in state,
Or wanton on the waves they fear’d of late.
The barks that beat the seas are still their care,
Themselves remembering what of late they were;
To save a Trojan sail in throngs they press,
But smile to see Alcinous in distress.

Unable were those wonders to deter
The Latians from their unsuccessful war.
Both sides for doubtful victory contend;
And on their courage and their gods depend.
Nor bright Lavinia, nor Latinus’ crown,
Warm their great soul to war, like fair renown.
Venus at last beholds her godlike son
Triumphant, and the field of battle won;
Brave Turnus slain, strong Ardea but a name,
And buried in fierce deluges of flame.
Her towers, that boasted once a sovereign sway,
The fate of fancied grandeur now betray.
A famish’d heron from the ashes springs,
And beats the ruin with disastrous wings.
Calamities of towns distress’d she feigns,
And oft, with woeful shrieks, of war complains.

Now had Aeneas, as ordain’d by fate,
Survived the period of Saturnia’s hate,
And, by a sure irrevocable doom,
Fix’d the immortal majesty of Rome,
Fit for the station of his kindred stars,
His mother goddess thus her suit prefers:

“Almighty arbiter, whose powerful nod
Shakes distant earth, and bows our own abode;
To thy great progeny indulgent be,
And rank the goddess-born a deity.
Already has he view’d, with mortal eyes,
Thy brother’s kingdoms of the nether skies.”

Forthwith a conclave of the godhead meets,
Where Juno in the shining senate sits.
Remorse for past revenge the goddess feels;
Then thundering Jove the almighty mandate seals;
Allots the prince of his celestial line
An apotheosis, and rites divine.
The crystal mansions echo with applause,
And, with her Graces, love’s bright queen withdraws,
Shoots in a blaze of light along the skies,
And, born by turtles, to Laurentum flies:
Alights, where through the reeds Numicius strays,
And to the seas his watery tribute pays.
The god she supplicates to wash away
The parts more gross and subject to decay,
And cleanse the goddess-born from radical allay.
The horned flood with glad attention stands,
Then bids his streams obey their sire’s commands.

His better parts by lustral waves refined,
More pure, and nearer to ethereal mind,
With gums of fragrant scent the goddess strews,
And on his features breathes ambrosial dews.
Thus deified, new honours Rome decrees,
Shrines, festivals; and styles him Indiges.

Ascanius now the Latian sceptre sways;
The Alban nation, Sylvius, next obeys.
Then young Latinus; next an Alba came,
The grace and guardian of the Alban name.
Then Epitus; then gentle Capys reign’d;
Then Capetis the regal power sustain’d.
Next he who perish’d on the Tuscan flood,
And honour’d with his name the river god.
Now haughty Remulus began his reign,
Who fell by thunder he aspired to feign.
Meek Acrota succeeded to the crown;
From peace endeavouring, more than arms, renown,
To Aventinus well resign’d his throne.
The mount, on which he ruled, preserves his name,
And Procas wore the regal diadem.

A hamadryad flourish’d in these days,
Her name Pomona, from her woodland race.
In garden culture none could so excel,
Or form the pliant souls of plants so well;
Or to the fruit more generous flavours lend,
Or teach the trees with nobler loads to bend.

The nymph frequented not the flattering stream,
Nor meads, the subject of a virgin’s dream;
But to such joys her nursery did prefer,
Alone to attend her vegetable care.
A pruning hook she carried in her hand,
And taught the stragglers to obey command;
Lest the licentious, and unthrifty bough,
The too-indulgent parent should undo.
She shows, how stocks invite to their embrace
A graft, and naturalize a foreign race
To mend the savage teint; and in its stead
Adopt new nature, and a nobler breed.

Now hourly she observes her growing care,
And guards the nonage from the bleaker air:
Then opes her streaming sluices, to supply
With flowing draughts her thirsty family.

Long had she labour’d to continue free
From chains of love, and nuptial tyranny;
And in her orchard’s small extent immured,
Her vow’d virginity she still secured,
Oft would loose Pan, and all the brutal train
Of satyrs, tempt her innocence in vain.
Vertumnus too pursued the maid no less;
But with his rivals shared a like success.
To gain access a thousand ways he tries:
Oft, in the hind, the lover would disguise.
The heedless lout comes shambling on, and seems
Just sweating from the labour of his teams.
Then, from the harvest of the mimic swain,
Seems bending with a load of bearded grain.
Sometimes a dresser of the vine he feigns,
And lawless tendrils to their bounds restrains.
Sometimes his sword a soldier shows; his rod
An angler; still so various is the god.
Now, in a forehead cloth, some crone he seems,
A staff supplying the defect of limbs;
Admittance thus he gains; admires the store
Of fairest fruit; the fair possessor more;
Then greets her with a kiss: the unpractised dame
Admired a grandame kiss’d with such a flame.
Now, seated by her, he beholds a vine
Around an elm in amorous foldings twine.
“If that fair elm,” he cried, “alone should stand,
No grapes would glow with gold and tempt the hand;
Or if that vine without her elm should grow,
’Twould creep a poor neglected shrub below.

“Be then, fair nymph, by these examples led;
Nor shun, for fancied fears, the nuptial bed.
Not she for whom the Lapithites took arms,
Nor Sparta’s queen, could boast such heavenly charms.
And if you would on woman’s faith rely,
None can your choice direct so well as I.
Though old, so much Pomona I adore,
Scarce does the bright Vertumnus love her more.
’Tis your fair self alone his breast inspires
With softest wishes, and unsoil’d desires.
Then fly all vulgar followers, and prove
The god of seasons only worth your love:
On my assurance well you may repose;
Vertumnus scarce Vertumnus better knows.
True to his choice, all looser flames he flies;
Nor for new faces fashionably dies.
The charms of youth, and every smiling grace
Bloom in his features, and the god confess.
Besides, he puts on every shape at ease;
But those the most that best Pomona please.
Still to oblige her is her lover’s aim;
Their likings and aversions are the same.
Nor the fair fruit your burden’d branches bear,
Nor all the youthful product of the year,
Could bribe his choice; yourself alone can prove
A fit reward for so refined a love.
Relent, fair nymph, and with a kind, regret,
Think ’tis Vertumnus weeping at your feet.
A tale attend, through Cyprus known, to prove
How Venus once revenged neglected love.

“Iphis, of vulgar birth, by chance had view’d
Fair Anaxarete of Teucer’s blood.
Not long had he beheld the royal dame
Ere the bright sparkle kindled into flame.
Oft did he struggle with a just despair,
Unfix’d to ask, unable to forbear.
But love, who flatters still his own disease,
Hopes all things will succeed he knows will please
Where’er the fair one haunts, he hovers there,
And seeks her confidant with sighs, and prayer;
Or letters he conveys, that seldom prove
Successless messengers in suits of love.

“Now shivering at her gates the wretch appears,
And myrtle garlands on the columns rears,
Wet with a deluge of unbidden tears.
The nymph, more hard than rocks, more deaf than seas,
Derides his prayers, insults his agonies;
Arraigns of insolence the aspiring swain,
And takes a cruel pleasure in his pain.
Resolved at last to finish his despair,
He thus upbraids the inexorable fair:

“ ‘Oh, Anaxarete, at last forget
The license of a passion indiscreet.
Now triumph, since a welcome sacrifice
Your slave prepares to offer to your eyes.
My life, without reluctance, I resign;
That present best can please a pride like thine.
But, oh! forbear to blast a flame so bright,
Doom’d never to expire but with the light.
And you, great powers, do justice to my name;
The hours, you take from life, restore to fame.’

“Then o’er the posts, once hung with wreaths, he throws
The ready cord, and fits the fatal noose;
For death prepares; and bounding from above,
At once the wretch concludes his life and love.

“Ere long the people gather, and the dead
Is to his mourning mother’s arms convey’d.
First, like some ghastly statue she appears;
Then bathes the breathless corse in seas of tears,
And gives it to the pile; now as the throng
Proceed in sad solemnity along,
To view the passing pomp the cruel fair
Hastes, and beholds her breathless lover there.
Struck with the sight, inanimate she seems;
Set are her eyes, and motionless her limbs;
Her features without fire, her colour gone,
And, like her heart, she hardens into stone.
In Salamis the statue still is seen,
In the famed temple of the Cyprian queen.
Warn’d by this tale, no longer then disdain,
Oh, nymph beloved, to ease a lover’s pain.
So may the frosts in spring your blossoms spare,
And winds their rude autumnal rage forbear.”

The story oft Vertumnus urged in vain,
But then assumed his heavenly form again.
Such looks, and lustre the bright youth adorn,
As when with rays glad Phoebus paints the morn.
The sight so warms the fair admiring maid,
Like snow she melts: so soon can youth persuade.
Consent, on eager wings, succeeds desire;
And both the lovers glow with mutual fire.

Now Procas yielding to the fates, his son
Mild Numitor succeeded to the crown.
But false Amulius, with a lawless power,
At length deposed his brother Numitor.
Then Ilia’s valiant issue, with the sword,
Her parent re-enthroned, the rightful lord.
Next Romulus to people Rome contrives;
The joyous time of Pales’ feast arrives;
He gives the word to seize the Sabine wives.
The sires enraged take arms, by Tatius led,
Bold to revenge their violated bed.
A fort there was, not yet unknown to fame,
Call’d the Tarpeian, its commander’s name.
This by the false Tarpeia was betray’d,
But death well recompensed the treacherous maid.
The foe on this new-bought success relies,
And, silent, march, the city to surprise.
Saturnia’s arts with Sabine arms combine;
But Venus countermines the vain design;
Entreats the nymphs that o’er the springs preside,
Which near the fane of hoary Janus glide,
To send their succours; every urn they drain,
To stop the Sabines’ progress, but in vain.

The Naiads now more stratagems essay,
And kindling sulphur to each source convey.
The floods ferment, hot exhalations rise,
Till from the scalding ford the army flies.
Soon Romulus appears in shining arms,
And to the war the Roman legions warms:
The battle rages, and the field is spread
With nothing but the dying and the dead.
Both sides consent to treat without delay,
And their two chiefs at once the sceptre sway.
But Tatius by Lavinian fury slain,
Great Romulus continued long to reign.

Now warrior Mars his burnish’d helm puts on,
And thus addresses heaven’s imperial throne:

“Since the inferior world is now become
One vassal globe, and colony to Rome,
This grace, oh Jove, for Romulus I claim,
Admit him to the skies, from whence he came.
Long hast thou promised an ethereal state
To Mars’s lineage; and thy word is fate.”

The sire, that rules the thunder with a nod,
Declared the fiat, and dismiss’d the god.

Soon as the power armipotent survey’d
The flashing skies, the signal he obey’d;
And leaning on his lance, he mounts his car,
His fiery coursers lashing through the air.
Mount Palatine he gains, and finds his son
Good laws enacting on a peaceful throne;
The scales of heavenly justice holding high,
With steady hand, and a discerning eye.
Then vaults upon his car, and to the spheres,
Swift, as a flying shaft, Rome’s founder bears.
The parts more pure, in rising are refined,
The gross and perishable lag behind.
His shrine in purple vestments stands in view;
He looks a god, and is Quirinus now.

Ere long the goddess of the nuptial bed,
With pity moved, sends Iris in her stead
To sad Hersilia. Thus the meteor maid:

“Chaste relict! in bright truth to heaven allied,
The Sabines’ glory, and the sex’s pride;
Honour’d on earth, and worthy of the love
Of such a spouse, as now resides above,
Some respite to thy killing griefs afford;
And if thou wouldst once more behold thy lord,
Retire to yon steep mount, with groves o’erspread,
Which with an awful gloom his temples shade.”

With fear the modest matron lifts her eyes,
And to the bright ambassadress replies:

“Oh goddess, yet to mortal eyes unknown,
But sure thy various charms confess thee one:
Oh quick to Romulus thy votress bear,
With looks of love he’ll smile away my care:
In whate’er orb he shines, my heaven is there.”

Then hastes with Iris to the holy grove;
And up the Mount Quirinal as they move
A lambent flame glides downward through the air,
And brightens with a blaze Hersilia’s hair.
Together on the bounding ray they rise,
And shoot a gleam of light along the skies.
With opening arms Quirinus met his bride,
Now Ora named, and press’d her to his side.