The sun’s bright palace, on high columns raised,
With burnish’d gold and flaming jewels blazed;
The folding gates diffused a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refresh’d the sight;
Of polish’d ivory was the covering wrought;
The matter vied not with the sculptor’s thought;
For in the portal was display’d on high
(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;
À waving sea the inferior earth embraced,
And gods and goddesses the waters graced.
Aegeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
Triton, and Proteus (the deceiving god),
With Doris here were carved, and all her train:
Some loosely swimming in the figured main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,
And some on fishes through the waters glide:
Though various features did the sisters grace,
A sister’s likeness was in every face.
On earth a different landscape courts the eyes:
Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise,
And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities.
O’er all, the heaven’s refulgent image shines:
On either gate were six engraven signs.

Here Phaeton, still gaining on the ascent,
To his suspected father’s palace went,
Till, pressing forward through the bright abode,
He saw at distance the illustrious god:
He saw at distance, or the dazzling light
Had flash’d too strongly on his aching sight.

The god sits high, exalted on a throne
Of blazing gems, with purple garments on:
The Hours in order ranged on either hand,
And Days, and Months, and Years, and Ages, stand.
Here Spring appears, with flowery chaplets bound;
Here Summer, in her wheaten garland crown’d;
Here Autumn the rich trodden grapes besmear,
And hoary Winter shivers in the rear.

Phoebus beheld the youth from off his throne;
That eye which looks on all was fixed on one:
He saw the boy’s confusion in his face,
Surprised at all the wonders of the place,
And cries aloud, “What wants my son? for know
My son thou art, and I must call thee so.”

“Light of the world,” the trembling youth replies,
“Illustrious parent! since you don’t despise
The parent’s name, some certain token give,
That I may Clymene’s proud boast believe,
Nor longer under false reproaches grieve.”

The tender sire was touch’d with what he said,
And flung the blaze of glories from his head,
And bade the youth advance. “My son,” said he,
“Come to thy father’s arms! for Clymene
Has told thee true: a parent’s name I own,
And deem thee worthy to be call’d my son.
As a sure proof, make some request, and I,
Whate’er it be, with that request comply:
By Styx I swear, whose waves are hid in night,
And roll impervious to my piercing sight.”

The youth, transported, asks, without delay,
To guide the sun’s bright chariot for a day.

The god repented of the oath he took;
For anguish thrice lis radiant head he shook.
“My son,” said he, “some other proof require;
Rash was my promise, rash is thy desire.
I’d fain deny this wish which thou hast made,
Or, what I can’t deny, would fain dissuade.
Too vast and hazardous the task appears,
Nor suited to thy strength, nor to thy years.
Thy lot is mortal, but thy wishes fly
Beyond the province of mortality.
There is not one of all the gods that dares
(However skill’d in other great affairs)
To mount the burning axletree but I;
Not Jove himself, the ruler of the sky,
That hurls the three-fork’d thunder from above,
Dares try his strength: yet who so strong as Jove?
The steeds climb up the first ascent with pain,
And when the middle firmament they gain,
If downwards from the heavens my head I bow,
And see the earth and ocean hang below,
Ev’n I am seized with horror and affright,
And my own heart misgives me at the sight.
A mighty downfall steeps the evening stage;
And steady reins must curb the horses’ rage:
Tethys herself has fear’d to see me driven
Down headlong from the precipice of heaven.
Besides, consider what impetuous force
Turns stars and planets in a different course:
I steer against their motions; nor am I
Borne back by all the current of the sky.
But how could you resist the orbs that roll
In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?
But you, perhaps, may hope for pleasing woods,
And stately domes, and cities fill’d with gods;
While through a thousand snares your progress lies,
Where forms of starry monsters stock the skies:
For, should you hit the doubtful way aright,
The bull, with stooping horns, stands opposite;
Next him, the bright Haemonian bow is strung;
And next, the lion’s grinning visage hung:
The scorpion’s claws here clasp a wide extent;
And here the crab’s in lesser clasps are bent.
Nor would you find it easy to compose
The mettled steeds, when from their nostrils flows
The scorching fire that in their entrails glows.
Ev’n I their headstrong fury scarce restrain,
When they grow warm and restiff to the rein.
Let not my son a fatal gift require;
But, O! in time, recall your rash desire:
You ask a gift that may your parent tell;
Let these my fears your parentage reveal,
And learn a father from a father’s care:
Look on my face; or if my heart lay bare,
Could you but look, you’d read the father there.
Choose out a gift, from seas, or earth, or skies;
For open to your wish all nature lies;
Only decline this one unequal task,
For ’tis a mischief, not a gift, you ask.
You ask a real mischief, Phaeton:
Nay, hang not thus about my neck, my son.
I grant your wish, and Styx has heard my voice;
Choose what you will, but make a wiser choice.”

Thus did the god the unwary youth advise;
But he still longs to travel through the skies;
When the fond father (for in vain he pleads)
At length to the Vulcanian chariot leads.
A golden axle did the work uphold,
Gold was the beam, the wheels were orb’d with gold;
The spokes in rows of silver pleased the sight;
The seat with parti-colour’d gems was bright:
Apollo shined amid the glare of light.
The youth with secret joy the work surveys,
When now the moon disclosed her purple rays:
The stars were fled, for Lucifer had chased
The stars away, and fled himself at last.
Soon as the father saw the rosy morn,
And the moon shining with a blunter horn,
He bid the nimble Hours, without delay,
Bring forth the steeds: the nimble Hours obey.
From their full racks the generous steeds retire,
Dropping ambrosial foams, and snorting fire.
Still anxious for his son, the god of day,
To make him proof against the burning ray,
His temples with celestial ointment wet,
Of sovereign virtue, to repel the heat;
Then fix’d the beamy circle on his head,
And fetch’d a deep foreboding sigh, and said:
“Take this at least, this last advice, my son:
Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on:
The coursers of themselves will run too fast;
Your art must be to moderate their haste.
Drive them not on directly through the skies,
But where the zodiac’s winding circle lies,
Along the midmost zone; but sally forth,
Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north.
The horses’ hoofs a beaten track will show;
But neither mount too high, nor sink too low.
That no new fires or heaven or earth infest,
Keep the mid way: the middle way is best:
Nor where, in radiant folds, the serpent twines,
Direct your course; nor where the altar shines:
Shun both extremes; the rest let Fortune guide,
And better for thee than thyself provide!
See, while I speak, the shades disperse away,
Aurora gives the promise of a day;
I’m call’d, nor can I make a longer stay.
Snatch up the reins, or still the attempt forsake,
And not my chariot, but my counsel, take,
While yet securely on the earth you stand,
Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand.
Let me alone to light the world, while you
Enjoy those beams which you may safely view.”
He spoke in vain: the youth, with active heat
And sprightly vigour, vaults into the seat,
And joys to hold the reins, and fondly gives
Those thanks his father with remorse receives.

Meanwhile the restless horses neigh’d aloud,
Breathing out fire, and pawing where they stood.
Tethys, not knowing what had pass’d, gave way,
And all the waste of heaven before them lay.
They spring together out, and swiftly bear
The flying youth through clouds and yielding air;
With wingy speed outstrip the eastern wind,
And leave the breezes of the morn behind.
The youth was light, nor could he fill the seat,
Or poise the chariot with its wonted weight:
But as at sea the unballasted vessel rides,
Cast to and fro, the sport of winds and tides,
So in the bounding chariot, toss’d on high,
The youth is hurried headlong through the sky.
Soon as the steeds perceive it, they forsake
Their stated course, and leave the beaten track.
The youth was in a maze, nor did he know
Which way to turn the reins, or where to go:
Nor would the horses, had he known, obey.
Then the seven stars first felt Apollo’s ray,
And wish’d to dip in the forbidden sea.
The folded serpent, next the frozen pole,
Stiff and benumb’d before, began to roll,
And raged with inward heat, and threaten’d war,
And shot a redder light from every star;
Nay, and ’tis said, Bootes, too, that fain
Thou wouldst have fled, though cumber’d with thy wain.

The unhappy youth then, bending down his head,
Saw earth and ocean far beneath him spread.
His colour changed, he startled at the sight,
And his eyes darken’d by too great a light.
Now could he wish the fiery steeds untried,
His birth obscure, and his request denied:
Now would he Merops for his father own,
And quit his boasted kindred to the Sun.

So fares the pilot, when his ship is toss’d
In troubled seas, and all its steerage lost;
He gives her to the winds, and, in despair,
Seeks his last refuge in the gods and prayer.

What could he do? his eyes, if backward cast,
Find a long path he had already pass’d;
If forward, still a longer path they find:
Both he compares, and measures in his mind;
And sometimes casts an eye upon the east,
And sometimes looks on the forbidden west.
The horses’ names he knew not in the fright;
Nor would he loose the reins, nor could he hold them right.

Now all the horrors of the heavens he spies,
And monstrous shadows of prodigious size,
That, deck’d with stars, lie scatter’d o’er the skies.
There is a place above, where Scorpio bent
In tail and arms surrounds a vast extent;
In a wide circuit of the heavens he shines,
And fills the space of two celestial signs.
Soon as the youth beheld him, vex’d with heat,
Brandish his sting, and in his poison sweat,
Half dead with sudden fear, he dropp’d the reins;
The horses felt them loose upon their manes,
And, flying out through all the plains above,
Ran, uncontroll’d, where’er their fury drove;
Rush’d on the stars, and, through a pathless way
Of unknown regions, hurried on the day.
And now above and now below they flew,
And near the earth the burning chariot drew.

The clouds disperse in fumes, the wond’ring moon
Beholds her brother’s steeds beneath her own:
The high lands smoke, cleft by the piercing rays,
Or, clad with woods, in their own fuel blaze.
Next o’er the plains, where ripen’d harvests grow,
The running conflagration spreads below.
But these are trivial ills: whole cities burn,
And peopled kingdoms into ashes turn.

The mountains kindle as the car draws near;
Athos and Tmolus red with fires appear;
Oeagrian Haemus (then a single name)
And virgin Helicon increase the flame:
Taurus and Oete glare amid the sky;
And Ida, spite of all her fountains, dry:
Eryx, and Othrys, and Cithaeron, glow;
And Rhodope, no longer clothed in snow:
High Pindus, Mimas, and Parnassus, sweat;
And Aetna rages with redoubled heat:
Ev’n Scythia, through her hoary regions warm’d,
In vain with all her native frost was arm’d:
Cover’d with flames, the towering Apennine,
And Caucasus, and proud Olympus, shine;
And where the long-extended Alps aspire
Now stands a huge continued range of fire.

The astonish’d youth, where’er his eyes could turn,
Beheld the universe around him burn:
The world was in a blaze; nor could he bear
The sultry vapours and the scorching air,
Which from below, as from a furnace, flow’d:
And now the axletree beneath him glow’d.
Lost in the whirling clouds that round him broke,
And white with ashes, hovering in the smoke,
He flew where’er the horses drove, nor knew
Whither the horses drove, or where he flew.

’Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor begun
To change his hue, and blacken in the sun;
Then Libya first, of all her moisture drain’d,
Became a barren waste, a wild of sand;
The water-nymphs lament their empty urns;
Boeotia, robb’d of silver Dirce, mourns;
Corinth Pyrene’s wasted spring bewails;
And Argos grieves while Amymone fails.

The foods are drain’d from every distant coast;
Ev’n Tanais, though fix’d in ice, was lost:
Enraged Caicus and Lycormas roar,
And Xanthus, fated to be burnt once more:
The famed Maeander, that unwearied strays
Through many windings, smokes in every maze:
From his loved Babylon Euphrates flies:
The big-swoln Ganges and the Danube rise
In thick’ning fumes, and darken half the skies:
In flames Ismenos and the Phasis roll’d,
And Tagus, floating in his melted gold:
The swans, that on Cayster often tried
Their tuneful songs, now sung their last, and died:
The frighted Nile ran off, and under ground
Conceal’d his head, nor can it yet be found;
His seven divided currents all are dry,
And, where they roll’d, seven gaping trenches lie:
No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain,
Nor Tiber, of his promised empire vain.

The ground, deep cleft, admits the dazzling ray,
And startles Pluto with the flash of day:
The seas shrink in, and to the sight disclose
Wide naked plains, where once their billows rose;
Their rocks are all discover’d, and increase
The number of the scatter’d Cyclades;
The fish in shoals about the bottom creep;
Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap:
Gasping for breath, the unshapen Phocae die,
And on the boiling wave extended lie:
Nereus, and Doris, with her virgin train,
Seek out the last recesses of the main:
Beneath unfathomable depths they faint,
And secret in their gloomy caverns pant:
Stern Neptune thrice above the waves upheld
His face, and thrice was by the flames repell’d.

The Earth at length, on every side embraced
With scalding seas, that floated round her waist,
When now she felt the springs and rivers come,
And crowd within the hollow of her womb,
Uplifted to the heavens her blasted head,
And clapp’d her hand upon her brows, and said,
(But first, impatient of the sultry heat,
Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat):
“If you, great king of gods, my death approve,
And I deserve it, let me die by Jove:
If I must perish by the force of fire,
Let me transfix’d with thunderbolts expire.
See, while I speak, my breath the vapours choke
(For now her face lay wrapp’d in clouds of smoke),
See my singed hair, behold my faded eye,
And wither’d face, where heaps of cinders lie!
And does the plough for this my body tear?
This the reward for all the fruits I bear,
Tortured with rakes, and harass’d all the year?
That herbs for cattle daily I renew,
And food for man, and frankincense for you?
But, grant me guilty, what has Neptune done?
Why are his waters boiling in the sun?
The wavy empire, which by lot was given,
Why does it waste, and farther shrink from heaven?
If I nor he your pity can provoke,
See your own heavens, the heavens begin to smoke!
Should once the sparkles catch those bright abodes,
Destruction seizes on the heavens and gods;
Atlas becomes unequal to his freight,
And almost faints beneath the glowing weight.
If heaven, and earth, and sea, together burn,
All must again into their chaos turn.
Apply some speedy cure, prevent our fate,
And succour Nature ere it be too late.”
She ceased, for choked with vapours round her spread,
Down to the deepest shades she sunk her head.

Jove call’d to witness ev’ry power above,
And even the god whose son the chariot drove,
That what he acts he is compell’d to do,
Or universal ruin must ensue.
Straight he ascends the high ethereal throne,
From whence he used to dart his thunder down,
From whence his showers and storms he used to pour,
But now could meet with neither storm nor shower:
Then, aiming at the youth, with lifted hand,
Full at his head he hurl’d the forky brand
In dreadful thunderings. Thus the almighty sire
Suppress’d the raging of the fires with fire.

At once from life and from the chariot driven,
The ambitious boy fell thunderstruck from heaven;
The horses started with a sudden bound,
And flung the reins and chariot to the ground:
The studded harness from their necks they broke,
Here fell a wheel, and here a silver spoke,
Here were the beam and axle torn away,
And scatter’d o’er the earth the shining fragments lay.
The breathless Phaeton, with flaming hair,
Shot from the chariot like a falling star,
That in a summer’s evening from the top
Of heaven drops down, or seems, at least, to drop,
Till on the Po his blasted corpse was hurl’d,
Far from his country, in the western world.

The Latian nymphs came round him, and amazed,
On the dead youth, transfix’d with thunder, gazed,
And, while yet smoking from the bolt he lay,
His shatter’d body to a tomb convey;
And o’er the tomb an epitaph devise:
“Here he who drove the sun’s bright chariot lies;
His father’s fiery steeds he could not guide,
But in the glorious enterprise he died.”

Apollo hid his face, and pined for grief,
And, if the story may deserve belief,
The space of one whole day is said to run,
From morn to wonted ev’n, without a sun;
The burning ruins, with a fainter ray,
Supply the sun, and counterfeit a day,
A day that still did Nature’s face disclose,
This comfort from the mighty mischief rose.

But Clymene, enraged with grief, laments,
And as her grief inspires her passion vents;
Wild for her son, and frantic in her woes,
With hair dishevell’d, round the world she goes
To seek where’er his body might be cast,
Till, on the borders of the Po, at last
The name inscribed on the new tomb appears
The dear, dear name she bathes in flowing tears,
Hangs o’er the tomb, unable to depart,
And hugs the marble to her throbbing heart.

Her daughters too lament, and sigh, and mourn
(A fruitless tribute to their brother’s urn),
And beat their naked bosoms, and complain,
And call aloud for Phaeton in vain;
All the long night their mournful watch they keep,
And all the day stand round the tomb and weep.

Four times, revolving, the full moon return’d,
So long the mother and the daughters mourn’d,
When now the eldest, Phaethusa, strove
To rest her weary limbs, but could not move;
Lampetia would have help’d her, but she found
Herself withheld and rooted to the ground;
A third, in wild affliction as she grieves,
Would rend her hair, but fills her hands with leaves:
One sees her thighs transform’d, another views
Her arms slot out and branching into boughs,
And now their legs, and breasts, and bodies, stood
Crusted with bark, and harden’d into wood;
But still above were female heads display’d,
And mouths, that call’d the mother to their aid.
What could, alas! the weeping mother do?
From this to that with eager haste she flew,
And kiss’d her sprouting daughters as they grew;
She tears the bark that to each body cleaves;
And from their verdant fingers strips the leaves;
The blood came trickling where she tore away
The leaves and bark. The maids were heard to say
“Forbear, mistaken parent, O forbear!
A wounded daughter in each tree you tear;
Farewell for ever.” Here the bark increased,
Closed on their faces, and their words suppress’d.

The new-made trees in tears of amber run,
Which, harden’d into value by the sun,
Distil for ever on the stream below;
The limpid streams their radiant treasure show
Mix’d in the sand, whence the rich drops convey’d
Shine in the dress of the bright Latian maid.

Cycnus beheld the nymphs transform’d, allied
To their dead brother on the mortal side,
In friendship and affection nearer bound,
He left the cities and the realms he own’d,
Through pathless fields and lonely shores to range,
And woods made thicker by the sisters’ change.
While here within the dismal gloom alone,
The melancholy monarch made his moan,
His voice was lessen’d as he tried to speak,
And issued through a long extended neck;
His hair transforms to down, his fingers meet
In skinny films and shape his oary feet;
From both his sides the wings and feathers break,
And from his mouth proceeds a blunted beak:
All Cycnus now into a swan was turn’d,
Who, still remembering how his kinsman burn’d,
To solitary pools and lakes retires,
And loves the waters as opposed to fires.
Meanwhile Apollo, in the gloomy shade
(The native lustre of his brows decay’d),
Indulging sorrow, sickens at the sight
Of his own sunshine, and abhors the light.
The hidden griefs that in his bosom rise,
Sadden his looks and overcast his eyes,
As when some dusky orb obstructs his ray,
And sullies, in a dim eclipse, the day.

Now secretly with inward griefs he pined,
Now warm resentments to his grief he join’d,
And now renounced his office to mankind.
“E’er since the birth of time,” said he, “I’ve borne
A long ungrateful toil without return;
Let now some other manage, if he dare,
The fiery steeds, and mount the burning car;
Or, if none else, let Jove his fortune try,
And learn to lay his murd’ring thunder by;
Then will he own, perhaps, but own too late,
My son deserved not so severe a fate.”

The gods stand round him, as he mourns, and pray
He would resume the conduct of the day,
Nor let the world be lost in endless night;
Jove too himself, descending from his height,
Excuses what had happen’d, and entreats,
Majestically mixing prayers and threats.
Prevail’d upon at length, again he took
The harness’d steeds, that still with horror shook,
And plies them with the lash, and whips them on,
And, as he whips, upbraids them with his son.

The day was settled in its course, and Jove
Walk’d the wide circuit of the heavens above.
To search if any cracks or flaws were made;
But all was safe: the earth he then survey’d,
And cast an eye on ev’ry different coast,
And ev’ry land, but on Arcadia most.
Her fields he clothed, and cheer’d her blasted face
With running fountains and with springing grass.
No tracks of heaven’s destructive fire remain,
The fields and woods revive, and nature smiles again.

But as the god walk’d to and fro the earth,
And raised the plants, and gave the spring its birth,
By chance a fair Arcadian nymph he view’d,
And felt the lovely charmer in his blood.
The nymph nor spun nor dress’d with artful pride.
Her vest was gather’d up, her hair was tied:
Now in her hand a slender spear she bore,
Now a light quiver on her shoulders wore;
To chaste Diana from her youth inclined,
The sprightly warriors of the wood she join’d.
Diana too the gentle huntress loved,
Nor was there one of all the nymphs that roved
O’er Maenalus, amid the maiden throng,
More favour’d once; but favour lasts not long.

The sun now shone in all its strength, and drove
The heated virgin panting to the grove:
The grove around a grateful shadow cast:
She dropp’d her arrows, and her bow unbraced;
She flung herself on the cool grassy bed,
And on the painted quiver raised her head.
Jove saw the charming huntress unprepared,
Stretch’d on the verdant turf, without a guard.
“Here I am safe,” he cries, “from Juno’s eye:
Or should my jealous queen the theft descry,
Yet I would venture on a theft like this,
And stand her rage, for such, for such a bliss!”
Diana’s shape and habit straight he took,
Soften’d his brows, and smooth’d his awful look,
And mildly in a female accent spoke:
“How fares my girl? how went the morning chase?”
To whom the virgin, starting from the grass,
“All hail! bright deity, whom I prefer
To Jove himself, though Jove himself were here.”
The god was nearer than she thought, and heard,
Well pleased, himself before himself preferr’d.

He then salutes her with a warm embrace;
And, ere she half had told the morning chase,
With love inflamed, and eager on his bliss:
Smother’d her words, and stopp’d her with a kiss:
His kisses with unwonted ardour glow’d,
Nor could Diana’s shape conceal the god.

Possess’d at length of what his heart desired,
Back to his heavens the exulting god retired.

But now Diana, with a sprightly train
Of quiver’d virgins, bounding o’er the plain,
Call’d to the nymph; the nymph began to fear
A second fraud, a Jove disguised in her;
But when she saw the sister nymphs, suppress’d
Her rising fears, and mingled with the rest.

How in the look does conscious guilt appear!
Slowly she moved, and loiter’d in the rear;
Nor lightly tripp’d, nor by the goddess ran,
As once she used, the foremost of the train;
Her looks were fush’d, and sullen was her mien,
That sure the virgin goddess (had she been
Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen.
’Tis said the nymphs saw all, and guess’d aright.
And now the moon had nine times lost her light,
When Dian, fainting in the midday beams,
Found a cool covert and refreshing streams,
That in soft murmurs through the forest flow’d,
And a smooth bed of shining gravel show’d.

A covert so obscure and streams so clear
The goddess praised: “And now no spies are near;
Let’s strip, my gentle maids, and wash,” she cries.
Pleased with the motion, every maid complies;
Only the blushing huntress stood confused,
And form’d delays, and her delays excused:
In vain excused; her fellows round her press’d,
And the reluctant nymph by force undress’d.
The naked huntress all her shame reveal’d,
In vain her hands her pregnancy conceal’d;
“Begone!” the goddess cries, with stern disdain,
“Begone! nor dare the hallow’d stream to stain.”
She fled, for ever banish’d from the train.

This Juno heard, who long had watch’d her time
To punish the detested rival’s crime;
The time was come; for, to enrage her more,
A lovely boy the teeming rival bore.

The goddess cast a furious look, and cried,
“It is enough! I’m fully satisfied!
This boy shall stand a living mark, to prove
My husband’s baseness and the harlot’s love:
But vengeance shall awake: those guilty charms,
That drew the Thunderer from Juno’s arms,
No longer shall their wonted force retain,
Nor please the god, nor make the mortal vain.”

This said, her hand within her hair she wound,
Swung her to earth, and dragg’d her on the ground.
The prostrate wretch lifts up her arms in prayer;
Her arms grow shaggy and deform’d with hair,
Her nails are sharpen’d into pointed claws,
Her hands bear balf her weight and turn to paws,
Her lips, that once could tempt a god, begin
To grow distorted in an ugly grin;
And, lest the supplicating brute might reach
The cars of Jove, she was deprived of speech;
Her surly voice through a hoarse passage came
In savage sounds, her mind was still the same.
The furry monster fix’d her eyes above,
And heaved her new unwieldy paws to Jove,
And begg’d his aid with inward groans; and though
She could not call him false she thought him so.

How did she fear to lodge in woods alone,
And haunt the fields and meadows once her own!
How often would the deep-mouth’d dogs pursue,
While from her hounds the frighted huntress flew!
How did she fear her fellow brutes, and shun
The shaggy bear, though now herself was one!
How from the sight of rugged wolves retire,
Although the grim Lycaon was her sire!

But now her son had fifteen summers told,
Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold;
When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,
He chanced to rouse his mother where she lay.
She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,
And fondly gazed. The boy was in a fright,
And aim’d a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbade, and snatch’d them through the air
In whirlwinds up to heaven, and fix’d them there;
Where the new constellations nightly rise,
And add a lustre to the northern skies.

When Juno saw the rival in her height,
Spangled with stars and circled round with light,
She sought old Ocean in his deep abodes,
And Tethys, both revered among the gods.
They ask what brings her there. “Ne’er ask,” says she,
“What brings me here, heaven is no place for me.
You’ll see, when all things are obscured by night,
Jove’s starry mistress with resplendent light
Usurp the heavens; you’ll see her proudly roll
In her new orb, and brighten all the pole.
And who shall now on Juno’s altars wait,
When those she hates grow greater by her hate?
I on the nymph a brutal form impress’d,
Jove to a goddess has transform’d the beast.
This, this was all my weak revenge could do;
But let the god his chaste amours pursue,
And, as he acted after Io’s rape,
Restore the adultress to her former shape;
Then may he cast his Juno off, and lead
The great Lycaon’s offspring to his bed.
But you, ye venerable powers, be kind,
And, if my wrongs a due resentment find,
Receive not in your waves their setting beams,
Nor let the glaring harlot taint your streams.”

The goddess ended, and her wish was given
Back she return’d in triumph up to heaven;
Her gaudy peacocks drew her through the skies;
Their tails were spotted with a thousand eyes;
The eyes of Argus on their tails were ranged,
At the same time the raven’s colour changed.

The raven once in snowy plumes was dress’d,
White as the whitest dove’s unsullied breast,
Fair as the guardian of the capitol,
Soft as the swan, a large and lovely fowl;
His tongue, his prating tongue, had changed him quite
To sooty blackness from the purest white.

The story of his change shall here be told.
In Thessaly there lived a nymph of old,
Coronis named; a peerless maid she shined,
Confess’d the fairest of the fairer kind.
Apollo loved her till her guilt he knew,
While true she was, or while he thought her true;
“But his own bird, the raven, chanced to find
The false one with a secret rival join’d.
Coronis begg’d him to suppress the tale;
But could not with repeated prayers prevail.
His milk-white pinions to the god he plied;
The busy daw flew with him side by side,
And, by a thousand teasing questions, drew
The important secret from him as they flew.
The daw gave honest counsel, though despised,
And, tedious in her tattle, thus advised:

“Stay, silly bird, the illnatured task refuse;
Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.
Be warn’d by my example. You discern
What now I am, and what I was shall learn.
My foolish honesty was all my crime:
Then hear my story. Once upon a time,
The two-shaped Ericthonius had his birth
(Without a mother) from the teeming earth:
Minerva nursed him, and the infant laid
Within a chest of twining osiers made.
The daughters of King Cecrops undertook
To guard the chest, commanded not to look
On what was hid within. I stood to see
The charge obey’d, perch’d on a neighbouring tree,
The sisters, Pandrosos and Herse, keep
The strict command; Aglauros needs would peep,
And saw the monstrous infant, in a fright,
And call’d her sisters to the hideous sight.
A boy’s soft shape did to the waist prevail;
But the boy ended in a dragon’s tail.
I told the stern Minerva all that pass’d;
But for my pains discarded and disgraced.
The frowning goddess drove me from her sight,
And for her fav’rite chose the bird of night.
Be then no telltale; for I think my wrong
Enough to teach a bird to hold her tongue.

“But you, perhaps, may think I was removed
As never by the heavenly maid beloved:
But I was loved; ask Pallas if I lie;
Though Pallas hates me now, she wont deny.
For I, whom in a feather’d shape you view,
Was once a maid, by heaven the story’s true!
A blooming maid, and a king’s daughter too.
A crowd of lovers own’d my beauty’s charms;
My beauty was the cause of all my harms;
Neptune, as on his shores I wont to rove,
Observed me in my walks, and fell in love.
He made his courtship, he confess’d his pain,
And offer’d force when all his arts were vain:
Swift he pursued; I ran along the strand,
Till spent and wearied on the sinking sand,
I shriek’d aloud, with cries I fill’d the air
To gods and men, nor god nor man was there:
A virgin goddess heard a virgin’s prayer.
For, as my arms I lifted to the skies,
I saw black feathers from my fingers rise;
I strove to fling my garment on the ground,
My garment turn’d to plumes, and girt me round;
My hands to beat my naked bosom try,
Nor naked bosom now nor hands had I;
Lightly I tripp’d, nor weary as before:
Sunk in the sand, but skimm’d along the shore,
Till, rising on my wings, I was preferr’d
To be the chaste Minerva’s virgin bird.
Preferr’d in vain! I now am in disgrace:
Nyctimene, the owl, enjoys my place.

“On her incestuous life I need not dwell
(In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell),
And of her dire amours you must have heard,
For which she now does penance in a bird;
That, conscious of her shame, avoids the light,
And loves the gloomy covering of the night.
The birds, where’er she flutters, scare away
The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day.”

The raven, urged by such impertinence,
Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,
And cursed the harmless daw; the daw withdrew.
The raven to her injured patron flew,
And found him out, and told the fatal truth
Of false Coronis, and the favour’d youth.

The god was wroth, the colour left his look,
The wreath his head, the harp his hand, forsook;
His silver bow and feather’d shafts he took,
And lodged an arrow in the tender breast
That had so often to his own been press’d.
Down fell the wounded nymph, and sadly groan’d,
And pull’d his arrow reeking from the wound;
And, weltering in her blood, thus faintly cried:
“Ah, cruel god! though I have justly died,
What has, alas! my unborn infant done,
That he should fall, and two expire in one?”
This said, in agonies she fetch’d her breath.

The god dissolves in pity at her death;
He hates the bird that made her falsehood known,
And hates himself for what himself had done;
The feather’d shaft that sent her to the Fates,
And his own hand that sent the shaft, he hates.
Fain would he heal the wound and ease her pain,
And tries the compass of his art in vain.
Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,
The pile made ready, and the kindling fire,
With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept,
And, if a god could weep, the god had wept.
Her corpse he kiss’d, and heavenly incense brought,
And solemnized the death himself had wrought.

But lest his offspring should her fate partake,
Spite of the immortal mixture in his make,
He ripp’d her womb and set the child at large,
And gave him to the centaur Chiron’s charge;
Then in his fury black’d the raven o’er,
And bade him prate in his white plumes no more.

Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,
Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.
His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore
The nymph Chariclo to the centaur bore,
With hair dishevell’d on her shoulders, came
To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name;
She knew her father’s arts, and could rehearse
The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.
Once as the sacred infant she survey’d,
The god was kindled in the raving maid,
And thus she utter’d her prophetic tale:
“Hail! great physician of the world, all hail!
Hail! mighty infant! who in years to come
Shalt heal the nations and defraud the tomb.
Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfined!
Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.
Thy daring art shall animate the dead,
And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:
Then shalt thou die; but from the dark abode
Rise up victorious, and be twice a god.
And thou, my sire, not destined by thy birth
To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,
How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to die,
And quit thy claim to immortality,
When thou shalt feel, enraged with inward pains,
The Hydra’s venom rankling in thy veins!
The gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,
And give thee over to the power of Fate.”

Thus, entering into destiny, the maid
The secrets of offended Jove betray’d:
More had she still to say; but now appears
Qppress’d with sobs and sighs, and drown’d in tears:
“My voice,” says she, “is gone, my language fails,
Through every limb my kindred shape prevails:
Why did the god this fatal gift impart,
And with prophetic raptures swell my heart?
What new desires are these? I long to pace
O’er flowery meadows, and to feed on grass;
I hasten to a brute, a maid no more:
But why, alas! am I transform’d all o’er?
My sire does half a human shape retain,
And in his upper parts preserves the man.”

Her tongue no more distinct complaints affords,
But in shrill accents and misshapen words
Pours forth such hideous wailings, as declare
The human form confounded in the mare,
Till by degrees accomplish’d in the beast,
She neigh’d outright, and all the steed expressed;
Her stooping body on her hands is borne,
Her hands are turn’d to hoofs and shod in horn;
Her yellow tresses ruffle in a mane,
And in a flowing tail she frisks her train.
The mare was finish’d in her voice and look,
And a new name from the new figure took.

Sore wept the centaur, and to Phoebus pray’d.
But how could Phoebus give the centaur aid?
Degraded of his power by angry Jove,
In Elis then a herd of bees he drove,
And wielded in his hand a staff of oak,
And o’er his shoulders threw the shepherd’s cloak.
On seven compacted reeds he used to play,
And on his rural pipe to waste the day.

As once attentive to his pipe he play’d,
The crafty Hermes from the god convey’d
A drove, that separate from their fellows stray’d.
The theft an old insidious peasant view’d
(They call’d him Battus in the neighbourhood),
Hired by a wealthy Pylian prince to feed
His fav’rite mares, and watch the generous breed.
The thievish god suspected him, and took
The hind aside, and thus in whispers spoke:
“Discover not the theft, whoe’er thou be,
And take that milk-white heifer for thy fee.”
“Go, stranger,” cries the clown, “securely on,
That stone shall sooner tell,” and showed a stone.

The god withdrew, but straight return’d again,
In speech and habit like a country swain,
And cries out: “Neighbour, hast thou seen a stray
Of bullocks and of heifers pass this way?
In the recovery of my cattle join,
A bullock and a heifer shall be thine.”
The peasant quick replies: “You’ll find them there
In yon dark vale;” and in the vale they were.
The double bribe had his false heart beguiled.
The god, successful in the trial, smiled:
“And dost thou thus betray myself to me?
Me to myself dost thou betray?” says he.
Then to a touchstone turns the faithless spy,
And in his name records his infamy.

This done, the god flew up on high, and pass’d
O’er lofty Athens, by Minerva graced,
And wide Munichia, while his eyes survey
All the vast region that beneath him lay.

’Twas now the feast, when each Athenian maid
Her yearly homage to Minerva paid,
In canisters with garlands cover’d o’er,
High on their heads their mystic gifts they bore;
And now, returning in a solemn train,
The troop of shining virgins fill’d the plain.

The god, well pleased, beheld the pompous show,
And saw the bright procession pass below,
Then veer’d about and took a wheeling flight,
And hover’d o’er them; as the spreading kite,
That smells the slaughter’d victims from on high,
Flies at a distance, if the priests are nigh,
And sails around and keeps it in her eye,
So kept the god the virgin choir in view,
And in slow winding circles round them flew.

As Lucifer excels the meanest star,
Or as the full-orb’d Phoebe Lucifer,
So much did Herse all the rest outvie,
And gave a grace to the solemnity.
Hermes was fired as in the clouds he hung;
So the cold bullet, that with fury slung
From Balearic engines, mounts on high,
Glows in the whirl, and burns along the sky.
At length he pitch’d upon the ground, and show’d
The form divine, the features of a god.
He knew their virtue o’er a female heart,
And yet he strives to better them by art.
He hangs his mantle loose, and sets to show
The golden edging on the seam below;
Adjusts his flowing curls, and in his hand,
Waves with an air the sleep-procuring wand;
The glittering sandals to his feet applies,
And to each heel the well-trimm’d pinion ties.

His ornaments with nicest art display’d,
He seeks the apartment of the royal maid.
The roof was all with polish’d ivory lined,
That richly mix’d, in clouds of tortoise shined;
Three rooms, contiguous, in a range were placed,
The midmost by the beauteous Herse graced,
Her virgin sisters lodged on either side.
Aglauros first the approaching god descried,
And as he cross’d her chamber asked his name,
And what his bus’ness was, and whence he came.
“I come,” replied the god, “from heaven, to woo
Your sister, and to make an aunt of you.
I am the son and messenger of Jove,
My name is Mercury, my bus’ness love;
Do you, kind damsel, take a lover’s part,
And gain admittance to your sister’s heart.”

She stared him in the face with looks amaz’d,
As when she on Minerva’s secret gaz’d,
And asks a mighty treasure for her hire,
And till he brings it makes the god retire.
Minerva griev’d to see the nymph succeed,
And now remembering the late impious deed,
When, disobedient to her strict command,
She touch’d the chest with an unhallow’d hand,
In big-swoln sighs her inward rage express’d,
That heav’d the rising aegis on her breast;
Then sought out Envy in her dark abode,
Defil’d with ropy gore and clots of blood:
Shut from the winds and from the wholesome skies,
In a deep vale the gloomy dungeon lies,
Dismal and cold, where not a beam of light
Invades the winter or disturbs the night.

Directly to the cave her course she steer’d,
Against the gates her martial lance she rear’d,
The gates flew open, and the fiend appear’d.
A pois’nous morsel in her teeth she chew’d,
And gorged the flesh of vipers for her food.
Minerva, loathing, turn’d away her eye;
The hideous monster, rising heavily,
Came stalking forward with a sullen pace,
And left her mangled offals on the place.
Soon as she saw the goddess gay and bright,
She fetch’d a groan at such a cheerful sight;
Livid and meager were her looks, her eye
In foul distorted glances turn’d awry;
A hoard of gall her inward parts possess’d,
And spread a greenness o’er her canker’d breast;
Her teeth were brown with rust, and from her tongue,
In dangling drops, the stringy poison hung;
She never smiles but when the wretched weep,
Nor lulls her malice with a moment’s sleep;
Restless in spite, while watchful to destroy,
She pines and sickens at another’s joy;
Foe to herself, distressing and distress’d,
She bears her own tormentor in her breast.
The goddess gave (for she abhorr’d her sight)
A short command: “To Athens speed thy flight;
On cursed Aglauros try thy utmost art,
And fix thy rankest venoms in her heart.”
This said, her spear she push’d against the ground,
And mounting from it with an active bound,
Flew off to heaven. The hag with eyes askew
Look’d up, and mutter’d curses as she flew;
For sore she fretted, and began to grieve
At the success which she herself must give;
Then takes her staff, hung round with wreaths of thorn,
And sails along, in a black whirlwind borne,
O’er fields and flowery meadows. Where she steers
Her baneful course a mighty blast appears,
Mildews and blights; the meadows are defaced,
The fields, the flowers, and the whole year, laid waste.
On mortals next and peopled towns she falls,
And breathes a burning plague among their walls.

When Athens she beheld, for arts renown’d,
With peace made happy, and with plenty crown’d,
Scarce could the hideous fiend from tears forbear
To find out nothing that deserved a tear.
The apartment now she enter’d where at rest
Aglauros lay, with gentle sleep oppress’d,
To execute Minerva’s dire command;
She stroked the virgin with her canker’d hand,
Then prickly thorns into her breast convey’d,
That stung to madness the devoted maid;
Her subtle venom still improves the smart,
Frets in the blood, and festers in the heart.

To make the work more sure, a scene she drew,
And placed before the dreaming virgin’s view
Her sister’s marriage, and her glorious fate;
The imaginary bride appears in state,
The bridegroom with unwonted beauty glows;
For envy magnifies whate’er she shows.
Full of the dream, Aglauros pin’d away
In tears all night, in darkness all the day;
Consumed like ice, that just begins to run,
When feebly smitten by the distant sun;
Or like unwholesome weeds, that, set on fire,
Are slowly wasted, and in smoke expire.
Given up to envy (for in every thought
The thorns, the venom, and the vision wrought),
Oft did she call on death, as oft decreed,
Rather than see her sister’s wish succeed,
To tell her awful father what had pass’d;
At length before the door herself she cast,
And, sitting on the ground with suilen pride,
A passage to the lovesick god denied.
The god caress’d and for admission pray’d,
And soothed in softest words the envenom’d maid.
In vain he soothed. “Begone!” the maid replies,
“Or here I keep my seat and never rise.”
“Then keep thy seat for ever,” cries the god,
And touch’d the door, wide opening to his rod.
Fain would she rise and stop him, but she found
Her trunk too heavy to forsake the ground;
Her joints are all benumb’d, her hands are pale,
And marble now appears in every nail.
As when a cancer in the body feeds,
And gradual death from limb to limb proceeds,
So does the chillness to each vital part
Spread by degrees, and creeps into her heart,
Till hardening everywhere, and speechless grown,
She sits unmoved, and freezes to a stone.
But still her envious hue and sullen mien
Are in ’he sedentary figure seen.

When now the god his fury had allay’d,
And taken vengeance of the stubborn maid,
From where the bright Athenian turrets rise
He mounts aloft, and reascends the skies.
Jove saw him enter the sublime abodes,
And, as he mix’d among the crowd of gods,
Beckon’d him out, and drew him from the rest,
And in soft whispers thus his will express’d:

“My trusty Hermes, by whose ready aid
Thy sire’s commands are through the world convey’d,
Resume thy wings, exert their utmost force,
And to the walls of Sidon speed thy course;
There find a herd of heifers wandering o’er
The neighb’ring hill, and drive them to the shore.”

Thus spoke the god, concealing his intent.
The trusty Hermes on his message went,
And found the herd of heifers wand’ring o’er
A neighb’ring hill, and drove them to the shore
Where the king’s daughter, with a lovely train
Of fellow-nymphs, was sporting on the plain.

The dignity of empire laid aside
(For love but ill agrees with kingly pride),
The ruler of the skies, the thund’ring god,
Who shakes the world’s foundations with a nod,
Among a herd of lowing heifers ran,
Frisk’d in a bull, and bellow’d o’er the plain.
Large rolls of fat about his shoulders clung,
And from his neck the double dewlap hung;
His skin was whiter than the snow that lies
Unsullied by the breath of southern skies:
Small shining horns on his curl’d forehead stand,
As turn’d and polish’d by the workman’s hand;
His eyeballs roll’d, not formidably bright,
But gazed and languish’d with a gentle light;
His every look was peaceful, and express’d
The softness of the lover in the beast.

Agenor’s royal daughter, as she play’d
Among the fields, the milk-white bull survey’d,
And view’d his spotless body with delight,
And at a distance kept him in her sight.
At length she pluck’d the rising flowers, and fed
The gentle beast, and fondly stroked his head.
He stood, well pleased to touch the charming fair,
But hardly could confine his pleasures there.
And now he wantons o’er the neighb’ring strand,
Now rolls his body on the yellow sand;
And, now perceiving all her fears decay’d,
Comes tossing forward to the royal maid.
Gives her his breast to stroke, and downward turns
His grisly brow, and gently stoops his horns.
In flowery wreaths the royal virgin dress’d
His bending horns, and kindly clapp’d his breast;
Till now grown wanton and devoid of fear,
Not knowing that she press’d the Thunderer,
She placed herself upon his back, and rode
O’er fields and meadows, seated on the god.

He gently march’d along, and by degrees
Left the dry meadow, and approach’d the seas,
Where now he dips his hoofs and wets his thighs,
Now plunges in, and carries off the prize.
The frighted nymph looks backward on the shore,
And hears the tumbling billows round her roar;
But still she holds him fast; one hand is borne
Upon his back, the other grasps a horn;
Her train of ruffling garments flies behind,
Swells in the air, and hovers in the wind.

Through storms and tempests he the virgin bore,
And lands her safe on the Dictaean shore;
Where now, in his divinest form array’d,
In his true shape he captivates the maid,
Who gazes on him, and with wond’ring eyes
Beholds the new majestic figure rise,
His glowing features, and celestial light,
And all the god discover’d to her sight.