When now Agenor had his daughter lost,
He sent his son to search on every coast,
And sternly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or see his face no more,
But live in exile in a foreign clime;
Thus was the father pious to a crime.

The restless youth search’d all the world around;
But how can Jove in his amours be found?
When, tired at length with unsuccessful toil,
To shun his angry sire and native soil,
He goes a suppliant to the Delphic dame;
There asks the god what new-appointed home
Should end his wand’rings, and his toil relieve.
The Delphic oracles this answer give:

“Behold among the fields a lonely cow,
Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plough:
Mark well the place where first she lays her down,
There measure out thy walls, and build thy town;
And from the guide Boeotia call the land,
In which the destined walls and town shall stand.”

No sooner had he left the dark abode,
Big with the promise of the Delphic god,
When in the fields the fatal cow he view’d,
Nor gall’d with yokes, nor worn with servitude;
Her gently at a distance he pursued,
And, as he walk’d aloof, in silence pray’d
To the great power whose counsels he obey’d.
Her way through flowery Panope she took,
And now, Cephisus, cross’d thy silver brook,
When to the heavens her spacious front she raised,
And bellow’d thrice, then backward turning gazed
On those behind, till on the destined place
She stoop’d, and couch’d amid the rising grass.

Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails
The new-found mountains and the nameless vales,
And thanks the gods, and turns about his eye
To see his new dominions round him lie;
Then sends his servants to a neighb’ring grove
For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove.
O’er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
O’errun with brambles, and perplex’d with thorn:
Amid the brake a hollow den was found,
With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.

Deep in the dreary den, conceal’d from day,
Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
Fire broke in flashes when he glanced his eyes;
His towering crest was glorious to behold,
His shoulders and his sides were scaled with gold;
Three tongues he brandish’d when he charged his foes,
His teeth stood jaggy in three dreadful rows.
The Tyrians in the den for water sought,
And with their urns explored the hollow vault;
From side to side their empty urns rebound,
And rouse the sleeping serpent with the sound.
Straight he bestirs him, and is seen to rise,
And now with dreadful hissings fills the skies,
And darts his forky tongues, and rolls his glaring eyes.
The Tyrians drop their vessels in the fright,
All pale and trembling at the hideous sight.
Spire above spire uprear’d in air he stood,
And gazing round him overlook’d the wood,
Then floating on the ground in circles roll’d,
Then leap’d upon them in a mighty fold.
Of such a bulk and such a monstrous size
The serpent in the polar circle lies,
That stretches over half the northern skies.
In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,
In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly;
All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;
Some die entangled in the winding train;
Some are devour’d, or feel a loathsome death,
Swoln up with blasts of pestilential breath.

And now the scorching sun was mounted high,
In all its lustre, to the noonday sky,
When, anxious for his friends, and fill’d with cares,
To search the woods the impatient chief prepares.
A lion’s hide around his loins he wore,
The well-poised javelin to the field he bore,
Inured to blood, the far-destroying dart,
And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart.

Soon as the youth approach’d the fatal place,
He saw his servants breathless on the grass;
The scaly foe amid their corpse he view’d,
Basking at ease and feasting in their blood.
“Such friends,” he cries, “deserved a longer date;
But Cadmus will revenge, or share their fate.”
Then heaved a stone, and rising to the throw,
He sent it in a whirlwind at the foe;
A lower, assaulted by so rude a stroke,
With all its lofty battlements had shook;
But nothing here the unwieldy rock avails,
Rebounding harmless from the plaited scales,
That, firmly join’d, preserved him from a wound,
With native armour crusted all around.
With more success the dart unerring flew,
Which at his back the raging warrior threw:
Amid the plaited scales it took its course,
And in the spinal marrow spent its force.
The monster hiss’d aloud, and raged in vain,
And writhed his body to and fro with pain;
He bit the dart, and wrench’d the wood away;
The point still buried in the marrow lay;
And now his rage, increasing with his pain,
Reddens his eyes and beats in every vein;
Churn’d in his teeth the foamy venom flows,
While from his mouth a blast of vapours rose,
Such as the infernal Stygian waters cast;
The plants around him wither in the blast.
Now in a maze of rings he lies enroll’d;
Now all unravell’d and without a fold;
Now, like a torrent, with a mighty force
Bears down the forest in his boist’rous course.
Cadmus gave back, and on the lion’s spoil
Sustain’d the shock, then forced him to recoil:
The pointed javelin warded off his rage:
Mad with his pains, and furious to engage,
The serpent champs the steel, and bites the spear,
Till blood and venom all the point besmear.
But still the hurt he yet received was slight;
For, while the champion with redoubled might
Strikes home the javelin, his retiring foe
Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the blow.

The dauntless hero still pursues his stroke,
And presses forward, till a knotty oak
Retards his foe, and stops him in the rear;
Full in his throat he plunged the fatal spear,
That in the extended neck a passage found,
And pierced the solid timber through the wound.
Fix’d to the reeling trunk, with many a stroke
Of his huge tail he lash’d the sturdy oak,
Till spent with toil, and lab’ring hard for breath,
He now lay twisting in the pangs of death.
Cadmus beheld him wallow in a flood
Of swimming poison intermix’d with blood,
When suddenly a speech was heard from high
(The speech was heard, nor was the speaker nigh),
“Why dost thou thus with secret pleasure see,
Insulting man! what thou thyself shalt be?”
Astonish’d at the voice, he stood amazed,
And all around, with inward horror, gazed,
When Pallas, swift descending from the skies,
Pallas, the guardian of the bold and wise,
Bids him plough up the field, and scatter round
The dragon’s teeth o’er all the furrow’d ground;
Then tells the youth how to his wondering eyes
Embattled armies from the field shall rise.

He sows the teeth at Pallas’s command,
And flings the future people from his hand;
The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows,
And now the pointed spears advance in rows;
Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,
Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts;
O’er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,
A growing host, a crop of men and arms.

So through the parting stage a figure rears
Its body up, and limb by limb appears
By just degrees, till all the man arise,
And in his full proportion strikes the eyes.

Cadmus, surprised and startled at the sight
Of his new foes, prepared himself for fight;
When one cried out, “Forbear, fond man, forbear,
To mingle in a blind promiscuous war.”
This said, he struck his brother to the ground,
Himself expiring by another’s wound;
Nor did the third his conquest long survive,
Dying ere scarce he had begun to live.

The dire example ran through all the field,
Till heaps of brothers were by brothers kill’d;
The furrows swam in blood, and only five
Of all the vast increase were left alive.
Echion one, at Pallas’s command
Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand,
And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,
Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners takes.
So founds a city on the promised earth,
And gives his new Boeotian empire birth.

Here Cadmus reign’d; and now one would have guess’d
The royal founder in his exile bless’d:
Long did he live within his new abodes,
Allied by marriage to the deathless gods;
And in a fruitful wife’s embraces old,
A long increase of children’s children told:
But no frail man, however great or high,
Can be concluded bless’d before he die.

Actaeon was the first of all his race,
Who grieved his grandsire in his borrow’d face,
Condemn’d by stern Diana to bemoan
The branching horns and visage not his own;
To shun his once loved dogs, to bound away,
And from their huntsman to become their prey.
And yet consider why the change was wrought,
You’ll find it his misfortune, not his fault;
Or, if a fault, it was the fault of chance:
For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?

In a fair chase a shady mountain stood,
Well stored with game, and mark’d with trails of blood;
Here did the huntsmen, till the heat of day,
Pursue the stag, and load themselves with prey;
When thus Actaeon calling to the rest:
“My friends,” said he, “our sport is at the best,
The sun is high advanced, and downward sheds
His burning beams directly on our heads;
Then by consent abstain from further spoils,
Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils,
And ere to-morrow’s sun begins his race
Take the cool morning to renew the chase.”
They all consent, and in a cheerful train
The jolly huntsmen, laden with the slain,
Return in triumph from the sultry plain.

Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,
Refresh’d with gentle winds, and brown with shade,
The chaste Diana’s private haunt there stood,
Full in the centre of the darksome wood,
A spacious grotto, all around o’ergrown
With hoary moss, and arch’d with pumice-stone.
From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,
And trickling swell into a lake below.
Nature had everywhere so play’d her part,
That everywhere she seem’d to vie with art.
Here the bright goddess, toil’d and chafed with heat,
Was wont to bathe her in the cool retreat.

Here did she now with all her train resort,
Panting with heat, and breathless from the sport;
Her armour-bearer laid her bow aside,
Some loosed her sandals, some her veil untied;
Each busy nymph her proper part undress’d,
While Crocale, more handy than the rest,
Gather’d her flowing hair, and in a noose
Bound it together, while her own hung loose;
Five of the more ignoble sort, by turns,
Fetch up the water, and unlade the urns.

Now all undress’d the shining goddess stood,
When young Actaeon wilder’d in the wood,
To the cool grot by his hard fate betray’d,
The fountains fill’d with naked nymphs survey’d.
The frighted virgins shriek’d at the surprise
(The forest echo’d with their piercing cries),
Then in a huddle round their goddess press’d;
She, proudly eminent above the rest,
With blushes glow’d; such blushes as adorn
The ruddy welkin or the purple morn;
And though the crowding nymphs her body hide,
Half backward shrunk, and view’d him from aside.
Surprised, at first she would have snatch’d her bow,
But sees the circling waters round her flow;
These in the hollow of her hand she took,
And dash’d them in his face, while thus she spoke:
“Tell, if thou canst, the wondrous sight disclosed,
A goddess naked to thy view exposed.”

This said, the man began to disappear
By slow degrees, and ended in a deer.
A rising horn on either brow he wears,
And stretches out his neck, and pricks his ears;
Rough is his skin, with sudden hairs o’ergrown,
His bosom pants with fears before unknown;
Transform’d at length, he flies away in haste,
And wonders why he flies away so fast.
But, as by chance within a neighb’ring brook,
He saw his branching horns and alter’d look,
Wretched Actaeon! in a doleful tone
He tried to speak, but only gave a groan;
And as he wept, within the watery glass
He saw the big round drops, with silent pace,
Run trickling down a savage hairy face.
What should he do? Or seek his old abodes,
Or herd among the deer and skulk in woods?
Here shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails,
And each by turns his aching heart assails.

As he thus ponders, he behind him spies
His op’ning hounds, and now he hears their cries:
A gen’rous pack, or to maintain the chase,
Or snuff the vapour from the scented grass.

He bounded off with fear, and swiftly ran
O’er craggy mountains and the flow’ry plain,
Through brakes and thickets forced his way, and flew
Through many a ring where once he did pursue.
In vain he oft endeavour’d to proclaim
His new misfortune, and to tell his name;
Nor voice, nor words, the brutal tongue supplies,
From shouting men, and horns, and dogs, he flies,
Deafen’d and stunn’d with their promiscuous cries.
When now the fleetest of the pack, that press’d
Close at his heels and sprung before the rest,
Had fasten’d on him, straight another pair
Hung on his wounded haunch, and held him there,
Till all the pack came up, and every hound
Tore the sad huntsman grovelling on the ground,
Who now appear’d but one continued wound.
With dropping tears his bitter fate he moans,
And fills the mountain with his dying groans.
His servants with a piteous look he spies,
And turns about his supplicating eyes.
His servants, ignorant of what had chanced,
With eager haste and joyful shouts advanced,
And call’d their lord, Actaeon, to the game;
He shook his head in answer to the name;
He heard, but wish’d he had indeed been gone;
Or only to have stood a looker-on:
But to his grief he finds himself too near,
And feels his ravenous dogs with fury tear
Their wretched master panting in a deer.

Actaeon’s sufferings, and Diana’s rage,
Did all the thoughts of men and gods engage;
Some call’d the evils which Diana wrought
Too great, and disproportion’d to the fault:
Others, again, esteem’d Actaeon’s woes
Fit for a virgin goddess to impose.
The hearers into different parts divide,
And reasons are produced on either side.

Juno alone, of all that heard the news,
Nor would condemn the goddess, nor excuse;
She heeded not the justice of the deed,
But joy’d to see the race of Cadmus bleed;
For still she kept Europa in her mind,
And, for her sake, detested all her kind.
Besides, to aggravate her hate, she heard
How Semele, to Jove’s embrace preferr’d,
Was now grown big with an immortal load,
And carried in her womb a future god.
Thus, terribly incensed, the goddess broke
To sudden fury, and abruptly spoke:

“Are my reproaches of so small a force?
’Tis time I then pursue another course.
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die,
If I’m indeed the mistress of the sky;
If rightly styled, among the powers above,
The wife and sister of the thundering Jove
(And none can sure a sister’s right deny),
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die.
She boasts an honour I can hardly claim,
Pregnant she rises to a mother’s name;
While proud and vain she triumphs in her Jove,
And shows the glorious tokens of his love:
But if I’m still the mistress of the skies,
By her own lover the fond beauty dies.”
This said, descending in a yellow cloud,
Before the gates of Semele she stood.

Old Beroe’s decrepit shape she wears,
Her wrinkled visage, and her hoary hairs,
While in her trembling gait she totters on,
And learns to tattle in the nurse’s tone.
The goddess thus disguised in age, beguiled
With pleasing stories her false foster-child.
Much did she talk of love, and when she came
To mention to the nymph her lover’s name,
Fetching a sigh, and holding down her head,
“ ’Tis well,” says she, “if all be true that’s said.
But trust me, child, I’m much inclined to fear
Some counterfeit in this your Jupiter.
Many an honest, well-designing maid,
Has been by these pretended gods betray’d.
But if he be indeed the thund’ring Jove,
Bid him, when next he courts the rites of love,
Descend triumphant, from the ethereal sky,
In all the pomp of his divinity,
Encompass’d round by those celestial charms
With which he fills the immortal Juno’s arms.”

The unwary nymph, insnared with what she said,
Desired of Jove, when next he sought her bed,
To grant a certain gift which she would choose.
“Fear not,” replied the god, “that I’ll refuse
Whate’er you ask: may Styx confirm my voice,
Choose what you will, and you shall have your choice.”
“Then,” says the nymph, “when next you seek my arms,
May you descend in those celestial charms
With which your Juno’s bosom you inflame,
And fill with transport heaven’s immortal dame.”
The god, surprised, would fain have stopp’d her voice,
But he had sworn, and she had made her choice.

To keep his promise he ascends, and shrouds
His awful brow in whirlwinds and in clouds;
While all around, in terrible array,
His thunders rattle and his lightnings play;
And yet the dazzling lustre to abate,
He set not out in all his pomp and state,
Clad in the mildest lightning of the skies,
And arm’d with thunder of the smallest size:
Not those huge bolts by which the giants slain
Lay overthrown on the Phlegrean plain;
’Twas of a lesser mould and lighter weight,
They call it thunder of a second rate;
For the rough Cyclops, who by Jove’s command
Temper’d the bolt, and turn’d it to his hand,
Work’d up less flame and fury in its make,
And quench’d it sooner in the standing lake.
Thus dreadfully adorn’d with horror bright,
The illustrious god, descending from his height,
Came rushing on her in a storm of light.

The mortal dame, too feeble to engage
The lightning’s flashes and the thunder’s rage,
Consumed amid the glories she desired,
And in the terrible embrace expired.

But to preserve his offspring from the tomb,
Jove took him smoking from his mother’s womb,
And, if on ancient tales we may rely,
Enclosed the abortive infant in his thigh.
Here when the babe had all his time fulfill’d,
Ino first took him for her foster-child;
Then the Niseans, in their dark abode,
Nursed secretly with milk the thriving god.

Famed far and near for knowing things to come,
From him the inquiring nations sought their doom.
The fair Liriope his answers tried,
And first the unerring prophet justified.
This nymph the god Cephisus had abused,
With all his winding waters circumfused,
And by the Nereid had a lovely boy,
Whom the soft maids ev’n then beheld with joy.

The tender dame, solicitous to know
Whether her child should reach old age or no,
Consults the sage Tiresias; who replies,
“If e’er he knows himself he surely dies.”
Long lived the dubious mother in suspense,
Till time unriddled all the prophet’s sense.

Narcissus now his sixteenth year began,
Just turn’d of boy, and on the verge of man;
Many a friend the blooming youth caress’d,
Many a lovesick maid in vain her flame confess’d,
Such was his pride, in vain the friend caress’d,
The lovesick maid in vain her flame confess’d.

Once, in the woods, as he pursued the chase,
The babbling Echo had descried his face,
She, who in other words her silence breaks,
Nor speaks herself but when another speaks.
Echo was then a maid of speech bereft,
Of wonted speech; for though her voice was left,
Juno a curse did on her tongue impose,
To sport with every sentence in the close.
Full often when the goddess might have caught
Jove and her rivals in the very fault,
This nymph with subtle stories would delay
Her coming, till the lovers slipp’d away.
The goddess found out the deceit in time,
And then she cried, “That tongue, for this thy crime,
Which could so many subtle tales produce,
Shall be hereafter but of little use.”
Hence ’tis she prattles in a fairer tone,
With mimic sounds and accents not her own.

This lovesick virgin, overjoy’d to find
The boy alone, still follow’d him behind;
When glowing warmly at her near approach,
As sulphur blazes at the taper’s touch,
She long’d her hidden passion to reveal
And tell her pains, but had not words to tell;
She can’t begin, but waits for the rebound
To catch his voice, and to return the sound.

The nymph, when nothing could Narcissus move,
Still dash’d with blushes for her slighted love,
Lived in the shady covert of the woods,
In solitary caves and dark abodes,
Where pining wander’d the rejected fair,
Till harass’d out and worn away with care,
The sounding skeleton, of blood bereft,
Besides her bones and voice, had nothing left.
Her bones are petrified, her voice is found
In vaults, where still it doubles every sound.

Thus did the nymphs in vain caress the boy,
He still was lovely, but he still was coy,
When one fair virgin of the slighted train
Thus pray’d the gods, provoked by his disdain:
“O! may he love like me, and love like me in vain!”
Rhamnusia pitied the neglected fair,
And with just vengeance answer’d to her prayer.

There stands a fountain in a darksome wood,
Nor stain’d with falling leaves, nor rising mud,
Untroubled by the breath of winds it rests,
Unsullied by the touch of men or beasts;
High bowers of shady trees above it grow,
And rising grass and cheerful greens below.
Pleased with the form and coolness of the place,
And overheated by the morning chase,
Narcissus on the grassy verdure lies;
But while within the crystal fount he tries
To quench his heat, he feels new heat arise:
For, as his own bright image he survey’d,
He fell in love with the fantastic shade,
And o’er the fair resemblance hung unmoved;
Nor knew, fond youth! it was himself he loved.
The well-turn’d neck and shoulders he descries,
The spacious forehead, and the sparkling eyes,
The hands that Bacchus might not scorn to show,
And hair that round Apollo’s head might flow,
With all the purple youthfulness of face,
That gently blushes in the watery glass.
By his own flames consumed the lover lies,
And gives himself the wound by which he dies.
To the cold water oft he joins his lips,
Oft catching at the beauteous shade he dips
His arms, as often from himself he slips.
Nor knows he who it is his arms pursue
With eager clasps, but loves he knows not who.

What could, fond youth, this helpless passion move?
What kindled in thee this unpitied love?
Thy own warm blush within the water glows,
With thee the colour’d shadow comes and goes,
Its empty being on thyself relies;
Step thou aside and the frail charmer dies.

Still o’er the fountain’s watery gleam he stood,
Mindless of sleep, and negligent of food,
Still view’d his face, and languish’d as he view’d.
At length he raised his head, and thus began
To vent his griefs, and tell the woods his pain:
“You trees,” says he, “and thou surrounding grove,
Who oft have been the kindly scenes of love,
Tell me, if e’er within your shades did lie
A youth so tortured, so perplex’d as I?
I, who before me see the charming fair,
While there he stands, and yet he stands not there:
In such a maze of love my thoughts are lost;
And yet no bulwark’d town nor distant coast
Preserves the beauteous youth from being seen,
No mountains rise nor oceans flow between;
A shallow water hinders my embrace,
And yet the lovely mimic wears a face
That kindly smiles, and when I bend to join
My lips to his, he fondly bends to mine.
Hear, gentle youth, and pity my complaint;
Come from thy well, thou fair inhabitant.
My charms an easy conquest have obtain’d
O’er other hearts, by thee alone disdain’d.
But why should I despair? I’m sure he burns
With equal flames, and languishes by turns.
Whene’er I stoop, he offers at a kiss,
And when my arms I stretch, he stretches his;
His eyes with pleasure on my face he keeps,
He smiles my smiles, and when I weep he weeps:
Whene’er I speak his moving lips appear
To utter something, which I cannot hear.

“Ah, wretched me! I now begin too late
To find out all the long perplex’d deceit;
It is myself I love, myself I see,
The gay delusion is a part of me;
I kindle up the fires by which I burn,
And my own beauties from the well return.
Whom should I court? how utter my complaint?
Enjoyment but produces my restraint,
And too much plenty makes me die for want.
How gladly would I from myself remove!
And at a distance set the thing I love;
My breast is warm’d with such unusual fire,
I wish him absent whom I most desire;
And now I faint with grief, my fate draws nigh,
In all the pride of blooming youth I die.
Death will the sorrows of my heart relieve.
O! might the visionary youth survive,
I should with joy my latest breath resign!
But, oh! I see his fate involved in mine.”

This said, the weeping youth again return’d
To the clear fountain, where again he burn’d.
His tears defaced the surface of the well,
With circle after circle as they fell;
And now the lovely face but half appears,
O’errun with wrinkles and deform’d with tears.
“Ah! whither,” cries Narcissus, “dost thou fly?
Let me still feed the flame by which I die;
Let me still see, though I’m no further bless’d.”
Then rends his garment off and beats his breast;
His naked bosom redden’d with the blow,
In such a blush as purple clusters show,
Ere yet the sun’s autumnal heats refine
Their sprightly juice, and mellow it to wine;
The glowing beauties of his breast he spies,
And with a new redoubled passion dies.
As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run
And trickle into drops before the sun,
So melts the youth, and languishes away,
His beauty withers, and his limbs decay,
And none of those attractive charms remain,
To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.

She saw him in his present misery,
Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see.
She answer’d sadly to the lover’s moan,
Sigh’d back his sighs, and groan’d to every groan.
“Ah youth! beloved in vain,” Narcissus cries;
“Ah youth! beloved in vain,” the nymph replies.
“Farewell,” says he; the parting sound scarce fell
From his faint lips, but she replied, “Farewell.”
Then on the unwholesome earth he gasping lies,
Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.
To the cold shades his fitting ghost retires,
And in the Stygian waves itself admires.

For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn;
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn:
When, looking for his corpse, they only found
A rising stalk with yellow blossoms crown’d.

This sad event gave blind Tiresias fame,
Through Greece establish’d in a prophet’s name.

The unhallow’d Pentheus only durst deride
The cheated people and their eyeless guide.
To whom the prophet in his fury said,
Shaking the hoary honours of his head,
“ ’Twere well, presumptuous man, ’twere well for thee,
If thou wert eyeless too, and blind like me:
For the time comes, nay, ’tis already here,
When the young god’s solemnities appear,
Which, if thou dost not with just rites adorn,
Thy impious carcass, into pieces torn,
Shall strew the woods, and hang on every thorn.
Then, then remember what I now foretell,
And own the blind Tiresias saw too well.”

Still Pentheus scorns him, and derides his skill;
But time did all the prophet’s threats fulfil.
For now through prostrate Greece young Bacchus rode,
While howling matrons celebrate the god.
All ranks and sexes to his orgies ran,
To mingle in the pomps and fill the train,
When Pentheus thus his wicked rage express’d:
“What madness, Thebans, has your souls possess’d?
Can hollow timbrels, can a drunken shout,
And the lewd clamours of a beastly rout,
Thus quell your courage? Can the weak alarm
Of women’s yells those stubborn souls disarm,
Whom nor the sword nor trumpet e’er could fright,
Nor the loud din and horror of a fight?
And you, our sires, who left your old abodes,
And fix’d in foreign earth your country gods,
Will you without a stroke your city yield,
And poorly quit an undisputed field?
But you, whose youth and vigour should inspire
Heroic warmth, and kindle martial fire,
Whom burnish’d arms and crested helmets grace,
Not flowery garlands and a painted face;
Remember him to whom you stand allied;
The serpent for his well of waters died.
He fought the strong, do you his courage show,
And gain a conquest o’er a feeble foe.
If Thebes must fall, O might the Fates afford
A nobler doom from famine, fire, or sword;
Then might the Thebans perish with renown:
But now a beardless victor sacks the town,
Whom nor the prancing steed, nor ponderous shield,
Nor the hack’d helmet, nor the dusty field,
But the soft joys of luxury and ease,
The purple vests, and flowery garlands, please.
Stand then aside, I’ll make the counterfeit
Renounce his godhead, and confess the cheat.
Acrisius from the Grecian walls repell’d
This boasted power: why then should Pentheus yield?
Go quickly, drag the impostor boy to me,
I’ll try the force of his divinity.”
Thus did the audacious wretch those rites profane;
His friends dissuade the andacious wretch in vain,
In vain his grandsire urged him to give o’er
His impious threats, the wretch but raves the more.

So have I seen a river gently glide
In a smooth course and inoffensive tide,
But if with dams its current we restrain,
It bears down all, and foams along the plain.

But now his servants came, besmear’d with blood,
Sent by their haughty prince to seize the god;
The god they found not in the frantic throng,
But dragg’d a zealous votary along.

Him Pentheus view’d with fury in his look,
And scarce withheld his hands while thus he spoke:
“Vile slave! whom speedy vengeance shall pursue,
And terrify thy base seditious crew,
Thy country and thy parentage reveal,
And why thou join’st in these mad orgies tell.”

The captive views him with undaunted eyes,
And, arm’d with inward innocence, replies:

“From high Maeonia’s rocky shores I came,
Of poor descent, Acoetes is my name.
My sire was meanly born; no oxen plough’d
His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures low’d;
His whole estate within the waters lay,
With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey;
His art was all his livelihood, which he
Thus with his dying lips bequeathed to me:
‘In streams, my boy, and rivers, take thy chance,
There swims,’ said he, ‘thy whole inheritance.’
Long did I live on this poor legacy,
Till, tired with rocks and my old native sky,
To arts of navigation I inclined,
Observed the turns and changes of the wind,
Learn’d the fit havens, and began to note
The stormy Hyades, the rainy Goat,
The bright Taygete, and the shining Bears,
With all the sailors’ catalogue of stars.
Once, as by chance for Delos I design’d,
My vessel, driven by a strong gust of wind,
Moor’d in a Chian creek; ashore I went,
And all the following night in Chios spent.
When morning rose, I sent my mates to bring
Supplies of water from a neighb’ring spring,
While I the motion of the winds explored;
Then summon’d in my crew and went aboard.
Opheltes heard my summons, and with joy
Brought to the shore a soft and lovely boy,
With more than female sweetness in his look,
Whom straggling in the neighb’ring fields he took.
With fumes of wine the little captive glows,
And nods with sleep, and staggers as he goes.

“I view’d him nicely, and began to trace
Each heavenly frature, each immortal grace,
And saw divinity in all his face:
‘I know not who,’ said I, ‘this god should be,
But that he is a god I plainly see.
And thou, whoe’er thou art, excuse the force
These men have used; and O befriend our course!’
‘Pray not for us,’ the nimble Dictys cried,
Dictys, that could the main-topmast bestride,
And down the ropes with active vigour slide.
To the same purpose old Epopeus spoke,
Who overlook’d the oars, and timed the stroke:
The same the pilot, and the same the rest,
Such impious avarice their souls possess’d.
‘Nay, Heaven forbid that I should bear away
Within my vessel so divine a prey,’
Said I; and stood to hinder their intent,
When Lycabas, a wretch for murder sent
From Tuscany, to suffer banishment,
With his clinch’d fist had struck me overboard,
Had not my hands in falling grasp’d a cord.

“His base confederates the fact approve,
When Bacchus (for ’twas he) began to move,
Waked by the noise and clamours which they raised,
And shook his drowsy limbs, and round him gazed:
‘What means this noise?’ he cries, ‘am I betray’d?
Ah! whither, whither must I be convey’d?’
‘Fear not,’ said Proteus, ‘child, but tell us where
You wish to land, and trust our friendly care.’
‘To Naxos then direct your course,’ said he,
‘Naxos a hospitable port shall be
To each of you, a joyful home to me.’
By every god that rules the sea or sky,
The perjured villains promise to comply,
And bid me hasten to unmoor the ship.
With eager joy I launch into the deep;
And, heedless of the fraud, for Naxos stand.
They whisper oft, and beckon with the hand,
And give me signs, all anxious for their prey,
To tack about and steer another way.
‘Then let some other to my post succeed,’
Said I, ‘I’m guiltless of so foul a deed.’
‘What!’ says Ethalion, ‘must the ship’s whole crew
Follow your humour, and depend on you?’
And straight himself he seated at the prore,
And tack’d about and sought another shore.

“The beauteous youth now found himself betray’d,
And from the deck the rising waves survey’d,
And seem’d to weep, and as he wept he said:
‘And do you thus my easy faith beguile?
Thus do ye bear me to my native isle?
Will such a multitude of men employ
Their strength against a weak, defenceless boy?’

“In vain did I the godlike youth deplore,
The more I begg’d, they thwarted me the more.
And now by all the gods in heaven, that hear
This solemn oath, by Bacchus’ self I swear,
The mighty miracle that did ensue,
Although it seems beyond belief, is true.
The vessel, fix’d and rooted in the flood,
Unmoved by all the beating billows, stood.
In vain the mariners would plough the main
With sails unfurl’d, and strike their oars in vain;
Around their oars a twining ivy cleaves,
And climbs the mast, and hides the cords in leaves:
The sails are cover’d with a cheerful green,
And berries in the fruitful canvass seen.
Amid the waves a sudden forest rears
Its verdant head, and a new spring appears.

“The god we now behold with open’d eyes;
A herd of spotted panthers round him lies
In glaring forms, the grapy clusters spread
On his fair brows, and dangle on his head.
And while he frowns and brandishes his spear,
My mates, surprised with madness or with fear,
Leap’d overboard; first perjur’d Madon found
Rough scales and fins his stiff’ning sides surround.

“ ’Ah! what,’ cries one, ‘has thus transform’d thy look?’
Straight his own mouth grew wider as he spoke:
And now himself he views with like surprise.
Still at his oar the industrious Libys plies;
But, as he plies, each busy arm shrinks in,
And by degrees is fashion’d to a fin.
Another, as he catches at a cord,
Misses his arms, and, tumbling overboard,
With his broad fins and forky tail he laves
The rising surge, and flounces in the waves.
Thus all my crew transform’d around the ship,
Or dive below, or on the surface leap,
And spout the waves, and wanton in the deep.
Full nineteen sailors did the ship convey,
A shoal of nineteen dolphins round her play.
I only in my proper shape appear,
Speechless with wonder, and half dead with fear,
Till Bacchus kindly bid me fear no more.
With him I landed on the Chian shore,
And him shall ever gratefully adore.”

“This forging slave,” says Pentheus, “would prevail
O’er our just fury by a far-fetch’d tale:
Go; let him feel the whips, the swords, the fire,
And in the tortures of the rack expire.”
The officious servants hurry him away,
And the poor captive in a dungeon lay.
But, while the whips and tortures are prepared,
The gates fly open, of themselves unbarr’d;
At liberty the unfetter’d captive stands,
And flings the loosen’d shackles from his hands.

But Pentheus, grown more furious than before,
Resolved to send his messengers no more,
But went himself to the distracted throng,
Where high Cithaeron echo’d with their song.
And as the fiery warhorse paws the ground,
And snorts and trembles at the trumpet’s sound,
Transported thus he heard the frantic rout,
And raved and madden’d at the distant shout.

A spacious circuit on the hill there stood,
Level and wide, and skirted round with wood;
Here the rash Pentheus, with unhallow’d eyes,
The howling dames and mystic orgies spies.
His mother sternly view’d him where he stood,
And kindled into madness as she view’d:
Her leafy javelin at her son she cast,
And cries, “The boar that lays our country waste!
The boar, my sisters! Aim the fatal dart,
And strike the brindled monster to the heart.”

Pentheus astonish’d heard the dismal sound,
And sees the yelling matrons gathering round;
He sees, and weeps at his approaching fate,
And begs for mercy, and repents too late.
“Help! help! my aunt Autonoe,” he cried,
“Remember how your own Actaeon died.”
Deaf to his cries, the frantic matron crops
One stretch’d-out arm, the other Ino lops.
In vain does Pentheus to his mother sue,
And the raw bleeding stumps present to view.
His mother howl’d, and, heedless of his prayer,
Her trembling hand she twisted in his hair,
“And this,” she cried, “shall be Agave’s share;”
When from his neck his struggling head she tore,
And in her hands the ghastly visage bore.
With pleasure all the hideous trunk survey,
Then pull’d and tore the mangled limbs away,
As starting in the pangs of death it lay.
Soon as the wood its leafy honours casts,
Blown off and scatter’d by autumnal blasts,
With such a sudden death lay Pentheus slain,
And in a thousand pieces strow’d the plain.

By so distinguishing a judgment awed,
The Thebans tremble and confess the god.