Yet still Alcithoe perverse remains,
And Bacchus still and all his rites disdains.
Too rash and madly bold, she bids him prove
Himself a god, nor owns the son of Jove:
Her sisters too unanimous agree,
Faithful associates in impiety.

Be this a solemn feast, the priest had said;
Be, with each mistress, unemploy’d each maid.
With skins of beasts your tender limbs enclose,
And with an ivy crown adorn your brows;
The leafy thyrsus high in triumph bear,
And give your locks to wanton in the air.

These rites profaned, the holy seer foreshow’d
A mourning people, and a vengeful god.
Matrons and pious wives obedience show,
Distaffs, and wool half spun, away they throw:
Then incense burn, and, Bacchus, thee adore:
Or lovest thou Neseus, or Lyaeus, more?
O, doubly got! O, doubly born! they sung,
Thou mighty Bromius, hail! from lightning sprung.
Hail! Thyon, Eleleus, each name is thine:
Or, listen parent of the genial vine!
Iacchus! Evan! loudly they repeat,
And not one Grecian attribute forget,
Which to thy praise, great deity, belong,
Styled, justly, Liber in the Roman song.
Eternity of youth is thine! enjoy
Years roll’d on years, yet still a blooming boy.
In heaven thou shinest with a superior grace;
Conceal thy horns, and ’tis a virgin’s face.
Thou taught’st the tawny Indian to obey,
And Ganges, smoothly flowing, own’d thy sway.
Lycurgus, Pentheus, equally profane,
By thy just vengeance equally were slain.
By thee the Tuscans, who conspired to keep
Thee captive, plunged and cut with fins the deep.
With painted reins, all glittering from afar,
The spotted Lynxes proudly draw thy car;
Around the Bacchae and the Satyrs throng,
Behind, Silenus, drunk, lags slow along;
On his dull ass he nods from side to side,
Forbears to fall, yet half forgets to ride.
Still at thy near approach applauses loud
Are heard, with yellings of the female crowd;
Timbrels, and boxen pipes, with mingled cries,
Swell up in sounds confused and rend the skies.
Come, Bacchus, come propitious, all implore,
And act thy secret orgies o’er and o’er.

But Mineus’ daughters, while these rites were paid,
At home impertinently busy stay’d;
Their wicked tasks they ply with various art,
And through the loom the sliding shuttle dart,
Or at the fire to comb the wool they stand,
Or twirl the spindle with a dext’rous hand.
Guilty themselves, they force the guiltless in,
Their maids, who share the labour, share the sin.
At last one sister cries, who nimbly knew
To draw nice threads, and wind the finest clue,

“While others idly rove, and gods revere,
Their fancied gods! they know not who or where;
Let us, whom Pallas taught her better arts,
Still working, cheer with mirthful chat our hearts;
And, to deceive the time, let me prevail
With each by turns to tell some antique tale.”
She said: her sisters liked the humour well,
And, smiling, bade her the first story tell.
But she a while profoundly seem’d to muse,
Perplex’d amid variety to choose;
And knew not whether she should first relate
The poor Dircetis, and her wondrous fate
(The Palestines believe it to a man,
And show the lake in which her scales began):
Or if she rather should the daughter sing,
Who in the hoary verge of life took wing;
Who soar’d from earth, and dwelt in towers on high,
And now a dove she flits along the sky:
Or how the tree, which once white berries bore,
Still crimson bears, since stain’d with crimson gore.
The tree was new; she likes it, and begins
To tell the tale, and as she tells she spins.

“In Babylon, where first her queen, for state,
Raised walls of brick magnificently great,
Lived Pyramus and Thisbe, lovely pair!
He found no eastern youth his equal there,
And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair.
A closer neighbourhood was never known,
Though two the houses, yet the roof was one.
Acquaintance grew, the acquaintance they improve
To friendship, friendship ripen’d into love:
Love had been crown’d, but, impotently mad,
What parents could not hinder, they forbade:
For with fierce flames young Pyramus still burn’d,
And grateful Thisbe flames as fierce return’d.
Aloud in words their thoughts they dare not break,
But silent stand: and silent looks can speak.
The fire of love, the more it is suppress’d,
The more it glows and rages in the breast.

“When the division-wall was built, a chink
Was left, the cement unobserved to shrink.
So slight the cranny, that it still had been
For centuries unclosed, because unseen.
But, oh! what thing so small, so secret lies,
Which ’scapes, if form’d for love, a lover’s eyes?
Ev’n in this narrow chink they quickly found
A friendly passage for a trackless sound.
Safely they told their sorrows and their joys,
In whisper’d murmurs and a dying noise;
By turns to catch each other’s breath they strove,
And suck’d in all the balmy breeze of love.
Oft, as on different sides they stood, they cried,
‘Malicious wall, thus lovers to divide!
Suppose thou shouldst a while to us give place,
To lock and fasten in a close embrace;
But, if too much to grant so sweet a bliss,
Indulge at least the pleasure of a kiss.
We scorn ingratitude: to thee, we know,
This safe conveyance of our minds we owe.’

“Thus, they their vain petition did renew
Till night, and then they softly sigh’d adieu.
But first they strove to kiss, and that was all,
Their kisses died untasted on the wall.
Soon as the morn had o’er the stars prevail’d,
And, warn’d by Phoebus, flowers their dews exhaled,
The lovers to their well-known place return,
Alike they suffer and alike they mourn.
At last their parents they resolve to cheat
(If to deceive in love he call’d deceit),
To steal by night from home, and thence unknown
To seek the fields, and quit the unfaithful town.
But, to prevent their wand’ring in the dark,
They both agree to fix upon a mark,
A mark, that could not their designs expose,
The tomb of Ninus was the mark they chose.
There they might rest secure beneath the shade,
Which boughs, with snowy fruit encumber’d, made:
A wide-spread mulberry its rise had took
Just on the margin of a gurgling brook.
Impatient for the friendly dusk they stay,
And chide the slowness of departing day.
In western seas down sunk at last the light,
From western seas uprose the shades of night.
The loving Thisbe ev’n prevents the hour,
With cautious silence she unlocks the door,
And veils her face, and marching through the gloom,
Swiftly arrives at th’ assignation tomb.
For still the fearful sex can fearless prove,
Boldly they act, if spirited by love.
When, lo! a lioness rush’d o’er the plain,
Grimly besmear’d with blood of oxen slain:
And what to the dire sight new horrors brought,
To slake her thirst the neighb’ring spring she sought;
Which, by the moon, when trembling Thisbe spies,
Wing’d with her fear, swift as the wind, she flies,
And in a cave recovers from her fright,
But dropp’d her veil, confounded in her flight.
When sated with repeated draughts, again
The queen of beasts scour’d back along the plain:
She found the veil, and, mouthing it all o’er,
With bloody jaws the lifeless prey she tore.

“The youth, who could not cheat his guards so soon,
Late came, and noted by the glimmering moon
Some savage feet new printed on the ground,
His cheeks turn’d pale, his limbs no vigour found:
But when, advancing on, the veil he spied
Distain’d with blood, and ghastly torn, he cried,
‘One night shall death to two young lovers give,
But she deserved unnumber’d years to live!
’Tis I am guilty, I have thee betray’d,
Who came not early as my charming maid.
Whatever slew thee, I the cause remain,
I named and fix’d the place where thou wast slain.
Ye lions, from your neighb’ring dens repair,
Pity the wretch; this impious body tear!
But cowards thus for death can idly cry;
The brave still have it in their power to die.’
Then to the appointed tree he hastes away,
The veil first gather’d, though all rent it lay;
The veil all rent, yet still itself endears,
He kiss’d, and kissing, wash’d it with his tears.
‘Though rich,’ he cried, ‘with many a precious stain,
Still from my blood a deeper tincture gain.’
Then in his breast his shining sword he drown’d,
And fell supine extended on the ground.
As out again the blade he dying drew,
Out spun the blood, and streaming upwards flew.
So, if a conduit-pipe e’er burst you saw,
Swift spring the gushing waters through the flaw;
Then spouting in a bow they rise on high,
And a new fountain plays amid the sky.
The berries, stain’d with blood, began to show
A dark complexion, and forgot their snow,
While, fatten’d with the flowing gore, the root
Was doom’d for ever to a purple fruit.

“Meantime poor Thisbe fear’d, so long she stay’d,
Her lover might suspect a perjured maid.
Her fright scarce o’er, she strove the youth to find
With ardent eyes, which spoke an ardent mind.
Already in his arms, she hears him sigh
At her destruction, which was once so nigh.
The tomb, the tree, but not the fruit, she knew.
The fruit she doubted for its alter’d hue.
Still as she doubts, her eyes a body found,
Quivering in death, and gasping on the ground.
She started back, the red her cheeks forsook,
And every nerve with thrilling horrors shook.
So trembles the smooth surface of the seas,
If brush’d o’er gently with a rising breeze.
But when her view her bleeding love confess’d,
She shriek’d, she tore her hair, she beat her breast.
She raised the body, and embraced it round,
And bathed with tears unfeign’d the gaping wound;
Then her warm lips to the cold face applied,
‘And is it thus, ah! thus we meet?’ she cried,
‘My Pyramus! whence sprung thy cruel fate?
My Pyramus!⁠—ah speak, ere ’tis too late.
I, thy own Thisbe, but one word implore,
One word thy Thisbe never ask’d before.’
At Thisbe’s name, awaked, he open’d wide
His dying eyes, with dying eyes he tried
On her to dwell, but closed them slow, and died.

“The fatal cause was now at last explored,
Her veil she knew, and saw his sheathless sword:
‘From thy own hand thy ruin thou hast found,’
She said, ‘but love first taught that hand to wound:
Ev’n I for thee as bold a hand can show,
And love, which shall as true direct the blow.
I will against the woman’s weakness strive,
And never thee, lamented youth, survive.
The world may say I caused, alas! thy death,
But saw thee breathless, and resign’d my breath.
Fate, though it conquers, shall no triumph gain,
Fate, that divides us, still divides in vain.

“ ‘Now, both our cruel parents, hear my prayer;
My prayer to offer for us both I dare,
Oh! see our ashes in one urn confined,
Whom love at first, and fate at last, has join’d.
The bliss you envied is not our request;
Lovers, when dead, may sure together rest.
Thou, tree, where now one lifeless lump is laid,
Ere long o’er two shall cast a friendly shade.
Still let our loves from thee be understood,
Still witness in thy purple fruit our blood.’
She spoke, and in her bosom plunged the sword,
All warm and reeking from its slaughter’d lord.

“The prayer which dying Thisbe had preferr’d,
Both gods and parents with compassion heard.
The whiteness of the mulberry soon fled,
And, ripening, sadden’d in a dusky red;
While both their parents their lost children mourn,
And mix their ashes in one golden urn.”

Thus did the melancholy tale conclude,
And a short silent interval ensued.
The next in birth unloosed her artful tongue,
And drew attentive all the sister throng.

“The Sun, the source of light, by beauty’s power
Once amorous grew; then hear the sun’s amour.
Venus, and Mars, with his far-piercing eyes,
This god first spied; this god first all things spies.
Stung at the sight, and swift on mischief bent,
To haughty Juno’s shapeless son he went,
To him his consort’s shame to represent.
Poor Vulcan soon desired to hear no more,
He dropp’d his hammer, and he shook all o’er;
Then courage takes, and full of vengeful ire
He heaves the bellows, and blows fierce the fire;
From liquid brass, though sure, yet subtle snares
He forms, and next a wondrous net prepares,
Drawn with such curious art, so nicely sly,
Unseen the meshes cheat the searching eye.
Not half so thin their webs the spiders weave,
Which the most wary buzzing prey deceive.
These chains, obedient to the touch, he spread
In secret foldings o’er the conscious bed.

“Through heaven the news of this surprisal run,
But Venus did not thus forget the Sun.
He, who stolen transports idly had betray’d,
By a betrayer was in kind repaid.
What now avails, great god, thy piercing blaze,
That youth, and beauty, and those golden rays?
Thou, who canst warm this universe alone,
Feel’st now a warmth more pow’rful than thy own;
And those bright eyes, which all things should survey,
Know not from fair Leucothoe to stray.
The lamp of light, for human good design’d,
Is to one virgin niggardly confin’d.
Sometimes too early rise thy eastern beams,
Sometimes too late they set in western streams;
’Tis then her beauty thy swift course delays,
And gives to winter skies long summer days.
Now in thy face thy lovesick mind appears,
And spreads through impious nations empty fears;
For when thy beamless head is wrapp’d in night,
Poor mortals tremble in despair of light.
’Tis not the moon that o’er thee casts a veil,
’Tis love alone which makes thy looks so pale.
Leucothoe is grown thy only care,
Not Phaeton’s fair mother now is fair.
The youthful Rhodos moves no tender thought,
And beauteous Persa is at last forgot.
Fond Clytie, scorn’d, yet loved and sought thy bed,
Ev’n then thy heart for other virgins bled.
Leucothoe has all thy soul possess’d,
And chased each rival passion from thy breast.
To this bright nymph Eurynome gave birth,
In the bless’d confines of the spicy earth.
Excelling others, she herself beheld,
By her own blooming daughter far excell’d.
The sire was Orchamus, whose vast command,
The seventh from Belus, ruled the Persian land.

“Deep in cool vales, beneath the Hesperian sky,
For the Sun’s fiery steeds the pastures lie.
Ambrosia there they eat, and thence they gain
New vigour, and their daily toils sustain.
While thus on heavenly food the coursers fed,
And Night around her gloomy empire spread,
The god assumed the mother’s shape and air,
And pass’d unheeded to his darling fair.
Close by a lamp, with maids encompass’d round,
The royal spinster full employ’d he found:
Then cried, ‘Awhile from work, my daughter, rest,’
And, like a mother, scarce her lips he press’d.
‘Servants retire; nor secrets dare to hear,
Entrusted only to a daughter’s ear.’
They swift obey’d; not one, suspicious, thought
The secret which their mistress would be taught.
Then he: ‘Since now no witnesses are near,
Behold the god who guides the various year!
The world’s vast eye, of light the source serene,
Who all things sees, by whom are all things seen.
Believe me, nymph (for I the truth have show’d),
Thy charms have power to charm so great a god.’
Confused, she heard him his soft passion tell,
And on the floor, untwirl’d, the spindle fell:
Still from the sweet confusion some new grace
Blush’d out by stealth, and languish’d in her face.
The lover, now inflamed, himself put on,
And out at once the god all radiant shone.
The virgin startled at his alter’d form,
Too weak to bear a god’s impetuous storm.

“This Clytie knew, and knew she was undone,
Whose soul was fixed, and doted on the Sun.
She raged to think on her neglected charms,
And Phoebus panting in another’s arms.
With envious madness fired, she flies in haste,
And tells the king his daughter was unchaste.
The king, incensed to hear his honour stain’d,
No more the father nor the man retain’d.
In vain she stretch’d her arms, and turn’d her eyes
To her loved god, the enlightener of the skies.
In vain she own’d it was a crime, yet still
It was a crime not acted by her will.
The brutal sire stood deaf to every prayer,
And deep in earth entomb’d alive the fair.
What Phoebus could do was by Phoebus done,
Full on her grave with pointed beams he shone;
To pointed beams the gaping earth gave way;
Had the nymph eyes, her eyes had seen the day;
But lifeless now, yet lovely still, she lay.
Not more the god wept when the world was fired,
And in the wreck his blooming boy expired.
The vital flame he strives to light again,
And warm the frozen blood in every vein;
But since resistless fates denied that power,
On the cold nymph he rain’d a nectar shower.
‘Ah! undeserving thus,’ he said, ‘to die,
Yet still in odours thou shalt reach the sky.’
The body soon dissolved, and all around
Perfumed with heavenly fragrances the ground.
A sacrifice for gods uprose from thence,
A sweet delightful tree of frankincense.”

“Though guilty Clytie thus the Sun betray’d,
By too much passion she was guilty made.
Excess of love begot excess of grief,
Grief fondly bade her hence to hope relief.
But angry Phoebus hears unmoved her sighs,
And scornful from her loath’d embraces flies.
All day, all night, in trackless wilds alone
She pined, and taught the listening rocks her moan.
On the bare earth she lies, her bosom bare,
Loose her attire, dishevell’d is her hair.
Nine times the morn unbarr’d the gates of light,
As oft were spread the alternate shades of night,
So long no sustenance the mourner knew,
Unless she drank her tears, or suck’d the dew.
She turn’d about, but rose not from the ground,
Turn’d to the sun still as he roll’d his round;
On his bright face hung her desiring eyes,
Till, fix’d to earth, she strove in vain to rise;
Her looks their paleness in a flower retain’d,
But here and there some purple streaks they gain’d.
Still the loved object the fond leaves pursue,
Still move their root the moving sun to view,
And in the heliotrope the nymph is true.”

The sisters heard these wonders with surprise,
But part received them as romantic lies,
And pertly rallied, that they could not see
In powers divine so vast an energy.
Part own’d true gods such miracles might do,
But own’d not Bacchus one among the true.
At last a common, just request they make,
And beg Alcithoe her turn to take.
“I will,” said she, “and please you if I can;”
Then shot her shuttle swift, and thus began:

“The fate of Daphnis is a fate too known,
Whom an enamour’d nymph transform’d to stone;
Because she fear’d another nymph might see
The lovely youth, and love as much as she:
So strange the madness is of jealousy!
Nor shall I tell what changes Scython made,
And how he walk’d a man, or tripp’d a maid.
You too would peevish frown, and patience want
To hear, how Celmis grew an adamant:
He once was dear to Jove, and saw of old
Jove when a child; but what he saw he told.
Crocus and Smilax may be turn’d to flowers,
And the Curetes spring from bounteous showers.
I pass a hundred legends stale as these,
And with sweet novelty your taste will please.”

“How Salmacis, with weak, enfeebling streams,
Softens the body, and unnerves the limbs,
And what the secret cause, shall here be shown;
The cause is secret, but the effect is known.

“The Naiads nursed an infant heretofore,
That Citherea once to Hermes bore:
From both the illustrious authors of his race
The child was named, nor was it hard to trace
Both the bright parents through the infant’s face.
When fifteen years in Ida’s cool retreat
The boy had told, he left his native seat,
And sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil:
The pleasure lessen’d the attending toil.
With eager steps the Lycian fields he cross’d,
And fields that border on the Lycian coast:
A river here he view’d, so lovely bright,
It show’d the bottom in a fairer light,
Nor kept a sand conceal’d from human sight:
The stream produced nor slimy ooze, nor weeds,
Nor miry rushes, nor the spiky reeds,
But dealt enriching moisture all around,
The fruitful banks with cheerful verdure crown’d,
And kept the spring eternal on the ground.
A nymph presides, not practised in the chase,
Nor skilful at the bow, nor at the race;
Of all the blue-eyed daughters of the main,
The only stranger to Diana’s train.
Her sisters often, as ’tis said, would cry,
‘Fy, Salmacis: what! always idle; fy!
Or take thy quiver, or thy arrows seize,
And mix the toils of hunting with they ease.’
Nor quivers she, nor arrows, e’er would seize,
Nor mix the toils of hunting with her ease;
But oft would bathe her in the crystal tide,
Oft with a comb her dewy locks divide;
Now in the limpid stream she views her face,
And dress’d her image in the floating glass:
On beds of leaves she pow reposed her limbs,
Now gather’d flowers that grew about her streams,
And then by chance was gathering, as she stood
To view the boy, and long’d for what she view’d.

“Fain would she meet the youth with hasty feet,
She fain would meet him, but refused to meet
Before her looks were set with nicest care,
And well deserved to be reputed fair.

“ ‘Bright youth,’ she cries, ‘whom all thy features prove
A god, and, if a god, the god of love;
But if a mortal, bless’d thy nurse’s breast,
Bless’d are thy parents, and thy sisters bless’d:
But O! how bless’d, how more than bless’d thy bride!
Allied in bliss, if any yet allied.
If so, let mine the stolen enjoyments be;
If not, behold a willing bride in me.’

“The boy knew naught of love, and, touch’d with shame,
He strove, and blush’d, but still the blush became;
In rising blushes still fresh beauties rose;
The sunny side of fruit such blushes shows,
And such the moon, when all her silver white
Turns in eclipses to a ruddy light.
The nymph still begs, if not a nobler bliss,
A cold salute at least, a sister’s kiss;
And now prepares to take the lovely boy
Between her arms. He, innocently coy,
Replies, ‘Or leave me to myself alone,
You rude uncivil nymph, or I’ll be gone.’
‘Fair stranger, then,’ says she, ‘it shall be so;’
And, for she fear’d his threats, she feign’d to go;
But, hid within a covert’s neighbouring green,
She kept him still in sight, herself unseen.
The boy now fancies all the danger o’er,
And innocently sports about the shore;
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and shivers as he dips.
The coolness pleased him, and, with eager haste,
His airy garments on the banks he cast;
His godlike features, and his heavenly hue,
And all his beauties, were exposed to view.

“Now all undress’d upon the banks he stood,
And clapp’d his sides, and leap’d into the flood:
His lovely limbs the silver waves divide;
His limbs appear more lovely through the tide;
As lilies, shut within a crystal case,
Receive a glossy lustre from the glass.
‘He’s mine, he’s all my own,’ the Naiad cries,
And flings of all, and after him she flies.
And now she fastens on him as he swims,
And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs.
‘And why, coy youth,’ she cries, ‘why thus unkind?
O may the gods thus keep us over join’d!
O may we never, never part again!’
So pray’d the nymph, nor did she pray in vain:
For now she finds him, as his limbs she press’d.
Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast,
Till, piercing each the other’s flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in one:
Last, in one face are both their faces join’d,
As when the stock and grafted twig combined
Shoot up the same, and wear a common ring.”

But Mineus’ daughters still their task pursue,
To wickedness most obstinately true;
At Bacchus still they laugh, when all around,
Unseen, the timbrels hoarse were heard to sound.
Saffron and myrrh their fragrant odours shed,
And now the present deity they dread.
Strange to relate! here ivy first was seen,
Along the distaff crept the wondrous green;
Then sudden, springing vines began to bloom,
And the soft tendrils curl’d around the loom;
While purple clusters, dangling from on high,
Tinged the wrought purple with a second die.

Now from the skies was shot a doubtful light,
The day declining to the bounds of night.
The fabric’s firm foundations shake all o’er,
False tigers rage, and figured lions roar,
Torches, aloft, seem blazing in the air,
And angry flashes of red lightnings glare.
To dark recesses, the dire sight to shun,
Swift the pale sisters in confusion run:
Their arms were lost in pinions as they fled,
And subtle films each slender limb o’erspread.
Their alter’d forms their senses soon reveal’d;
Their forms, how alter’d, darkness still conceal’d.
Close to the roof each, wond’ring, upwards springs,
Borne on unknown, transparent, plumeless wings.
They strove for words; their little bodies found
No words, but murmur’d in a fainting sound.
In towns, not woods, the sooty bats delight,
And never till the dusk begin their flight;
Till Vesper rises with his evening flame,
From whom the Romans have derived their name.

The power of Bacchus now o’er Thebes had flown:
With awful reverence soon the god they own.
Proud Ino all around the wonder tells,
And on her nephew deity still dwells.
Of numerous sisters, she alone yet knew
No grief, but grief which she from sisters drew.

Imperial Juno saw her with disdain
Vain in her offspring, in her consort vain,
Who ruled the trembling Thebans with a nod,
But saw her vainest in her foster-god.
“Could then,” she cried, “a bastard boy have power
To make a mother her own son devour?
Could he the Tuscan crew to fishes change,
And now three sisters damn to forms so strange?
Yet shall the wife of Jove find no relief?
Shall she still unrevenged disclose her grief?
Have I the mighty freedom to complain?
Is that my power? Is that to ease my pain?
A foe has taught me vengeance; and who ought
To scorn that vengeance which a foe has taught?
What sure destruction frantic rage can throw,
The gaping wounds of slaughter’d Pentheus show.
Why should not Ino, fired with madness, stray,
Like her mad sisters her own kindred slay?
Why she not follow where they lead the way?”

Down a steep yawning cave where yews display’d
In arches meet, and lend a baleful shade,
Through silent labyrinths a passage lies
To mournful regions and infernal skies.
Here Styx exhales its noisome clouds, and here,
The funeral rites once paid, all souls appear,
Stiff, cold; and horror, with a ghastly face,
And staring eyes, infests the dreary place.
Ghosts, new-arrived, and strangers to these plains,
Know not the palace where grim Pluto reigns;
They journey doubtful, nor the road can tell,
Which leads to the metropolis of hell.
A thousand avenues those towers command,
A thousand gates for ever open stand.
As all the rivers, disembogued, find room
For all their waters in old Ocean’s womb,
So this vast city worlds of shades receives,
And space for millions still of worlds she leaves.
The unbodied spectres freely rove, and show
Whate’er they loved on earth they love below:
The lawyers still, or right or wrong support,
The courtiers smoothly glide to Pluto’s court,
Still airy heroes thoughts of glory fire,
Still the dead poet strings his deathless lyre,
And lovers still with fancied darts expire.

The queen of heaven, to gratify her hate,
And sooth immortal wrath, forgets her state;
Down from the realms of day to realms of night,
The goddess swift precipitates her flight.
At hell arrived, the noise hell’s porter heard,
The enormous dog his triple head uprear’d:
Thrice from three grisly throats he howl’d profound,
Then suppliant couch’d, and stretch’d along the ground.
The trembling threshold, which Saturnia press’d,
The weight of such divinity confess’d.

Before a lofty adamantine gate,
Which closed a tower of brass, the Furies sate;
Misshapen forms, tremendous to the sight,
The implacable foul daughters of the night.
A sounding whip each bloody sister shakes,
Or from her tresses combs the curling snakes.
But now great Juno’s majesty was known;
Through the thick gloom all heavenly bright she shone;
The hideous monsters their obedience show’d,
And, rising from their seats, submissive bow’d.

This is the place of wo, here groan the dead:
Huge Tityus o’er nine acres here is spread:
Fruitful for pain the immortal liver breeds,
Still grows, and still the insatiate vulture feeds:
Poor Tantalus to taste the water tries,
But from his lips the faithless water flies:
Then thinks the bending tree he can command;
The tree starts backwards, and eludes his hand:
The labour too of Sisyphus is vain;
Up the steep mount he heaves the stone with pain,
Down from the summit rolls the stone again:
The Belides their leaky vessels still
Are ever filling, and yet never fill;
Doom’d to this punishment for blood they shed,
For bridegrooms slaughter’d in the bridal bed;
Stretch’d on the rolling wheel Ixion lies;
Himself he follows, and himself he flies.
Ixion, tortured, Juno sternly eyed,
Then turn’d, and toiling Sisyphus espied:
“And why,” she said, “so wretched is the fate
Of him, whose brother proudly reigns in state?
Yet still my altars unadored have been
By Athamas and his presumptuous queen.”

What caused her hate, the goddess thus confess’d,
What caused her journey now was more than guess’d,
That hate, relentless, its revenge did want,
And that revenge the Furies soon could grant:
They could the glory of proud Thebes efface,
And hide in ruin the Cadmean race.
For this she largely promises, entreats,
And to entreaties adds imperial threats.

Then fell Tisiphone with rage was stung,
And from her mouth the untwisted serpents flung.
“To gain this trifling boon, there is no need,”
She cried, “in formal speeches to proceed.
Whatever thou command’st to do is done;
Believe it finish’d, though not yet begun.
But from these melancholy seats repair
To happier mansions, and to purer air.”
She spoke. The goddess, darting upwards, flies,
And joyous reascends her native skies:
Nor enter’d there, till round her Iris threw
Ambrosial sweets, and pour’d celestial dew.

The faithful fury, guiltless of delays,
With cruel haste the dire command obeys.
Girt in a bloody gown, a torch she shakes,
And round her neck twines speckled wreaths of snakes.
Fear, and dismay, and agonizing pain,
With frantic rage, complete her loveless train.
To Thebes her flight she sped, and hell forsook;
At her approach the Theban turrets shook;
The sun shrunk back, thick clouds the day o’ercast,
And springing greens were wither’d as she pass’d.

Now, dismal yellings heard, strange spectre seen,
Confound as much the monarch as the queen.
In vain to quit the palace they prepared,
Tisiphone was there, and kept the ward.
She wide extended her unfriendly arms,
And all the fury lavish’d all her harms,
Part of her tresses loudly hiss, and part
Spread poison, as their forky tongues they dart:
Then from her middle locks two snakes she drew,
Whose merit from superior mischief grew:
The envenom’d ruin, thrown with spiteful care,
Clung to the bosoms of the hapless pair.
The hapless pair soon with wild thoughts were fired,
And madness by a thousand ways inspired.
’Tis true, the unwounded body still was sound,
But ’twas the soul which felt the deadly wound.
Nor did the unsated monster here give o’er,
But dealt of plagues a fresh unnumber’d store.
Each baneful juice too well she understood,
Foam churn’d by Cerberus, and Hydra’s blood.
Hot hemlock and cold aconite she chose,
Delighted in variety of woes.
Whatever can untune the harmonious soul,
And its mild reas’ning faculties control,
Give false ideas, raise desires profane,
And whirl in eddies the tumultuous brain,
Mix’d with cursed art, she direfully around
Through all their nerves diffused the sad compound;
Then toss’d her torch in circles still the same,
Improved their rage, and added flame to flame.
The grinning fury her own conquest spied,
And to her rueful shades return’d with pride,
And threw the exhausted useless snakes aside.

Now Athamas cries out, his reason fled,
“Here, fellow-hunters, let the toils be spread.
I saw a lioness, in quest of food,
With her two young, run roaring in this wood.”
Again the fancied savages were seen,
As through his palace still he chased his queen;
Then tore Learchus from her breast: the child
Stretch’d little arms, and on its father smiled:
A father now no more, who now begun
Around his head to whirl his giddy son,
And, quite insensible to nature’s call,
The helpless infant flung against the wall.
The same mad poison in the mother wrought:
Young Melicerta in her arms she caught,
And with disorder’d tresses, howling, flies,
“O! Bacchus, Evoe, Bacchus!” loud she cries.
The name of Bacchus Juno laugh’d to hear,
And said, “Thy foster-god has cost thee dear.”

A rock there stood, whose side the beating waves
Had long consumed, and hollow’d into caves;
The head shot forwards in a bending steep,
And cast a dreadful covert o’er the deep.
The wretched Ino, on destruction bent,
Climb’d up the cliff, such strength her fury lent,
Thence with her guiltless boy, who wept in vain,
At one bold spring she plunged into the main.

Her niece’s fate touch’d Cytherea’s breast,
And in soft sounds she Neptune thus address’d:
“Great god of waters, whose extended sway
Is next to his whom heaven and earth obey,
Let not the suit of Venus thee displease,
Pity the floaters on the Ionian seas.
Increase thy subject-gods, nor yet disdain
To add my kindred to that glorious train.
If from the sea I may such honours claim,
If ’tis desert that from the sea I came,
As Grecian poets artfully have sung,
And in the name confess’d from whence I sprung.”

Pleased Neptune nodded his assent, and free
Both soon became from frail mortality.
He gave them form, and majesty divine,
And bade them glide along the foamy brine.
For Melicerta is Palaemon known,
And Ino once, Leucothoe is grown.

The Theban matrons their loved queen pursued,
And tracing to the rock, her footsteps view’d.
Too certain of her fate, they rend the skies
With piteous shrieks, and lamentable cries;
All beat their breasts, and Juno all upbraid,
Who still remember’d a deluded maid,
Who, still revengeful for one stolen embrace,
Thus wreak’d her hate on the Cadmean race.
This Juno heard: “And shall such elfs,” she cried
“Dispute my justice, or my power deride?
You too shall feel my wrath not idly spent;
A goddess never for insults was meant.”

She who loved most, and who most loved had been,
Said: “Not the waves shall part me from my queen.”
She strove to plunge into the roaring flood,
Fix’d to the stone, a stone herself she stood;
This, on her breast would fain her blows repeat;
Her stiffen’d hands refused her breast to beat;
That stretch’d her arms unto the seas, in vain
Her arms she labour’d to unstretch again.
To tear her comely locks another tried;
Both comely locks and fingers petrified.
Part thus; but Juno, with a softer mind,
Part doom’d to mix among the feather’d kind.
Transform’d, the name of Theban birds they keep,
And skim the surface of that fatal deep.

Meantime the wretched Cadmus mourns, nor knows
That they who mortal fell, immortal rose.
With a long series of new ills oppress’d,
He droops, and all the man forsakes his breast:
Strange prodigies confound his frighted eyes;
From the fair city, which he raised, he flies;
As it misfortune not pursued his race,
But only hung o’er that devoted place.
Resolved by sea to seek some distant land,
At last he safely gain’d the Illyrian strand.
Cheerless himself, his consort still he cheers,
Hoary, and laden both with woes and years.
Then to recount past sorrows they begin,
And trace them to the gloomy origin.
“That serpent sure was hallow’d,” Cadmus cried,
“Which once my spear transfix’d with foolish pride;
When the big teeth, a seed before unknown,
By me along the wond’ring glebe were sown,
And sprouting armies by themselves o’erthrown.
If thence the wrath of heaven on me is bent,
May heaven conclude it with one sad event;
To an extended serpent change the man;”
And, while he spoke, the wish’d-for change began.
His skin with sea-green spots was varied round,
And on his belly prone he press’d the ground;
He glitter’d soon with many a golden scale,
And his shrunk legs closed in a spiry tail;
Arms yet remain’d, remaining arms he spread
To his loved wife, and human tears yet shed.
“Come, my Harmonia, come, thy face recline
Down to my face; still touch what still is mine.
O! let these hands, while hands, be gently press’d,
While yet the serpent has not all possess’d.”
More he had spoke, but strove to speak in vain,
The forky tongue refused to tell his pain,
And learn’d in hissings only to complain.

Then shriek’d Harmonia: “Stay, my Cadmus, stay,
Glide not in such a monstrous shape away!
Destruction, like impetuous waves, rolls on.
Where are thy feet, thy legs, thy shoulders, gone?
Changed is thy visage, changed is all thy frame,
Cadmus is only Cadmus now in name.
Ye gods, my Cadmus to himself restore,
Or me like him transform; I ask no more.”

The husband serpent show’d he still had thought,
With wonted fondness an embrace he sought,
Play’d round her neck in many a harmless twist,
And lick’d that bosom which, a man, he kiss’d.
The lookers-on (for lookers-on there were),
Shock’d at the sight, half died away with fear.
The transformation was again renew’d,
And, like the husband, changed the wife they view’d.
Both serpents now, with fold involved in fold,
To the next covert amicably roll’d.
There curl’d they lie, or wave along the green,
Fearless see men, by men are fearless seen,
Still mild, and conscious what they once have been.

Yet though this harsh inglorious fate they found,
Each in the deathless grandson lived renown’d.
Through conquer’d India Bacchus nobly rode,
And Greece with temples hail’d the conquering god.
In Argos only proud Acrisius reign’d,
Who all the consecrated rites profaned.
Audacious wretch! thus Bacchus to deny,
And the great Thunderer’s great son defy!
Nor him alone: thy daughter vainly strove
Brave Perseus of celestial stem to prove,
And herself pregnant by a golden Jove.
Yet this was true, and truth in time prevails;
Acrisius now his unbelief bewails.
His former thought an impious thought he found,
And both the hero and the god were own’d.
He saw, already, one in heaven was placed,
And one with more than mortal triumphs graced.
The victor Perseus, with the Gorgon head,
O’er Libyan sands his airy journey sped.
The gory drops distill’d, as swift he flew,
And from each drop envenom’d serpents grew.
The mischiefs brooded on the barren plains,
And still the unhappy fruitfulness remains.

Thence Perseus, like a cloud, by storms was driven,
Through all the expanse beneath the cope of heaven.
The jarring winds unable to control,
He saw the southern and the northern pole;
And eastward thrice, and westward thrice, was whirl’d,
And from the skies survey’d the nether world.
But when gray evening show’d the verge of night,
He fear’d in darkness to pursue his flight.
He poised his pinions, and forgot to soar,
And, sinking, closed them on the Hesperian shore
Then begg’d to rest, till Lucifer begun
To wake the morn, the morn to wake the sun.

Here Atlas reign’d, of more than human size,
And in his kingdom the world’s limit lies.
Here Titan bids his wearied coursers sleep,
And cools the burning axle in the deep:
The mighty monarch, uncontroll’d, alone
His sceptre sways: no neighb’ring states are known:
A thousand flocks on shady mountains fed,
A thousand herds o’er grassy plains were spread:
Here wondrous trees their shining stores unfold,
Their shining stores too wondrous to be told,
Their leaves, their branches, and their apples, gold.
Then Perseus the gigantic prince address’d,
Humbly implored a hospitable rest:
“If bold exploits thy admiration fire,”
He said, “I fancy mine thou wilt admire:
Or, if the glory of a race can move,
Not mean my glory, for I spring from Jove.”
At this confession Atlas ghastly stared,
Mindful of what an oracle declared,
That the dark womb of time conceal’d a day,
Which should, disclosed, the bloomy gold betray;
All should at once be ravish’d from his eyes,
And Jove’s own progeny enjoy the prize.
For this, the fruit he loftily immured,
And a fierce dragon the strait pass secured:
For this, all strangers he forbade to land,
And drove them from the inhospitable strand.
To Perseus then: “Fly, quickly fly, this coast,
Nor falsely dare thy acts and race to boast.”
In vain the hero for one night entreats,
Threat’ning he storms, and next adds force to threats.
By strength not Perseus could himself defend;
For who in strength with Atlas could contend?
“But since short rest to me thou wilt not give,
A gift of endless rest from me receive.”
He said, and backward turn’d, no more conceal’d
The present, and Medusa’s head reveal’d.
Soon the high Atlas a high mountain stood;
His locks and beard became a leafy wood;
His hands and shoulders into ridges went;
The summit-head still crown’d the steep ascent;
His bones a solid, rocky hardness gain’d,
He, thus immensely grown (as Fate ordain’d),
The stars, the heavens, and all the gods, sustain’d.

Now Aeolus had with strong chains confined,
And deep imprison’d every blustering wind;
The rising Phospher with a purple light
Did sluggish mortals to new toils invite.
His feet again the valiant Perseus plumes,
And his keen sabre in his hand resumes:
Then nobly spurns the ground, and upwards springs,
And cuts the liquid air with sounding wings.
O’er various seas, and various lands, he pass’d,
Till Ethiopia’s shore appear’d at last.
Andromeda was there, doom’d to atone
By her own ruin follies not her own:
And if injustice in a god can be,
Such was the Libyan god’s unjust decree.
Chain’d to a rock she stood; young Perseus stay’d
His rapid flight, to view the beauteous maid.
So sweet her frame, so exquisitely fine,
She seem’d a statue by a hand divine,
Had not the wind her waving tresses show’d,
And down her cheeks the melting sorrows flow’d.
Her faultless form the hero’s bosom fires;
The more he looks, the more he still admires.
The admirer almost had forgot to fly,
And swift descended, fluttering from on high:
“O virgin! worthy no such chains to prove,
But pleasing chains in the soft folds of love;
Thy country, and thy name,” he said, “disclose,
And give a true rehearsal of thy woes.”

A quick reply her bashfulness refused,
To the free converse of a man unused.
Her rising blushes had concealment found
From her spread hands, but that her hands were bound.
She acted to her full extent of power,
And bathed her face with a fresh, silent shower.
But by degrees in innocence grown bold,
Her name, her country, and her birth she told:
And how she suffer’d for her mother’s pride,
Who with the Nereids once in beauty vied.
Part yet untold, the seas began to roar,
And mounting billows tumbled to the shore.
Above the waves a monster raised his head,
His body o’er the deep was widely spread:
Onward he flounced; aloud the virgin cries;
Each parent to her shrieks in shrieks replies:
But she had deepest cause to rend the skies.
Weeping, to her they cling; no sign appears
Of help, they only lend their helpless tears.
“Too long you vent your sorrows,” Perseus said,
“Short is the hour, and swift the time of aid;
In me the son of thundering Jove behold,
Got in a kindly shower of fruitful gold:
Medusa’s snaky head is now my prey,
And through the clouds I boldly wing my way:
If such desert be worthy of esteem,
And if your daughter I from death redeem,
Shall she be mine? Shall it not then be thought
A bride so lovely was too cheaply bought?
For her my arms I willingly employ,
If I may beauties, which I save, enjoy.”
The parents eagerly the terms embrace:
For who would slight such terms in such a case?
Nor her alone they promise, but, beside,
The dowry of a kingdom with the bride.

As well-rigg’d galleys, which slaves, sweating, row,
With their sharp beaks the whiten’d ocean plough;
So, when the monster moved, still at his back
The furrow’d waters left a foamy track.
Now to the rock he was advanced so nigh,
Whirl’d from a sling, a stone the space would fly.
Then, bounding upwards, the brave Perseus sprung,
And in mid air on hovering pinions hung.
His shadow quickly floated on the main;
The monster could not his wild rage restrain,
But at the floating shadow leap’d in vain.
As when Jove’s bird a speckled serpent spies,
Which in the shine of Phoebus basking lies,
Unseen, he souses down, and bears away,
Truss’d from behind, the vainly hissing prey.
To writhe his neck the labour naught avails,
Too deep the imperial talons pierce his scales.
Thus the wing’d hero now descends, now soars,
And at his pleasure the vast monster gores.
Full in his back, swift stooping from above,
The crooked sabre to its hilt he drove.
The monster raged, impatient of the pain,
First bounded high, and then sunk low again.
Now, like a savage boar, when chafed with wounds,
And bay’d with opening mouths of hungry hounds,
He on the foe turns with collected might,
Who still eludes him with an airy flight;
And, wheeling round, the scaly armour tries
Of his thick sides; his thinner tail now plies;
Till, from repeated strokes, out gush’d a flood,
And the waves redden’d with the streaming blood.
At last the dropping wings, befoam’d all o’er,
With flaggy heaviness their master bore:
A rock he spied, whose humble head was low,
Bare at an ebb, but cover’d at a flow.
A ridgy hold, he, thither flying, gain’d,
And with one hand his bending weight sustain’d;
With the other, vig’rous blows he dealt around,
And the home thrusts the expiring monster own’d.
In deaf’ning shouts the glad applauses rise,
And peal on peal runs rattling through the skies.
The saviour-youth the royal pair confess,
And with heaved hands their daughter’s bridegroom bless
The beauteous bride moves on, now loosed from chains,
The cause, and sweet reward, of all the hero’s pains.

Meantime on shore triumphant Perseus stood,
And purged his hands, smear’d with the monster’s blood:
Then in the windings of a sandy bed
Composed Medusa’s execrable head.
But to prevent the roughness, leaves he threw,
And young green twigs, which soft in waters grew,
There soft, and full of sap; but here, when laid,
Touch’d by the head, that softness soon decay’d.
The wonted flexibility quite gone,
The tender scions harden’d into stone.
Fresh juicy twigs, surprised, the Nereids brought,
Fresh juicy twigs the same contagion caught.
The nymphs the petrifying seeds still keep,
And propagate the wonder through the deep.
The pliant sprays of coral yet declare
Their stiff’ning nature, when exposed to air.
Those sprays, which did like bending osiers move,
Snatch’d from their element obdurate prove,
And shrubs beneath the waves grow stones above.

The great immortals grateful Perseus praised,
And to three powers three turfy altars raised.
To Hermes this; and that he did assign
To Pallas; the mid honours, Jove, were thine:
He hastes for Pallas a white cow to cull,
A calf for Hermes, but for Jove a bull.
Then seized the prize of his victorious fight,
Andromeda, and claim’d the nuptial rite,
Andromeda alone he greatly sought,
The dowry kingdom was not worth his thought.

Pleased Hymen now his golden torch displays;
With rich oblations fragrant altars blaze,
Sweet wreaths of choicest flowers are hung on high,
And cloudless pleasure smiles in every eye;
The melting music melting thoughts inspires,
And warbling songsters aid the warbling lyres;
The palace opens wide in pompous state,
And, by his peers surrounded, Cepheus sate;
A feast was served, fit for a king to give,
And fit for godlike heroes to receive.
The banquet ended, the gay cheerful bowl
Moved round, and brighten’d, and enlarged each soul.
Then Perseus ask’d what customs there obtain’d,
And by what laws the people were restrain’d;
Which told, the teller a like freedom takes,
And to the warrior his petition makes,
To know what arts had won Medusa’s snakes.

The hero with his just request complies,
Shows how a vale beneath cold Atlas lies,
Where, with aspiring mountains fenced around,
He the two daughters of old Phorcus found.
Fate had one common eye to both assign’d,
Each saw by turns, and each by turns was blind.
But while one strove to lend her sister sight,
He stretch’d his hand, and stole their mutual light,
And left both eyeless, both involved in night.
Through devious wilds, and trackless woods, he pass’d,
And at the Gorgon seats arrived at last:
But as he journey’d, pensive, he survey’d
What wasteful havoc dire Medusa made.
Here, stood still breathing statues, men before;
There, rampant lions seem’d in stone to roar.
Nor did he, yet affrighted, quit the field;
But in the mirror of his polish’d shield,
Reflected, saw Medusa slumbers take,
And not one serpent, by good chance, awake.
Then backward an unerring blow he sped,
And from her body lopp’d at once her head.
The gore prolific proved; with sudden force
Sprung Pegasus, and wing’d his airy course.

The heaven-born warrior faithfully went on,
And told the numerous dangers which he run;
What subject seas, what lands he had in view,
And nigh what stars the advent’rous hero flew.
At last he silent sat; the list’ning throng
Sigh’d at the pause of his delightful tongue.
Some begg’d to know why this alone should wear,
Of all the sisters, such destructive hair.

Great Perseus then: “With me you shall prevail,
Worth the relation, to relate a tale.
Medusa once had charms; to gain her love
A rival crowd of envious lovers strove.
They who have seen her own, they ne’er did trace
More moving features in a sweeter face:
Yet, above all, her length of hair, they own,
In golden ringlets waved, and graceful shone.
Her Neptune saw, and with such beauties fired,
Resolved to compass what his soul desired.
The bashful goddess turn’d her eyes away,
Nor durst such bold impurity survey;
But on the lovely virgin vengeance takes,
Her shining hair is changed to hissing snakes.
These, in her aegis, Pallas joys to bear:
The hissing snakes her foes more sure insnare,
Than they did lovers once, when shining hair.”