While Perseus entertain’d with this report
His father Cepheus, and the list’ning court,
Within the palace walls was heard aloud
The roaring noise of some unruly crowd;
Not like the songs which cheerful friends prepare
For nuptial days, but sounds that threaten’d war;
And all the pleasures of this happy feast,
To tumult turn’d, in wild disorder ceased:
So, when the sea is calm, we often find
A storm raised sudden by some furious wind.

Chief in the riot Phineus first appear’d,
The rash ringleader of this boist’rous herd,
And brandishing his brazen-pointed lance,
“Behold,” he said, “an injured man advance,
Stung with resentment for his ravish’d wife;
Nor shall thy wings, O Perseus, save thy life;
Nor Jove himself, though we’ve been often told,
Who got thee in the form of tempting gold.”
His lance was aim’d, when Cepheus ran and said,
“Hold! brother, hold! what brutal rage has made
Your frantic mind so black a crime conceive?
Are these the thanks that you to Perseus give?
This the reward that to his worth you pay,
Whose timely valour saved Andromeda?
Nor was it he, if you would reason right,
That forced her from you, but the jealous spite
Of envious Nereids, and Jove’s high decree,
And that devouring monster of the sea,
That ready, with his jaws wide gaping, stood
To eat my child, the fairest of my blood.
You lost her then, when she seem’d past relief,
And wish’d, perhaps, her death to ease your grief
With my afflictions: not content to view
Andromeda in chains, unhelp’d by you,
Her spouse, and uncle; will you grieve that he
Exposed his life the dying maid to free?
And shall you claim his merit? Had you thought
Her charms so great, you should have bravely sought
That blessing on the rocks where fix’d she lay:
But now let Perseus bear his prize away,
By service gain’d, by promised faith possess’d;
To him I owe it, that my age is bless’d
Still with a child: nor think that I prefer
Perseus to thee, but to the loss of her.”

Phineus on him and Perseus roll’d about
His eyes in silent rage, and seem’d to doubt
Which to destroy, till, resolute at length,
He threw his spear with the redoubled strength
His fury gave him, and at Perseus struck;
But missing Perseus, in his seat it stuck;
Who, springing nimbly up, return’d the dart,
And almost plunged it in his rival’s heart;
But he for safety to the altar ran;
Unfit protection for so vile a man:
Yet was the stroke not vain, as Rhoetus found,
Who in his brow received a mortal wound;
Headlong he tumbled, when his scull was broke,
From which his friends the fatal weapon took,
While he lay trembling, and his gushing blood
In crimson streams around the table flow’d.

But this provoked the unruly rabble worse:
They flung their darts; and some in loud discourse
To death young Perseus and the monarch doom;
But Cepheus left before the guilty room,
With grief appealing to the gods above,
Who laws of hospitality approve,
Who faith protect, and succour injured right,
That he was guiltless of this barb’rous fight.

Pallas her brother Perseus close attends,
And with her ample shield from harm defends,
Raising a sprightly courage in his heart:
But Indian Athis took the weaker part:
Born in the crystal grottoes of the sea,
Limnate’s son, a fenny nymph, and she
Daughter of Ganges: graceful was his mien,
His person lovely, and his age sixteen:
His habit made his native beauty more:
A purple mantle fringed with gold he wore;
His neck, well turn’d, with golden chains was graced;
His hair, with myrrh perfumed, was nicely dress’d.
Though with just aim he could the javelin throw,
Yet with more skill he drew the bending bow;
And now was drawing it with artful hand,
When Perseus, snatching up a flaming brand,
Whirl’d sudden at his face the burning wood,
Crush’d his eyes in, and quench’d the fire with blood;
Through the soft skin the splinter’d bones appear,
And spoil’d the face that lately was so fair.

When Lycabas his Athis thus beheld,
How was his heart with friendly horror fill’d!
A youth so noble, to his soul so dear,
To see his shapeless look, his dying groans to hear!
He snatch’d the bow the boy was used to bend,
And cried, “With me, false traitor, dare contend;
Boast not a conquest o’er a child, but try
Thy strength with me, who all thy powers defy,
Nor think so mean an act a victory.”
While yet he spoke he flung the whizzing dart,
Which pierced the plaited robe, but miss’d his heart.
Perseus defied, upon him fiercely press’d
With sword unsheathed, and plunged it in his breast:
His eyes o’erwhelm’d with night, he stumbling falls,
And with his latest breath on Athis calls;
Pleased that so near the lovely youth he lies,
He sinks his head upon his friend, and dies.

Next eager Phorbas, old Methion’s son,
Came rushing forward with Amphimedon,
When the smooth pavement, slippery made with gore,
Tripp’d up their feet, and flung them on the floor:
The sword of Perseus, who by chance was nigh,
Prevents their rise; and where they fall, they lie:
Full in his ribs Amphimedon he smote,
And then stuck fiery Phorbas in the throat.
Eurythus lifting up his axe, the blow
Was thus prevented by his nimble foe:
A golden cup he seizes, high emboss’d,
And at his head the massy goblet toss’d:
It hits, and from his forehead bruised rebounds,
And blood and brains he vomits from his wounds;
With his slain fellows on the floor he lies,
And death for ever shuts his swimming eyes.
Then Polydaemon fell, a goddess born:
Phlegias and Elycen, with locks unshorn,
Next follow’d: next the stroke of death he gave
To Clytus, Abanis, and Lycetus brave;
While o’er unnumber’d heaps of ghastly dead
The Argive hero’s feet triumphant tread.

But Phineus stands aloof, and dreads to feel
His rival’s force, and flies his pointed steel;
Yet threw a dart from far; by chance it lights
On Idas, who for neither party fights:
But wounded, sternly thus to Phineus said:
“Since of a neuter thou a foe hast made,
This I return thee,” drawing from his side
The dart, which, as he strove to fling, he died.
Odites fell by Clymenus’s sword;
The Cephen court had not a greater lord.
Hypseus his blade does in Protenor sheath;
But brave Lyncides soon revenged his death.
Here too was old Emathion, one that fear’d
The gods, and in the cause of Heaven appear’d,
Who, only wishing the success of right,
And by his age exempted from the fight,
Both sides alike condemns: “This impious war
Cease, cease,” he cries; “these bloody broils forbear.”
This scarce the sage, with high concern, had said,
When Chromis, at a blow, struck off his head,
Which, dropping, on the royal altar roll’d,
Still staring on the crowd with aspect bold;
And still it seem’d their horrid strife to blame;
In life and death his pious zeal the same:
While clinging to the horns the trunk expires,
The sever’d head consumes amid the fires.

Then Phineus, who from far his javelin threw,
Broteas and Ammon, twins and brothers, slew;
For knotted gauntlets matchless in the field;
But gauntlets must to swords and javelins yield.
Ampycus next, with hallow’d fillets bound,
As Ceres’ priest, and with a mitre crown’d,
His spear transfix’d, and struck him to the ground.

O Iapetides, with pain I tell
How you, sweet lyrist, in the riot fell:
What worse than brutal rage his breast could fill
Who did thy blood, O bard celestial! spill?
Kindly you press’d amid the princely throng,
To crown the feast, and give the nuptial song:
Discord abhorr’d the music of thy lyre,
Whose notes did gentle peace so well inspire:
Thee when fierce Pettalus far off espied,
Defenceless with thy harp, he scoffing cried,
“Go, to the ghosts thy soothing lessons play;
We loathe thy lyre, and scorn thy peaceful lay;”
And, as again he fiercely bid him go,
He pierced his temples with a mortal blow.
His harp he held, though sinking on the ground,
Whose strings in death his trembling fingers found,
By chance, and tuned by chance a dying sound.

With grief Lycormas saw him fall, from far,
And wresting from the door a massy bar,
Full in his poll lays on a load of knocks,
Which stun him, and he falls like a devoted ox.
Another bar Pelates would have snatch’d,
But Corythus his motions slyly watch’d;
He darts his weapon from a private stand,
And rivets to the post his veiny hand;
When straight a missive spear transfix’d his side,
By Abas thrown, and, as he hung, he died.

Melaneus on the prince’s side was slain,
And Dorylas, who own’d a fertile plain,
Of Nasamonia’s fields the wealthy lord,
Whose crowded barns could scarce contain their hoard:
A whizzing spear obliquely gave a blow,
Stuck in his groin, and pierced the nerves below:
His foe beheld his eyes convulsive roll,
His ebbing veins, and his departing soul,
Then taunting said: “Of all thy spacious plains,
This spot thy only property remains.”
He left him thus; but had no sooner left,
Than Perseus in revenge his nostrils cleft;
From his friend’s breast the murdering dart he drew,
And the same weapon at the murderer threw;
His head in halves the darted javelin cut,
And on each side the brain came issuing out.

Fortune his friend, his deaths around he deals,
And this his lance, and that his falchion feels:
Now Clytius dies; and, by a different wound,
The twin, his brother Clanis, bites the ground:
In his rent jaw the bearded weapon sticks,
And the steel’d dart does Clytius’ thigh transfix.
With these Mendesian Celadon he slew;
And Astreus next, whose mother was a Jew;
His sire uncertain: then by Perseus fell
Aethion, who could things to come foretell;
But now he knows not whence the javelin flies
That wounds his breast, nor by whose arm he dies.

The squire to Phineus next his valour tried,
And fierce Agyrtes stain’d with parricide.

As these are slain, fresh numbers still appear,
And wage with Perseus an unequal war;
To rob him of his right⁠—the maid he won,
By honour, promise, and desert his own.
With him the father of the beauteous bride,
The mother, and the frighted virgin, side:
With shrieks and doleful cries they rend the air:
Their shrieks confounded with the din of war,
With clashing arms, and groanings of the slain,
They grieve unpitied, and unheard complain.
The floor with ruddy streams Bellona stains;
And Phineus a new war with double rage maintains.

Perseus begirt, from all around they pour
Their lances on him, a tempestuous shower,
Aim’d all at him; a cloud of darts and spears,
Or blind his eyes, or whistle round his ears.
Their numbers to resist, against the wall
He guards his back secure, and dares them all.
Here from the left Molpeus renews the fight,
And bold Ethemon presses on the right:
As when a hungry tiger near him hears
Two lowing herds, a while he both forbears,
Nor can his hopes of this or that renounce,
So strong he lusts to prey on both at once:
Thus Perseus now with that or this is loath
To war distinct, but rain would fall on both:
And first Chaonian Molpeus felt his blow,
And fled, and never after faced his foe:
Then fierce Ethemon, as he turn’d his back,
Hurried with fury, aiming at his neck,
His brandish’d sword against the marble struck
With all his might; the brittle weapon broke,
And in his throat the point rebounding stuck.
Too slight the wound for life to issue thence,
And yet too great for battle or defence:
His arms extended, in this piteous state,
For mercy he would sue, but sues too late;
Perseus has in his bosom plunged the sword,
And ere he speaks, the wound prevents the word.

The crowds increasing, and his friends distress’d
Himself by warring multitudes oppress’d;
“Since thus unequally you fight, ’tis time,”
He cried, “to punish your presumptuous crime:
Beware, my friends:” his friends were soon prepar’d;
Their sight averting, high the head he rear’d,
And Gorgon on his foes severely stared.
“Vain shift!” says Thescelus, with aspect bold,
“Thee and thy bugbear monster I behold
With scorn:” he lifts his arm, but ere he threw
The dart, the hero to a statue grew.
In the same posture still the marble stands,
And holds the warrior’s weapons in its hands.
Amphyx, whom yet this wonder can’t alarm,
Heaves at Lyncides’ breast his impious arm;
But, while thus daringly he presses on,
His weapon and his arrn are turn’d to stone.
Next Nileus, he who vainly said he owed
His origin to Nile’s prolific flood;
Who on his shield seven silver rivers bore,
His birth to witness by the arms he wore;
Full of his sevenfold father, thus express’d
His boast to Perseus, and his pride confess’d:
“See whence we sprung: let this thy comfort be,
In thy sure death, that thou did’st die by me.”
While yet he spoke, the dying accents hung
In sounds imperfect on his marble tongue:
Though changed to stone, his lips he seem’d to stretch,
And through the insensate rock would force a speech.

This Eryx saw, but seeing would not own:
“The mischief by yourselves,” he cries, “is done;
’Tis your cold courage turns your hearts to stone:
Come, follow me; fall on the stripling boy,
Kill him, and you his magic arms destroy.”
Then rushing on, his arm to strike he rear’d,
And marbled o’er his varied frame appear’d.

These for affronting Pallas were chastised,
And justly met the death they had despised;
But brave Aconteus, Perseus’ friend, by chance
Look’d back, and met the Gorgon’s fatal glance;
A statue now become, he ghastly stares,
And still the foe to mortal combat dares.
Astyages the living likeness knew,
On the dead stone with vengeful fury flew;
But impotent his rage; the jarring blade
No print upon the solid marble made:
Again, as with redoubled might he struck,
Himself astonish’d in the quarry stuck.

The vulgar deaths ’twere tedious to rehearse,
And fates below the dignity of verse:
Their safety in their flight two hundred found;
Two hundred by Medusa’s head were stoned.
Fierce Phineus now repents the wrongful fight,
And views his varied friends; a dreadful sight;
He knows their faces, for their help he sues,
And thinks, not hearing him, that they refuse;
By name he begs their succour, one by one,
Then doubts their life, and feels the friendly stone.
Struck with remorse, and conscious of his pride,
Convict of sin, he turn’d his eyes aside;
With suppliant mien, to Perseus thus he prays:
“Hence with the head, as far as winds and seas
Can bear thee; hence; O quit the Cephen shore,
And never curse us with Medusa more;
That horrid head, which stiffens into stone
Those impious men, who, daring death, look on.
I warr’d not with thee out of hate or strife;
My honest cause was to defend my wife,
First pledged to me: what crime could I suppose,
To arm my friends, and vindicate my spouse?
But vain, too late, I see, was our design;
Mine was the title, but the merit thine.
Contending made me guilty, I confess;
But penitence should make that guilt the less:
’Twas thine to conquer by Minerva’s power;
Favour’d by heaven, thy mercy I implore;
For life I sue, the rest to thee I yield:
In pity from my sight remove the shield.”
He suing said, nor durst revert his eyes
On the grim head; and Perseus thus replies:
“Coward, what is in me to grant I will,
Nor blood, unworthy of my valour, spill;
Fear not to perish by my vengeful sword;
From that secure, ’tis all the Fates afford.
Where now I see thee, thou shalt still be seen,
A lasting monument, to please our queen;
There still shall thy betroth’d behold her spouse,
And find his image in her father’s house.”
This said, where Phineus turn’d to shun the shield,
Full in his face the staring head he held;
As here and there he strove to turn aside,
The wonder wrought; the man was petrified:
All marble was his frame, his humid eyes
Dropp’d tears, which hung upon the stone like ice;
In suppliant posture, with uplifted hands,
And fearful look, the guilty statue stands

Hence Perseus to his native city hies,
Victorious, and rewarded with his prize:
Conquest, o’er Praetus the usurper, won,
He reinstates his grandsire in the throne.
Praetus his brother dispossess’d by might,
His realm enjoy’d, and still detain’d his right:
But Perseus pull’d the haughty tyrant down,
And to the rightful king restored the throne;
Weak was the usurper, as his cause was wrong:
Where Gorgon’s head appears, what arms are strong?
When Perseus to his host the monster held,
They soon were statues, and their king expell’d.

Thence to Seriphus with the head he sails,
Whose prince his story treats as idle tales:
Lord of a little isle, he scorns to seem
Too credulous, but laughs at that and him;
Yet did he not so much suspect the truth,
As, out of pride or envy, hate the youth.
The Argive prince, at his contempt enraged,
To force his faith by fatal proof engaged:
“Friends, shut your eyes,” he cries: his shield he takes,
And to the king exposed Medusa’s snakes:
The monarch felt the power he would not own,
And stood convict of folly in the stone.

Thus far Minerva was content to rove
With Perseus, offspring of her father Jove:
Now hid in clouds Seriphus she forsook,
And to the Theban towers her journey took;
Cythnos and Gyaros, lying to the right,
She pass’d unheeded in her eager flight;
And choosing first on Helicon to rest,
The virgin muses in these words address’d:

“Me the strange tidings of a new-found spring,
Ye learned sisters, to this mountain bring.
If all the true that Fame’s wide rumours tell,
’Twas Pegasus discover’d first your well;
Whose piercing hoof gave the soft earth a blow,
Which broke the surface where these waters flow.
I saw that horse by miracle obtain
Life, from the blood of dire Medusa slain;
And now this equal prodigy to view,
From distant isles to famed Boeotia few.”

The muse Urania said: “Whatever cause
So great a goddess to this mansion draws,
Our shades are happy with so bright a guest;
You, queen, are welcome, and we muses bless’d.
What Fame has publish’d of our spring is true;
Thanks for our spring to Pegasus are due.”
Then with becoming courtesy, she led
The curious stranger to their fountain’s head,
Who long survey’d, with wonder and delight,
Their sacred water, charming to the sight;
Their ancient groves, dark grottoes, shady bowers,
And smiling plains, adorn’d with various flowers.
“O happy muses!” she with rapture cried,
“Who, safe from cares, on this fair hill reside;
Bless’d in your seat, and free, yourselves to please
With joys of study, and with glorious ease.”

Then one replies: “O goddess, fit to guide
Our humble works, and in our choir preside,
Who sure would wisely to these fields repair,
To taste our pleasures, and our labours share,
Were not your virtue and superior mind,
To higher arts and nobler deeds inclined;
Justly you praise our works, and pleasing seat,
Which all might envy in this soft retreat,
Were we secured from dangers and from harms;
But maids are frighten’d with the least alarms,
And none are safe in this licentious time:
Still fierce Pyreneus, and his daring crime,
With lasting horror strikes my feeble sight,
Nor is my mind recover’d from the fright.
With Thracian arms this bold usurper gain’d
Daulis and Phocis, where he proudly reign’d.
It happen’d once, as through his lands we went,
For the bright temple of Parnassus bent,
He met us there, and, in his artful mind,
Hiding the faithless action he design’d,
Conferr’d on us (whom, O too well he knew!)
All honours that to goddesses are due.
‘Stop, stop, ye muses, ’tis your friend who calls,’
The tyrant said; ‘behold the rain that falls
On every side, and that ill-boding sky,
Whose lowering face portends more storms are nigh:
Pray make my house your own, and, void of fear,
While this bad weather lasts, take shelter here:
Gods have made meaner places their resort,
And for a cottage left their shining court.’

“Obliged to stop, by the united force
Of pouring rains, and complaisant discourse,
His courteous invitation we obey,
And in his hall resolve a while to stay.
Soon it clear’d up, the clouds began to fly,
The driving north refined the showery sky;
Then to pursue our journey we began;
But the false traitor to his portal ran;
Stopp’d our escape; the door securely barr’d,
And to our honour violence prepared;
But we, transform’d to birds, avoid his snare,
On pinions rising in the yielding air.

“But he, by lust and indignation fired,
Up to his highest tower with speed retired,
And cries ‘In vain you from my arms withdrew,
The way you go your lover will pursue.’
Then in a flying posture wildly placed,
And daring from that height himself to cast,
The wretch fell headlong, and the ground bestrew’d
With broken bones, and stains of guilty blood.”

The muse yet spoke, when they began to hear
A noise of wings that flutter’d in the air;
And straight a voice, from some high-spreading bough,
Seem’d to salute the company below.
The goddess wonder’d, and inquired from whence
That tongue was heard, that spoke so plainly sense.
(It seem’d to her a human voice to be,
But proved a bird’s; for in a shady tree
Nine magpies perch’d, lament their alter’d state,
And what they hear are skilful to repeat.)

The sister to the wondering goddess said,
“These, foil’d by us, by us were thus repaid:
These did Evippe of Paeonia bring,
With nine hard labour-pangs, to Pella’s king.
The foolish virgins, of their number proud,
And puff’d with praises of the senseless crowd,
Through all Achaia and the Aemonian plains,
Defied us thus, to match their artless strains:
‘No more, ye Thespian girls, your notes repeat,
Nor with false harmony the vulgar cheat;
In voice or skill if you with us will vie,
As many we in voice or skill will try:
Surrender you to us, if we excel,
Famed Aganippe, and Medusa’s well:
The conquest yours, your prize from us shall be
The Aemathian plains to snowy Paeone:
The nymphs our judges.’ To dispute the field
We thought a shame; but greater shame to yield.
On seats of living stone the sisters sit,
And by the rivers swear to judge aright.”

“Then rises one of the presumptuous throng,
Steps rudely forth, and first begins the song;
=With vain address describes the giants’ wars,
And to the gods their fabled acts prefers.
She sings from earth’s dark womb how Typhon rose,
And struck with mortal fear his heavenly foes;
How the gods fled to Egypt’s slimy soil,
And hid their heads beneath the banks of Nile;
How Typhon from the conquer’d skies pursued
Their routed godheads to the seven-mouth’d flood:
Forced every god, his fury to escape,
Some beastly form to take, or earthly shape.
Jove (so she sung) was changed into a ram,
From whence the horns of Lybian Ammon came:
Bacchus a goat; Apollo was a crow;
Phoebe a cat; the wife of Jove a cow,
Whose hue was whiter than the falling snow;
Mercury to a nasty ibis turn’d,
The change obscene, afraid of Typhon mourn’d;
While Venus from a fish protection craves,
And once more plunges in her native waves.

“She sung, and to her harp her voice applied:
Then us again to match her they defied:
But our poor song, perhaps, for you to hear,
Nor leisure serves, nor is it worth your ear.”
“That causeless doubt remove, O muse; rehearse,”
The goddess cried, “your ever-grateful verse:”
Beneath a checker’d shade she takes her seat,
And bids the sister her whole song repeat.
The sister thus: “Calliope we chose
For the performance.” The sweet virgin rose,
With ivy crown’d; she tunes her golden strings,
And to her harp this composition sings:

“First Ceres taught the labouring hind to plough
The pregnant earth, and quick’ning seed to sow;
She first for man did wholesome food provide,
And with just laws the wicked world supplied:
All good from her derived, to her belong
The grateful tributes of the muse’s song;
Her more than worthy of our verse we deem;
Oh! were our verse more worthy of the theme!

“Jove on the giant fair Trinacria hurl’d,
And with one bolt revenged his starry world.
Beneath her burning hills Typhoeus lies,
And, struggling always, strives in vain to rise.
Down does Pelorus his right hand suppress
Towards Latium; on the left Pachyne weighs:
His legs are under Lilybaeum spread,
And Aetna presses hard his horrid head:
On his broad back he there extended lies,
And vomits clouds of ashes to the skies:
Oft labouring with his load, at last he tires,
And pours out in revenge a flood of fires:
Mountains he struggles to o’erwhelm, and towns;
Earth’s inmost bowels quake, and Nature groans:
His terrors reach the direful king of hell;
He fears his throes will to the day reveal
The realms of night, and fright his trembling ghosts.

“This to prevent, he quits the Stygian coasts,
In his black car, by sooty horses drawn,
Fair Sicily he seeks, and dreads the dawn:
Around her plains he casts his eager eyes,
And every mountain to the bottom tries.
But when, in all the careful search, he saw
No cause of fear, no ill-suspected flaw;
Secure from harm, and wand’ring on at will,
Venus beheld him from her flowery bill;
When straight the dame her little Cupid press’d,
With secret rapture, to her snowy breast,
And in these words the fluttering boy address’d:

“ ‘O thou, my arms, my glory, and my power,
My son, whom men and deathless gods adore,
Bend thy sure bow, whose arrows never miss’d,
No longer let hell’s king thy sway resist;
Take him, while straggling from his dark abodes,
He coasts the kingdoms of superior gods.
If sovereign Jove, if gods who rule the waves,
And Neptune, who rules them, have been thy slaves,
Shall hell be free? The tyrant strike, my son;
Enlarge thy mother’s empire, and thy own:
Let not our heaven be made the mock of hell,
But Pluto to confess thy power compel.
Our rule is slighted in our native skies;
See Pallas, see Diana too, defies
Thy darts, which Ceres’ daughter would despise:
She too our empire treats with awkward scorn:
Such insolence no longer’s to be borne:
Revenge our slighted reign, and with thy dart
Transfix the virgin’s to the uncle’s heart.’

“She said; and from his quiver straight he drew
A dart that surely would the business do;
She guides his hand; she makes her touch the test,
And of a thousand arrows chose the best:
No feather better poised, a sharper head
None had, and sooner none, and surer sped.
He bends his how, he draws it to his ear,
Through Pluto’s heart it drives, and fixes there.”

Near Enna’s walls a spacious lake is spread,
Famed for the sweetly-singing swans it bred;
Pergusa is its name: and never more
Were heard, or sweeter on Cayster’s shore.
Woods crown the lake; and Phoebus ne’er invades
The tufted fences, or offends the shades:
Fresh fragrant breezes fan the verdant bowers,
And the moist ground smiles with enamell’d flowers:
The cheerful birds their airy carols sing,
And the whole year is one eternal spring.

Here while young Proserpine, among the maids,
Diverts herself in these delicious shades;
While, like a child, with busy speed and care,
She gathers lilies here, and violets there;
While first to fill her little lap she strives,
Hell’s grisly monarch at the shade arrives;
Sees her thus sporting on the flowery green,
And loves the blooming maid as soon as seen.
His urgent flame impatient of delay,
Swift as his thought he seized the beauteous prey,
And bore her in his sooty car away.
The frighted goddess to her mother cries;
But all in vain, for now far off she flies;
Far she behind her leaves her virgin train;
To them too cries, and cries to them in vain;
And while with passion she repeats her call,
The violets from her lap and lilies fall:
She misses them, poor heart! and makes new moan;
Her lilies, ah! are lost, her violets gone.

O’er hills the ravisher and valleys speeds,
By name encouraging his foamy steeds;
He rattles o’er their necks the rusty reins,
And ruffles with the stroke their shaggy manes.
O’er lakes he whirls his flying wheels, and comes
To the Palici, breathing sulph’rous fumes;
And thence to where the Bacchiads of renown,
Between unequal havens, built their town;
Where Arethusa, round the imprison’d sea,
Extends her crooked coast to Cyane;
The nymph who gave the neighb’ring lake a name,
Of all Sicilian nymphs the first in fame:
She from the waves advanced her beauteous head;
The goddess knew, and thus to Pluto said:
“Farther thou shalt not with the virgin run;
Ceres unwilling, canst thou be her son?
The maid should be by sweet persuasion won:
Force suits not with the softness of the fair;
For, if great things with small I may compare,
Me Anapis once loved; a milder course
He took, and won me by his words, not force.”

Then, stretching out her arms, she stopp’d his way:
But he, impatient of the shortest stay,
Throws to his dreadful steeds the slacken’d rein,
And strikes his iron sceptre through the main;
The depths profound through yielding waves he cleaves,
And to hell’s centre a free passage leaves;
Down sinks his chariot, and his realms of night
The god soon reaches with a rapid flight.

But still does Cyane the rape bemoan,
And with the goddess’ wrongs laments her own:
For the stolen maid, and for her injured spring,
Time to her trouble no relief can bring;
In her sad heart a heavy load she bears,
Till the dumb sorrow turns her all to tears:
Her mingling waters with that fountain pass,
Of which she late immortal goddess was;
Her varied members to a fluid melt;
A pliant softness in her bones is felt;
Her wavy locks first drop away in dew,
And liquid next her slender fingers grew;
The body’s change soon seizes its extreme;
Her legs dissolve, and feet flow off in stream;
Her arms, her back, her shoulders, and her side,
Her swelling breasts, in little currents glide;
A silver liquor only now remains
Within the channel of her purple veins;
Nothing to fill love’s grasp: her husband chaste
Bathes in that bosom he before embraced.

Thus while through all the earth and all the main,
Her daughter mournful Ceres sought in vain,
Aurora, when with dewy looks she rose,
Nor burnish’d Vesper found her in repose.
At Aetna’s flaming mouth two pitchy pines,
To light her in her search, at length she tines;
Restless, with these, through frosty night she goes,
Nor fears the cutting winds, nor heeds the snows;
And when the morning star the day renews,
From east to west her absent child pursues.

Thirsty at last by long fatigue she grows,
But meets no spring, no riv’let near her flows:
Then looking round, a lowly cottage spies,
Smoking among the trees, and thither hies.
The goddess knocking at the little door,
’Twas open’d by a woman old and poor,
Who, when she begg’d for water, gave her ale
Brew’d long, but well preserved from being stale.
The goddess drank: a chuffy lad was by,
Who saw the liquor with a grudging eye,
And grinning cries, “She’s greedy more than dry.”

Ceres, offended at his foul grimace,
Flung what she had not drunk into his face.
The sprinklings speckle where they hit the skin,
And a long tail does from his body spin;
His arms are turn’d to legs, and, lest his size
Should make him mischievous, and he might rise
Against mankind, diminutives his frame
Less than a lizard, but in shape the same.
Amazed the dame the wondrous sight beheld,
And weeps, and fain would touch her quondam child;
Yet her approach the affrighted vermin shuns,
And fast into the greatest crevice runs:
A name they gave him, which the spots express’d,
That rose like stars, and varied all his1 breast.

What lands, what seas, the goddess wander’d o’er,
Were long to tell; for there remain’d no more;
Searching all round, her fruitless toil she mourns,
And with regret to Sicily returns.
At length, where Cyane now flows she came,
Who could have told her, were she still the same
As when she saw her daughter sink to hell;
But what she knows she wants a tongue to tell;
Yet this plain signal manifestly gave;
The virgin’s girdle floating on a wave,
As late she dropp’d it from her slender waist,
When with her uncle through the deep she pass’d.
Ceres the token by her grief confess’d,
And tore her golden hair, and beat her breast:
She knows not on what land her curse should fall,
But, as ingrate, alike upbraids them all,
Unworthy of her gifts; Trinacria most,
Where the last steps she found of what she lost.
The plough for this the vengeful goddess broke,
And with one death the ox and owner struck.
In vain the fallow fields the peasant tills,
The seed, corrupted ere ’tis sown, she kills;
The fruitful soil, that once such harvests bore,
Now mocks the farmer’s care, and teems no more,
And the rich grain, which fills the furrow’d glade,
Rots in the seed, or shrivels in the blade;
Or too much sun burns up, or too much rain
Drowns, or black blights destroy the blasted plain;
Or greedy birds the new-sown seed devour;
Or darnel, thistles, and a crop impure
Of knotted grass, along the acres stand,
And spread their thriving roots through all the land.

Then from the waves soft Arethusa rears
Her head, and back she flings her dropping hairs.
“O mother of the maid, whom thou so far
Hast sought, of whom thou canst no tidings hear;
O thou,” she cried, “who art to life a friend,
Cease here thy search, and let thy labour end.
Thy faithful Sicily’s a guiltless clime,
And should not suffer for another’s crime;
She neither knew nor could prevent the deed:
Nor think that for my country thus I plead:
My country’s Pisa; I’m an alien here;
Yet these abodes to Elis I prefer;
No clime to me so sweet, no place so dear.
These springs I, Arethusa, now possess,
And this my seat, O gracious goddess, bless.
This island why I love, and why I cross’d
Such spacious seas to reach Ortygia’s coast,
To you I shall impart, when, void of care,
Your heart’s at ease, and you’re more fit to hear;
When on your brow no pressing sorrow sits;
For gay content alone such tales admits.
When through earth’s caverns I a while have roll’d
My waves, I rise, and here again behold
The long-lost stars; and, as I late did glide
Near Styx, Proserpina there I espied:
Fear still with grief might in her face be seen;
She still her loss laments: yet, made a queen,
Beneath those gloomy shades her sceptre sways;
And ev’n the infernal king her will obeys.”

This heard, the goddess like a statue stood,
Stupid with grief, and in that musing mood
Continued long; new cares a while suppress’d
The reigning powers of her immortal breast.
At last to Jove, her daughter’s sire, she flies,
And with her chariot cuts the crystal skies:
She comes in clouds, and with dishevell’d hair,
Standing before his throne, prefers her prayer:

“King of the gods, defend my blood and thine,
And use it not the worse for being mine.
If I no more am gracious in thy sight,
Be just, O Jove, and do thy daughter right.
In vain I sought her the wide world around,
And when I most despair’d to find her, found.
But how can I the fatal finding boast,
By which I know she is for ever lost?
Without her father’s aid, what other power
Can to my arms the lovely maid restore?
Let him restore her, I’ll the crime forgive;
My child, dishonour’d, I’d with joy receive.
Pity your daughter with a thief should wed,
Though mine, you think, deserves no better bed.”

Jove thus replies: “It equally belongs
To both to guard our common pledge from wrongs:
But if to things we proper names apply,
This hardly can be call’d an injury:
The theft is love; nor need we blush to own
The thief, if I can judge, to be our son;
Had you of his desert no other proof,
To be Jove’s brother is, methinks, enough:
Nor was my throne by worth superior got;
Heaven fell to me, as hell to him, by lot:
If you are still resolved her loss to mourn,
And nothing less will serve than her return,
Upon these terms she may again be yours
(The irrevocable terms of fate, not ours);
Of Stygian food if she did never taste,
Hell’s bounds may then, and only then, be pass’d.”

The goddess now, resolving to succeed,
Down to the gloomy shades descends with speed;
But adverse fate had otherwise decreed;
For, long before, her giddy, thoughtless child
Had broke her fast, and all her projects spoil’d.
As in the garden’s shady walk she stray’d,
A fair pomegranate charm’d the simple maid,
Hung in her way, and tempting her to taste,
She pluck’d the fruit, and took a short repast.
Seven times, a seed at once, she eat the food:
The fact Ascalaphus had only view’d,
Whom Acheron begot, in Stygian shades,
On Orphne, famed among Avernal maids;
He saw what pass’d, and, by discovering all,
Detain’d the ravish’d nymph in cruel thrall.

But now a queen, she with resentment heard,
And changed the vile informer to a bird.
In Phlegethon’s black stream her hand she dips,
Sprinkles his head, and wets his babbling lips.
Soon on his face, bedropp’d with magic dew,
A change appear’d, and gaudy feathers grew;
A crooked beak the place of nose supplies;
Rounder his head, and larger are his eyes;
His arms and body waste, but are supplied
With yellow pinions, flagging on each side;
His nails grow crooked, and are turn’d to claws,
And lazily along his heavy wings he draws:
Ill-omen’d in his form, the unlucky fowl,
Abhorr’d by men, and call’d a screeching owl.

“Justly this punishment was due to him,
And less had been too little for his crime;
But, O ye nymphs! that from the flood descend,
What fault of yours the gods could so offend,
With wings and claws your beauteous forms to spoil,
Yet save your maiden face and winning smile?
Were you not with her in Pergusa’s bowers,
When Proserpine went forth to gather flowers?
Since Pluto in his car the goddess caught,
Have you not for her in each climate sought?
And when on land you long had search’d in vain,
You wish’d for wings to cross the pathless main:
The earth and sea might witness to your care:
The gods were easy, and return’d your prayer:
With golden wing o’er foamy waves you fled,
And to the sun your plumy glories spread.
But lest the soft enchantment of your songs,
And the sweet music of your flatt’ring tongues,
Should quite be lost (as courteous fates ordain),
Your voice and virgin beauty still remain.”

Jove, some amends for Ceres’ loss to make,
Yet unwilling Pluto should the joy partake,
Gives them of Proserpine an equal share,
Who, claim’d by both, with both divides the year.
The goddess now in either empire sways,
Six moons in hell, and six with Ceres stays:
Her peevish temper’s changed; that sullen mind
Which made ev’n hell uneasy, now is kind;
Her voice refines; her mien more sweet appears;
Her forehead free from frowns, her eyes from tears.
As when, with golden light, the conqu’ring day
Through dusky exhalations clears a way;
Ceres her daughter’s loss no longer mourn’d,
But back to Arethusa’s spring return’d;
And, sitting on the margin, bid her tell
From whence she came, and why a sacred well.

Still were the purling waters, and the maid
From the smooth surface raised her beauteous head,
Wipes off the drops that from her tresses ran,
And thus to tell Alpheus’ loves began.

“In Elis first I breathed the living air;
The chase was all my pleasure, all my care:
None loved like me the forest to explore,
To pitch the toils, and drive the bristled boar.
Of fair, though masculine, I had the name,
But gladly would to that have quitted claim:
It less my pride than indignation raised,
To hear the beauty I neglected praised;
Such compliments I loathed, such charms as these
I scorn’d, and thought it infamy to please.

“Once, I remember, in the summer’s heat,
Tired with the chase, I sought a cool retreat,
And walking on, a silent current found,
Which gently glided o’er the gravelly ground;
The crystal water was so smooth, so clear,
My eye distinguish’d every pebble there;
So soft its motion, that I scarce perceived
The running stream, or what I saw believed:
The hoary willow and the poplar made,
Along the shelving bank, a grateful shade.
In the cool rivulet my feet I dipp’d,
Then waded to the knee, and then I stripp’d:
My robe I careless on an osier threw,
That near the place commodiously grew;
Nor long upon the border naked stood,
But plunged with speed into the silver flood:
My arms a thousand ways I moved, and tried
To quicken, if I could, the lazy tide,
Where, while I play’d my swimming gambols o’er,
I heard a murm’ring voice, and frighted sprung to shore.
‘Oh! whither, Arethusa, dost thou fly?’
From the brook’s bottom did Alpheus cry.
Again I heard him, in a hollow tone:
‘Oh! whither, Arethusa, dost thou run?’
Naked I flew, nor could I stay to hide
My limbs; my robe was on the other side:
Alpheus follow’d fast; the inflaming sight
Quicken’d his speed, and made his labour light:
He sees me ready for his eager arms,
And with a greedy glance devours my charms.
As trembling doves from pressing danger fly,
When the fierce hawk comes sousing from the sky,
And as fierce hawks the trembling doves pursue,
From him I fled, and after me he few.
First by Orchomenus I took my flight,
And soon had Psophis and Cyllene in sight;
Behind me then high Maenalus I lost,
And craggy Erimanthus, scaled with frost;
Elis was next: thus far the ground I trod,
With nimble feet, before the distanced god:
But here I lagg’d, unable to sustain
The labour longer, and my flight maintain;
While he, more strong, more patient of the toil,
And fired with hopes of beauty’s speedy spoil,
Gain’d my lost ground, and, by redoubled pace,
Now left between us but a narrow space.
Unwearied I till now o’er hills and plains,
O’er rocks and rivers, ran, and felt no pains;
The sun behind me and the god I kept;
But when I fastest should have run, I stepp’d.
Before my feet his shadow now appear’d;
As what I saw, or rather what I fear’d:
Yet there I could not be deceived by fear,
Who felt his breath pant on my braided hair,
And heard his sounding tread, and knew him to be near.
Tired and despairing, ‘O celestial maid,
I’m caught,’ I cried, ‘without thy heavenly aid;
Help me, Diana, help a nymph forlorn,
Devoted to the woods, who long has worn
Thy livery, and long thy quiver borne.’
The goddess heard; my pious prayer prevail’d;
In muffling clouds my virgin head was veil’d.
The am’rous god, deluded of his hopes,
Searches the gloom, and through the darkness gropes:
Twice where Diana did her servant hide
He came, and twice, ‘O Arethusa!’ cried.
How shaken was my soul, how sunk my heart!
The terror seized on every trembling part.
Thus when the wolf about the mountain prowls
For prey, the lambkin hears his horrid howls:
The tim’rous hare, the pack approaching nigh
Thus hearkens to the hounds, and trembles at the cry;
Nor dares she stir, for fear her scented breath
Direct the dogs, and guide the threaten’d death.
Alpheus in the cloud no traces found
To mark my way, yet stays to guard the ground.
The god so near, a chilly sweat possess’d
My fainting limbs, at every pore express’d;
My strength distill’d in drops, my hair in dew;
My form was changed, and all my substance new:
Each motion was a stream, and my whole frame
Turn’d to a fount, which still preserves my name.
Resolved I should not his embrace escape,
Again the god resumes his fluid shape;
To mix his streams with mine he fondly tries,
But still Diana his attempt denies:
She cleaves the ground; through caverns dark I run
A different current, while he keeps his own;
To dear Ortygia she conducts my way,
And here I first review the welcome day.”

Here Arethusa stopp’d; then Ceres takes
Her golden car, and yokes her fiery snakes;
With a rein, along mid-heaven she flies,
O’er earth and seas, and cuts the yielding skies:
She halls at Athens, dropping like a star,
And to Triptolemus resigns her car.
Parent of seed, she gave him fruitful grain,
And bade him teach to till and plough the plain;
The seed to sow, as well in fallow fields,
As where the soil manured a richer harvest yields.

The youth o’er Europe and o’er Asia drives,
Till at the court of Lyncus he arrives:
The tyrant Scythia’s barb’rous empire sway’d;
And when he saw Triptolemus, he said:
“How camest thou, stranger, to our court, and why?
Thy country, and thy name?” The youth did thus reply:
“Triptolemus my name; my country’s known
O’er all the world, Minerva’s fav’rite town,
Athens, the first of cities in renown:
By land I neither walk’d, nor sail’d by sea,
But hither through the ether made my way;
By me the goddess who the fields befriends,
These gifts, the greatest of all blessings, sends;
The grain she gives if in your soil you sow,
Thence wholesome food in golden crops shall grow.”

Soon as the secret to the king was known,
He grudged the glory of the service done,
And wickedly resolved to make it all his own.
To hide his purpose, he invites his guest,
The friend of Ceres, to a royal feast,
And when sweet sleep his heavy eves had seized.
The tyrant with his steel attempts his breast:
Him straight a lynx’s shape the goddess gives,
And home the youth her sacred dragons drives.

The chosen muse here ends her sacred lays:
The nymphs, unanimous, decree the bays,
And give the Heliconian goddesses the praise.
Then, far from vain that we should thus prevail.
But much provoked to hear the vanquish’d rail.
Calliope resumes: “Too long we’ve borne
Your daring taunts, and your affronting scorn:
Your challenge justly merited a curse,
And this unmanner’d railing makes it worse:
Since you refuse us calmly to enjoy
Our patience, next our passions we’ll employ,
The dictates of a mind enraged pursue,
And what our just resentment bids us, do.”
The railers laugh, our threats and wrath despise,
And clap their hands, and make a scolding noise:
But in the fact they’re seized: beneath their nails
Feathers they feel, and on their faces scales:
Their horny beaks at once each other scare;
Their arms are plumed, and on their backs they bear
Pied wings, and flutter in the fleeting air:
Chatt’ring, the scandal of the woods they fly,
And there continue still their clam’rous cry;
The same their eloquence as maids or birds,
Now only noise, and nothing then but words.