Now shone the morning star in bright array,
To vanquish night, and usher in the day;
The wind veers southward, and moist clouds arise,
That blot with shades the blue meridian skies.
Cephalus feels with joy the kindly gales;
His new allies unfurl the swelling sails;
Steady their course, they cleave the yielding main,
And, with a wish, the intended harbour gain.

Meanwhile King Minos, on the Attic strand,
Displays his martial skill, and wastes the land:
His army lies encamp’d upon the plains
Before Alcathoe’s walls, where Nisus reigns,
On whose gray head a lock of purple hue,
The strength and fortune of his kingdom, grew.

Six moons were gone and past, when still from far
Victoria hover’d o’er the doubtful war.
So long, to both inclined, the impartial maid
Between them both her equal wings display’d.

High on the walls, by Phoebus vocal made,
A turret of the palace raised its head;
And where the god his tuneful harp resign’d,
The sound within the stones still lay enshrined:
Hither the daughter of the purple king
Ascended oft, to hear its music ring,
And, striking with a pebble, would release
The enchanted notes, in times of happy peace.
But now from thence the curious maid beheld
Rough feats of arms, and combats of the field;
And, since the siege was long, had learn’d the name
Of every chief, his character, and fame;
Their arms, their horse, and quiver, she descried,
Nor could the dress of war the warrior hide.

Europa’s son she knew above the rest,
And more than well became a virgin breast.
In vain the crested morion veils his face,
She thinks it adds a more peculiar grace:
His ample shield, emboss’d with burnish’d gold,
Still makes the bearer lovelier to behold:
When the tough javelin, with a whirl, he sends,
His strength and skill the sighing maid commends;
Or, when he strains to draw the circling bow,
And his fine limbs a manly posture show,
Compared with Phoebus, he performs so well,
Let her be judge, and Minos shall excel.

But when, the helm put off, display’d to sight,
And set his features in an open light;
When, vaulting to his seat, his steed he press’d,
Caparison’d in gold, and richly dress’d,
Himself in scarlet sumptuously array’d,
New passions rise, and fire the frantic maid.
“O happy spear!” she cries, “that feels his touch;
Nay, ev’n the reins he holds are bless’d too much.”
O! were it lawful, she could wing her way
Through the stern hostile troops without dismay,
Or throw her body to the distant ground,
And in the Cretans’ happy camp be found.
Would Minos but desire it, she’d expose
Her native country to her country’s foes,
Unbar the gates, the town with flames infest,
Or any thing that Minos should request.

And as she sat, and pleased her longing sight,
Viewing the king’s pavilion, veil’d with white,
“Should joy or grief,” she said, “possess my breast,
To see my country by a war oppress’d?
I’m in suspense! for, though ’tis grief to know
I love a man that is declared my foe,
Yet, in my own despite, I must approve
That lucky war, which brought the man I love:
Yet were I tender’d as a pledge of peace,
The cruelties of war might quickly cease:
O! with what joy I’d wear the chains he gave,
A patient hostage, and a willing slave.
Thou lovely object! if the nymph that bare
Thy charming person were but half so fair,
Well might a god her lovely bloom desire,
And with a kiss indulge his youthful fire.
O! had I wings to glide along the air,
To his dear tent I’d fly, and settle there;
There tell my quality, confess my flame,
And grant him any dowry that he’d name;
All, all I’d give; only my native land,
My dearest country, should excepted stand:
For, perish love, and all expected joys,
Ere with so base a thought my soul complies.
Yet oft the vanquish’d some advantage find,
When conquer’d by a noble, generous mind.
Brave Minos justly has the war begun,
Fired with resentment for his murder’d son:
The righteous gods a righteous cause regard,
And will with victory his arms reward:
We must be conquer’d; and the captive’s fate
Will surely seize us, though it seize us late.
Why then should love be idle, and neglect
What Mars, by arms and perils, will effect?
O prince! I die, with anxious fear oppress’d,
Lest some rash hand should wound my charmer’s breast;
For, if they saw, no barb’rous mind could dare
Against that lovely form to raise a spear.

“But I’m resolved, and fix’d in this decree,
My father’s country shall my dowry be:
Thus I prevent the loss of life and blood,
And, in effect, the action must be good.
Vain resolution! for, at every gate
The trusty sentinels successive wait;
The keys my father keeps: ah! there’s my grief;
’Tis he obstructs all hopes of my relief.
Gods! that this hated light I’d never seen!
Or all my life without a father been!
But gods we all may be; for those that dare
Are gods, and Fortune’s chiefest favours share
The ruling powers a lazy prayer detest;
The bold adventurer succeeds the best.
What other maid, inspired with such a flame,
But would take courage, and abandon shame?
But would, though ruin should ensue, remove
Whate’er opposed, and clear the way to love?
This shall another’s feeble passion dare,
While I sit tame, and languish in despair?
No; for though fire and sword before me lay,
Impatient love through both should force its way.
Yet I have no such enemies to fear;
My sole obstruction is my father’s hair;
His purple lock my sanguine hope destroys,
And clouds the prospect of my rising joys.”

While thus she spoke, amid the thick’ning air
Night supervenes, the greatest nurse of care;
And as the goddess spreads her sable wings,
The virgin’s fears decay, and courage springs.
The hour was come, when man’s o’er-labour’d breast
Surceased its care, by downy sleep possess’d:
All things now hush’d, Scylla, with silent tread,
Urged her approach to Nisus’ royal bed;
There of the fatal lock (accursed theft!)
She her unwitting father’s head bereft.
In safe possession of her impious prey,
Out at a postern gate she takes her way.
Imbolden’d by the merit of the deed,
She traverses the adverse camp with speed,
Till Minos’ tent she reach’d: the righteous king
She thus bespoke, who shiver’d at the thing:

“Behold the effect of love’s resistless sway!
I, Nisus’ royal seed, to thee betray
My country and my gods. For this strange task,
Minos, no other boon but thee I ask.
This purple lock, a pledge of love, receive;
No worthless present, since in it I give
My father’s head.” Moved at a crime so new,
And with abhorrence fill’d, back Minos drew,
Nor touch’d the unhallow’d gift, but thus exclaim’d
(With mien indignant, and with eyes inflamed)⁠—
“Perdition seize thee, thou, thy kind’s disgrace!
May thy devoted carcass find no place
In earth, or air, or sea, by all outcast!
Shall Minos, with so foul a monster, blast
His Cretan world, where cradled Jove was nursed?
Forbid it, heaven!⁠—away, thou most accursed!”

And now Alcathoe, its lord exchanged,
Was under Minos’ domination ranged.
While the most equal king his care applies
To curb the conquer’d, and new laws devise,
The fleet, by his command, with hoisted sails,
And ready oars, invites the murmuring gales.
At length the Cretan hero anchor weigh’d,
Repaying with neglect the abandon’d maid:
Deaf to her cries, he furrows up the main;
In vain she prays, solicits him in vain.

And now she furious grows, in wild despair
She wrings her hands and throws aloft her hair.
“Where runn’st thou?” thus she vents her deep distress,
“Why shunn’st thou her that crown’d thee with success?
Her whose fond love to thee could sacrifice
Her country and her parent; sacred ties!
Can nor my love, nor proffer’d presents, find
A passage to thy heart, and make thee kind?
Can nothing move thy pity? O ingrate!
Canst thou behold my lost, forlorn estate,
And not be soften’d? Canst thou throw off one
Who has no refuge left but thee alone?
Where shall I seek for comfort? whither fly?
My native country does in ashes lie:
Or were ’t not so, my treason bars me there,
And bids me wander. Shall I next repair
To a wrong’d father, by my guilt undone?⁠—
Me all mankind deservedly will shun.
I out of all the world myself have thrown,
To purchase an access to Crete alone,
Which, since refused, ungenerous man, give o’er
To boast thy race; Europa never bore
A thing so savage: thee some tigress bred,
On the bleak Syrt’s inhospitable bed,
Or where Charybdis pours its rapid tide
Tempestuous. Thou art not to Jove allied;
Nor did the king of gods thy mother meet
Beneath a bull’s forged shape, and bear to Crete:
That fable of thy glorious birth is feign’d;
Some wild outrageous bull thy dam sustain’d.
O, father Nisus, now my death behold:
Exult, O city, by my baseness sold:
Minos, obdurate, has avenged ye all;
But ’twas more just by those I wrong’d to fall:
For why shouldst thou, who only didst subdue
By my offending, my offence pursue?
Well art thou match’d to one whose amorous flame
Too fiercely raged for humankind to tame;
One who, within a wooden heifer thrust,
Courted a lowing bull’s mistaken lust,
And from whose monster-teeming womb the earth
Received, what much it mourn’d, a bi-form birth.
But what avail my plaints? the whistling wind,
Which bears him far away, leaves them behind.
Well weigh’d Pasiphae, when she preferr’d
A bull to thee, more brutish than the herd.
But ah! time presses, and the labour’d oars
To distance drive the fleet, and lose the lessening shores.
Think not, ungrateful man, the liquid way
And threat’ning billows shall enforce my stay:
I’ll follow thee in spite: my arms I’ll throw
Around thy oars, or grasp thy crooked prow,
And drag through drenching seas.” Her eager tongue
Had hardly closed the speech, when forth she sprung,
And proved the deep. Cupid, with added force,
Recruits each nerve, and aids her watery course.
Soon she the ship attains; unwelcome guest!
And as with close embrace its sides she press’d,
A hawk from upper air came pouring down.
(’Twas Nisus cleft the sky with wings new-grown.)
At Scylla’s head his horny bill he aims;
She, fearful of the blow, the ship disclaims,
Quitting her hold; and yet she fell not far,
But, wond’ring, finds herself sustain’d in air.
Changed to a lark, she mottled pinions shook,
And, from the ravish’d lock, the name of Ciris took.

Now Minos, landed on the Cretan shore,
Performs his vows to Jove’s protecting power:
A hundred bullocks, of the largest breed,
With flowerets crown’d, before his altar bleed;
While trophies of the vanquish’d, brought from far,
Adorn the palace with the spoils of war.

Meanwhile the monster of a human beast
His family’s reproach and stain increased.
His double kind the rumour swiftly spread,
And evidenced the mother’s beastly deed;
When Minos, willing to conceal the shame
That sprung from the reports of tattling Fame,
Resolves a dark enclosure to provide,
And far from sight the two-form’d creature hide.

Great Daedalus of Athens was the man
That made the draught, and form’d the wondrous plan;
Where rooms within themselves encircled lie,
With various windings, to deceive the eye.
As soft Maeander’s wanton current plays,
When through the Phrygian fields it loosely strays;
Backward and forward rolls the dimpled tide,
Seeming at once two different ways to glide:
While circling streams their former banks survey,
And waters past succeeding waters see;
Now floating to the sea with downward course,
Now pointing upward to its ancient source:
Such was the work, so intricate the place,
That scarce the workman all its turns could trace;
And Daedalus was puzzled how to find
The secret ways of what himself design’d.
These private walls the Minotaur include,
Who twice was glutted with Athenian blood;
But the third tribute more successful proved⁠—
Slew the foul monster, and the plague removed.
When Theseus, aided by the virgin’s art,
Had traced the guiding thread through every part,
He took the gentle maid that set him free,
And, bound for Dias, cut the briny sea;
There, quickly cloy’d, ungrateful, and unkind,
Left his fair consort in the isle behind,
Whom Bacchus sees and loves; decrees the dame
Shall shine for ever in the rolls of fame;
And bids her crown among the stars be placed,
With an eternal constellation graced.
The golden circle mounts, and, as it flies,
Its diamonds twinkle in the distant skies;
There, in their pristine form, the gemmy rays
Between Alcides and the dragon blaze.

In tedious exile now too long detain’d,
Daedalus languish’d for his native land;
The sea foreclosed his flight, yet thus he said:
“Though earth and water in subjection laid,
O cruel Minos, thy dominion be,
We’ll go through air; for sure the air is free.”
Then to new arts his cunning thought applies,
And to improve the work of nature tries.
A row of quills in gradual order placed,
Rise by degrees in length from first to last;
As on a cliff the ascending thicket grows,
Or different reeds the rural pipe compose.
Along the middle runs a twine of flax,
The bottom stems are join’d by pliant wax:
Thus, well compact, a hollow bending brings
The fine composure into real wings.

His boy, young Icarus, that near him stood,
Unthinking of his fate, with smiles pursued
The floating feathers, which the moving air
Bore loosely from the ground, and wafted here and there:
Or with the wax impertinently play’d,
And, with his childish tricks, the great design de lay’d.

The final master-stroke at last imposed,
And now the neat machine completely closed;
Fitting his pinions on, a flight he tries,
And hung, self-balanced, in the beaten skies.
Then thus instructs his child: “My boy, take care
To wing your course along the middle air:
If low, the surges wet your flagging plumes;
If high, the sun the melting wax consumes.
Steer between both; nor to the northern skies,
Nor south Orion, turn your giddy eyes,
But follow me: let me before you lay
Rules for the flight, and mark the pathless way.”
Then, teaching, with a fond concern, his son,
He took the untried wings and fix’d them on;
But fix’d with trembling hands; and, as he speaks,
The tears roll gently down his aged cheeks:
Then kiss’d, and in his arms embraced him fast,
But knew not this embrace must be the last;
And, mounting upward, as he wings his flight,
Back on his charge he turns his aching sight;
As parent birds, when first their callow care
Leave the high nest to tempt the liquid air:
Then cheers him on, and oft, with fatal art,
Reminds the stripling to perform his part.

These, as the angler at the silent brook,
Or mountain shepherd leaning on his crook,
Or gaping ploughman, from the vale descries,
They stare and view them with religious eyes,
And straight conclude them gods; since none but they
Through their own azure skies could find a way.
Now Delos, Paros, on the left are seen,
And Samos, favour’d by Jove’s haughty queen;
Upon the right, the isle Lebynthos named,
And fair Calymne, for its honey famed.
When now the boy, whose childish thoughts aspire
To loftier aims, and make him ramble higher,
Grown wild and wanton, more imbolden’d, flies
Far from his guide, and soars among the skies.
The softening wax, that felt a nearer sun,
Dissolved apace, and soon began to run;
The youth in vain his melting pinions shakes,
His feathers gone, no longer air he takes;
O! father, father! as he strove to cry,
Down to the sea he tumbled from on high,
And found his fate; yet still subsists by fame
Among those waters that retain his name.

The father, now no more a father, cries:
“Ho, Icarus! where are you?” as he flies;
“Where shall I seek my boy?” he cries again,
And saw his feathers scatter’d on the main.
Then cursed his art; and funeral rites conferr’d,
Naming the country from the youth interr’d.

A partridge, from a neighbouring stump, beheld
The sire his monumental marble build;
Who, with peculiar call and fluttering wing,
Chirp’d joyful, and malicious seem’d to sing;
The only bird of all its kind, and late
Transform’d in pity to a feather’d state:
From whence, Daedalus, thy guilt we date.

His sister’s son, when not twelve years were pass’d,
Was, with his uncle, as a scholar placed;
The unsuspecting mother saw his parts
And genius fitted for the finest arts.
This soon appear’d; for when the spiny bone
In fishes’ backs was by the stripling known,
A rare invention thence he learn’d to draw,
Filed teeth in iron, and made the grating saw.
He was the first, that from a knob of brass
Made two straight arms with widening stretch to pass;
That, while one stood upon the centre’s place,
The other round it drew a circling space.
Daedalus envied this, and from the top
Of fair Minerva’s temple let him drop;
Feigning, that, as he lean’d upon the tower,
Careless he stoop’d too much, and tumbled o’er.

The goddess, who the ingenious still befriends,
On this occasion her assistance lends;
His arms with feathers, as he fell, she veils,
And in the air a new-made bird he sails.
The quickness of his genius, once so fleet,
Still in his wings remains, and in his feet;
Still, though transform’d, his ancient name he keeps,
And with low flight the new-shorn stubble sweeps,
Declines the lofty trees, and thinks it best
To brood in hedge-rows o’er its humble nest;
And, in remembrance of the former ill,
Avoids the heights and precipices still.

At length, fatigued with long laborious flights,
On fair Sicilia’s plains the artist lights;
Where Cocalus, the king, that gave him aid,
Was, for his kindness, with esteem repaid.
Athens no more her doleful tribute sent,
That hardship gallant Theseus did prevent;
Their temples hung with garlands, they adore
Each friendly god, but most Minerva’s power;
To her, to Jove, to all, their altars smoke,
They each with victims and perfumes invoke.

Now talking Fame, through every Grecian town,
Had spread, immortal Theseus, thy renown.
From him, the neighbouring nations, in distress,
In suppliant terms implore a kind redress.

From him the Calydonians sought relief.
Though valiant Meleagrus was their chief.
The cause, a boar, which ravaged far and near;
Of Cynthia’s wrath the avenging minister.
For Oeneus, with autumnal plenty bless’d,
By gifts to heaven his gratitude express’d;
Cull’d sheafs to Ceres; to Lyaeus wine;
To Pan and Pales offer’d sheep and kine;
And fat of olives to Minerva’s shrine.
Beginning from the rural gods, his hand
Was liberal to the powers of high command:
Each deity in every kind was bless’d,
Till at Diana’s fane the invidious honour ceased.

Wrath touches ev’n the gods: the queen of night,
Fired with disdain, and jealous of her right,
“Unhonour’d though I am, at least,” said she,
“Not unrevenged that impious act shall be.”
Swift as the word, she sped the boar away,
With charge on those devoted fields to prey.
No larger bulls the Egyptian pastures feed,
And none so large Sicilian meadows breed;
His eyeballs glare with fire suffused with blood;
His neck shoots up a thickset thorny wood;
His bristled back a trench impaled appears,
And stands erected, like a field of spears;
Froth fills his chaps, he sends a grunting sound,
And part he churns, and part befoams the ground;
For tusks with Indian elephants he strove,
And Jove’s own thunder from his mouth he drove;
He burns the leaves, the scorching blast invades
The tender corn, and shrivels up the blades;
Or suff’ring not their yellow beards to rear,
He tramples down the spikes, and intercepts the year.
In vain the barns expect their promised load,
Nor barns at home, nor ricks are heap’d abroad
In vain the hinds the thrashing-floor prepare,
And exercise their flails in empty air.
With olives ever green the ground is strew’d,
And grapes ungather’d shed their generous blood.
Amid the fold he rages, nor the sheep
Their shepherds, nor the grooms their bulls can keep.

From fields to walls the frighted rabble run,
Nor think themselves secure, within the town,
Till Meleagrus, and his chosen crew,
Contemn the danger, and the praise pursue.
Fair Leda’s twins (in time to stars decreed)
One fought on foot, one curb’d the fiery steed;
Then issued forth famed Jason after these,
Who mann’d the foremost ship that sail’d the seas,
Then Theseus join’d with bold Pirithous came,
A single concord in a double name;
The Thestian sons, Idas, who swiftly ran,
And Ceneus, once a woman, now a man;
Lynceus, with eagle’s eyes and lion’s heart;
Leucippus, with his never-erring dart;
Acastus, Phileus, Phoenix, Telamon,
Echion, Lelix, and Eurytion;
Achilles’ father, and great Phocus’ son;
Dryas the fierce, and Hippasus the strong;
With twice old Iolas, and Nestor, then but young;
Laertes active, and Ancaeus bold;
Mopsus, the sage, who future things foretold,
And the other seer,2 yet by his wife unsold;
A thousand others of immortal fame;
Among the rest fair Atalanta came,
Grace of the woods: a diamond buckle bound
Her vest behind, that else had flow’d upon the ground,
And show’d her buskin’d legs; her head was bare,
But for her native ornament of hair,
Which in a simple knot was tied above:
Sweet negligence! unheeded bait of love!
Her sounding quiver on her shoulder tied,
One hand a dart, and one a bow supplied.
Such was her face, as in a nymph display’d
A fair fierce boy, or in a boy betray’d
The blushing beauties of a modest maid.
The Calydonian chief at once the dame
Beheld, at once his heart received the flame,
With heavens averse. “O, happy youth!” he cried,
“For whom thy Fates reserve so fair a bride.”
He sigh’d, and had no leisure more to say;
His honour call’d his eyes another way,
And forced him to pursue the now neglected prey.

There stood a forest on a mountain’s brow,
Which overlook’d the shaded plains below:
No sounding axe presumed those trees to bite;
Coeval with the world, a venerable sight.
The heroes there arrived, some spread around
The toils; some search the footsteps on the ground
Some from the chains the faithful dogs unbound.
Of action eager, and intent in thought,
The chiefs their honourable danger sought:
A valley stood below, the common drain
Of waters from above, and falling rain;
The bottom was a moist and marshy ground,
Whose edges were with bending osiers crown’d:
The knotty bulrush next in order stood,
And all within of reeds a trembling wood.

From hence the boar was roused, and sprung amain,
Like lightning sudden on the warrior train,
Beats down the trees before him, shakes the ground,
The forest echoes to the crackling sound;
Shout the fierce youth, and clamours ring around.
All stood with their protended spears prepared,
With broad steel heads the brandish’d weapons glared.
The beast impetuous, with his tusks, aside
Deals glancing wounds; the fearful dogs divide:
All spend their mouths aloof, but none abide.
Echion threw the first, but miss’d his mark,
And stuck his boar-spear on a maple’s bark.
Then Jason, and his javelin seem’d to take,
But fail’d with over force, and whizz’d above his back.
Mopsus was next, but, ere he threw, address’d
To Phoebus thus: “O patron, help thy priest!
If I adore, and ever have adored,
Thy power divine, thy present aid afford,
That I may reach the beast.” The god allow’d
His prayer, and, smiling, gave him what he could:
He reach’d the savage, but no blood he drew;
Dian unarm’d the javelin as it flew.

This chafed the boar, his nostrils’ flames expire,
And his red eyeballs roll with living fire.
Whirl’d from a sling, or from an engine thrown,
Amid her foes, so flies a mighty stone,
As flew the beast: the left wing put to flight,
The chiefs o’erborne, he rushes on the right.
Empalamos and Pelagon he laid
In dust, and next to death, but for their fellows’ aid
Onesimus fared worse, prepared to fly,
The fatal fang drove deep within his thigh,
And cut the nerves: the nerves no more sustain
The bulk; the bulk, unpropp’d, falls headlong on the plain.

Nestor had fail’d the fall of Troy to see,
But, leaning on his lance, he vaulted on a tree;
Then, gathering up his feet, look’d down with fear,
And thought his monstrous foe was still too near.
Against a stump his tusk the monster grinds;
And in the sharpen’d edge new vigour finds;
Then, trusting to his arms, young Othrys found,
And ranch’d his hips with one continued wound
Now Leda’s twins, the future stars, appear,
White were their habits, white their horses were;
Conspicuous both, and both in act to throw
Their trembling lances brandish’d at the foe:
Nor had they miss’d, but he to thickets fled,
Conceal’d from aiming spears, not pervious to the steed;
But Telamon rush’d in, and happ’d to meet
A rising root, that held his fasten’d feet;
So down he fell, whom, sprawling on the ground,
His brother from the wooden gyves unbound.

Meantime the virgin huntress was not slow
To expel the shaft from her contracted bow;
Beneath his car the fasten’d arrow stood,
And from the wound appear’d the trickling blood.
She blush’d for joy: but Meleagrus raised
His voice with loud applause, and the fair archer praised.
He was the first to see, and first to show
His friends the mark of the successful blow.
“Nor shall thy valour want the praises due,”
He said; a virtuous envy seized the crew;
They shout; the shouting animates their hearts,
And all at once employ their thronging darts;
But, out of order thrown, in air they join,
And multitude makes frustrate the design.
With both his hands, the proud Ancaeus takes
And flourishes his double-biting axe;
Then, forward to his fate, he took a stride
Before the rest, and to his fellows cried:
“Give place, and mark the difference, if you can,
Between a woman warrior and a man.
The boar is doom’d, nor, though Diana lend
Her aid, Diana can her beast defend.”
Thus boasted he; then, stretch’d on tiptoe stood
Secure, to make his promise good;
But the more wary beast prevents the blow,
And upward rips the groin of his audacious foe:
Ancaeus falls; his bowels, from the wound,
Rush out, and clotted blood distains the ground.

Pirithous, no small portion of the war,
Press’d on, and shook his lance; to whom, from far,
Thus Theseus cried: “O stay! my better part,
My more than mistress, of my heart the heart:
The strong may fight aloof: Ancaeus tried
His force too near, and, by presuming, died.”
He said, and, while he spake, his javelin threw;
Hissing in air the unerring weapon flew;
But on an arm of oak, that stood betwixt
The marksman and the mark, his lance he fix’d.

Once more bold Jason threw, but fail’d to wound
The boar, and slew an undeserving hound,
And through the dog the dart was nail’d to ground.

Two spears from Meleager’s hand were sent,
With equal force, but various in the event;
The first was fix’d in earth, the second stood
On the boar’s bristled back, and deeply drank his blood.
Now, while the tortured savage turns around
And flings about his foam, impatient of the wound,
The wound’s great author, close at hand, provokes
His rage, and plies him with redoubled strokes,
Wheels as he wheels, and, with his pointed dart,
Explores the nearest passage to his heart:
Quick, and more quick, he spins in giddy gyres,
Then falls, and in much foam his soul expires.
This act, with shouts heaven-high, the friendly band
Applaud, and strain in theirs the victor’s hand.
Then all approach the slain, with vast surprise
Admire on what a breadth of earth he lies,
And, scarce secure, reach out their spears afar,
And blood their points to prove their partnership of war.

But he, the conquering chief, his foot impress’d
On the strong neck of that destructive beast,
And gazing on the nymph with ardent eyes,
“Accept,” said he, “fair Nonacrine, my prize,
And, though inferior, suffer me to join
My labours, and my part of praise, with thine:”
At this, presents her with the tusky head
And chine, with rising bristles roughly spread.
Glad she received the gift, and seem’d to take
With double pleasure, for the giver’s sake;
The rest were seized with sullen discontent,
And a deep murmur through the squadron went;
All envied, but the Thestian brethren show’d
The least respect, and thus they vent their spleen aloud:
“Lay down those honour’d spoils, nor think to share,
Weak woman as thou art, the prize of war;
Ours is the title, thine a foreign claim,
Since Meleagrus from our lineage came:
Trust not thy beauty, but restore the prize
Which he, besotted on that face and eyes,
Would rend from us.” At this, inflamed with spite,
From her they snatch the gift, from him the giver’s right.

But soon the impatient prince his falchion drew,
And cried, “Ye robbers of another’s due,
Now learn the difference, at your proper cost,
Betwixt true valour and an empty boast.”
At this advanced, and, sudden as the word,
In proud Plexippus’ bosom plunged the sword;
Toxeus amazed, and with amazement slow,
Or to revenge, or ward the coming blow,
Stood doubting, and, while doubting thus he stood,
Received the steel bathed in his brother’s blood.

Pleased with the first, unknown the second, news,
Althaea to the temples pays their dues,
For her son’s conquest, when, at length, appear
Her grisly brethren stretch’d upon the bier:
Pale at the sudden sight, she changed her cheer,
And with her cheer her robes; but hearing tell
The cause, the manner, and by whom they fell,
’Twas grief no more, or grief and rage were one
Within her soul; at last ’twas rage alone;
Which, burning upwards in succession, dries
The tears, that stood considering in her eyes.

There lay a log unlighted on the hearth,
When she was lab’ring in the throes of birth
For the unborn chief; the fatal sisters came,
And raised it up, and toss’d it on the flame;
Then on the rock a scanty measure place
Of vital flax, and turn’d the wheel apace,
And, turning, sung, “To this red brand and thee,
O, newborn babe! we give an equal destiny;”
So vanish’d out of view. The frighted dame
Sprung hasty from her bed, and quench’d the flame.
The log, in secret lock’d, she kept with care,
And that, while thus preserved, preserved her heir.
This brand she now produced, and first she strows
The hearth with heaps of chips, and after blows;
Thrice heaved her hand, and heaved, she thrice repress’d,
The sister and the mother long contest,
Two doubtful titles in one tender breast;
And now her eyes and cheeks with fury glow,
Now pale her cheeks, her eyes with pity flow;
Now low’ring looks presage approaching storms,
And now prevailing love her face reforms:
Resolved, she doubts again; the tears she dried
With burning rage, are by new tears supplied;
And, as a ship, which winds and waves assail,
Now with the current drives, now with the gale,
Both opposite, and neither long prevail.
She feels a double force, by turns obeys
The imperious tempest, and the impetuous seas;
So fares Althaea’s mind; she first relents
With pity, of that pity then repents:
Sister and mother long the scales divide,
But the beam nodded on the sister’s side:
Sometimes she softly sigh’d, then roar’d aloud;
But sighs were stifled in the cries of blood.

The pious impious wretch at length decreed,
To please her brothers’ ghosts, her son should bleed;
And when the funeral flames began to rise,
“Receive,” she said, “a sister’s sacrifice.
A mother’s bowels burn:” high in her hand,
Thus while she spoke, she held the fatal brand,
Then thrice before the kindled pile she bow’d,
And the three furies thrice invoked aloud:
“Come, come, revenging sisters, come and view
A sister paying her dead brothers’ due:
A crime I punish, and a crime commit;
But blood for blood, and death for death, is fit:
Great crimes must be with greater crimes repaid,
And second funerals on the former laid.
Let the whole household in one ruin fall,
And may Diana’s curse o’ertake us all!
Shall Fate to happy Oeneus still allow
One son, while Thestius stands deprived of two?
Better three lost than one unpunish’d go.
Take then, dear ghosts (while yet admitted new
In hell you wait my duty), take your due:
A costly offering on your tomb is laid,
When, with my blood, the price of yours is paid.

“Ah! whither am I hurried? Ah! forgive,
Ye shades, and let your sister’s issue live;
A mother cannot give him death; though he
Deserves it, he deserves it not from me.

“Then shall the unpunish’d wretch insult the slain,
Triumphant live, nor only live, but reign;
While you, thin shades, the sport of winds, are toss’d
O’er dreary plains, or tread the burning coast.
I cannot, cannot bear; ’tis past, ’tis done;
Perish this impious, this detested son;
Perish his sire, and perish I withal,
And let the house’s heir and the hoped kingdom fall.

“Where is the mother fled, her pious love,
And where the pains, with which ten months I strove?
Ah! hadst thou died, my son, in infant years,
Thy little hearse had been bedew’d with tears.

“Thou liv’st by me, to me thy breath resign,
Mine is the merit, the demerit thine;
Thy life, by double title, I require,
Once given at birth, and once preserved from fire:
One murder pay, or add one murder more,
And me to them, who fell by thee, restore.

“I would, but cannot, my son’s image stands
Before my sight, and now their angry hands
My brothers hold, and vengeance these exact,
This pleads compassion, and repents the fact.

“He pleads in vain, and I pronounce his doom,
My brothers, though unjustly, shall o’ercome;
But having paid their injured ghosts their due,
My son requires my death, and mine shall his pursue.”

At this, for the last time, she lifts her hand,
Averts her eyes, and, half unwilling, drops the brand.
The brand, amid the flaming fuel thrown,
Or drew, or seem’d to draw, a dying groan;
The fires themselves but faintly lick’d their prey,
Then loathed their impious food, and would have shrunk away.

Just then the hero cast a doleful cry,
And in those absent flames began to fry;
The blind contagion raged within his veins,
But he with manly patience bore his pains:
He fear’d not fate, but only grieved to die
Without an honest wound, and by a death so dry.
“Happy Ancaeus,” thrice aloud he cried,
“With what becoming fate in arms he died!”
Then call’d his brothers, sisters, sire, around,
And her to whom his nuptial vows were bound,
Perhaps his mother; a long sigh he drew,
And, his voice failing, took his last adieu;
For as the flames augment, and as they stay
At their full height, then languish to decay,
They rise and sink by fits, at last they soar
In one bright blaze, and then descend no more;
Just so his inward heats, at height, impair,
Till the last burning breath shoots out the soul in air.

Now lofty Calydon in ruins lies,
All ages, all degrees, unsluice their eyes:
And heaven and earth resound with murmurs, groans, and cries;
Matrons and maidens beat their breasts, and tear
Their habits, and root up their scatter’d hair;
The wretched father, father now no more,
With sorrow sunk, lies prostrate on the floor,
Deforms his hoary locks with dust obscene,
And curses age, and loathes a life prolong’d with pain;
By steel her stubborn soul his mother freed,
And punish’d on herself her impious deed.

Had I a hundred tongues, a wit so large
As could their hundred offices discharge⁠—
Had Phoebus all his Helicon bestow’d
In all the streams, inspiring all the god,
Those tongues, that wit, those streams, that god in vain
Would offer to describe his sisters’ pain;
They beat their breasts with many a bruising blow,
Till they turn livid, and corrupt the snow;
The corpse they cherish, while the corpse remains,
And exercise and rub, with fruitless pains;
And when to funeral flames ’tis borne away,
They kiss the bed on which the body lay;
And when those funeral flames no longer burn
(The dust composed within a pious urn),
Ev’n in that urn their brother they confess,
And hug it in their arms, and to their bosoms press.

His tomb is raised; then, stretch’d along the ground,
Those living monuments his tomb surround;
Ev’n to his name, inscribed, their tears they pay,
Till tears and kisses wear his name away.

But Cynthia now had all her fury spent,
Not with less ruin than a race content,
Excepting Gorge, perish’d all the seed,
And her3 whom Heaven for Hercules decreed.
Satiate at last, no longer she pursued
The weeping sisters, but with wings endued
And horny beaks, and sent to flit in air,
Who, yearly, round the tomb in feather’d flocks repair.

Theseus, meanwhile, acquitting well his share
In the bold chase, confed’rate like a war,
To Athens’ lofty towers his march ordain’d,
By Pallas loved, and where Erectheus reign’d;
But Achelous stopp’d him on the way,
By rains a deluge, and constrain’d his stay.

“O famed for glorious deeds, and great by blood,
Rest here,” says he, “nor trust the rapid flood;
It solid oaks has from its margin tore,
And rocky fragments down its current bore,
The murmur hoarse, and terrible the roar.
Oft have I seen herds, with their shelt’ring fold,
Forced from the banks, and in the torrent roll’d;
Nor strength the bulky steer from ruin freed,
Nor matchless swiftness saved the racing steed;
In cataracts, when the dissolving snow
Falls from the hills and floods the plains below,
Tossed by the eddies, with a giddy round,
Strong youths are in the sucking whirlpools drown’d:
’Tis best with me in safety to abide,
Till usual bounds restrain the ebbing tide,
And the low waters in their channel glide.”

Theseus, persuaded, in compliance bow’d:
“So kind an offer, and advice so good,
O Achelous! cannot be refused;
I’ll use them both,” said he; and both he used

The grot he enter’d; pumice built the hall,
And tophi made the rustic of the wall;
The floor, soft moss a humid carpet spread,
And various shells the checker’d roof inlaid:
’Twas now the hour when the declining sun
Two thirds had of his daily journey run;
At the spread table Theseus took his place,
Next his companions in the daring chase;
Pirithous here, there elder Lelex lay,
His locks betraying age with sprinkled gray:
Acharnia’s river-god disposed the rest,
Graced with the equal honour of the feast,
Elate with joy, and proud of such a guest.
The nymphs were waiters, and, with naked feet,
In order served the courses of the meat.
The banquet done, delicious wine they brought,
Of one transparent gem the cup was wrought.

Then the great hero of this gallant train,
Surveying far the prospect of the main,
“What is that land,” says he, “the waves embrace?”
(And with his finger pointed at the place:)
“Is it one parted isle, which stands alone?
How named? and yet, methinks, it seems not one.”
To whom the watery god made this reply:
“ ’Tis not one isle, but five; distinct they lie:
’Tis distance which deceives the cheated eye:
But, that Diana’s act may seem less strange,
These once proud Naiads were, before their change.
’Twas on a day more solemn than the rest,
Ten bullocks slain, a sacrificial feast:
The rural gods of all the regions near
They bid to dance and taste the hallow’d cheer:
Me they forgot; affronted with the slight,
My rage and stream swell’d to the greatest height;
And with the torrent of my flooding store,
Large woods from woods, and fields from fields, I tore:
The guilty nymphs, O, then rememb’ring me,
I, with their country, wash’d into the sea;
And joining waters with the social main,
Rent the gross land, and split the firm champaign:
Since, the Echinades, remote from shore,
Are view’d as many isles as nymphs before.”

“But yonder far, lo! yonder does appear
An isle, a part to me for ever dear;
From that (it sailors Perimele name)
I doting, forced, by strength, a virgin’s fame.
Hippodamas’s passion grew so strong,
Gall’d with the abuse, and fretted at the wrong,
He cast his pregnant daughter from a rock;
I spread my waves beneath and broke the shock;
And, as her swimming weight my stream convey’d,
I sued for help divine, and thus I pray’d:
‘O powerful thou! whose trident does command
The realm of waters, which surround the land;
We sacred rivers, wheresoe’er begun,
End in thy lot, and to thy empire run;
With favour hear, and help with present aid
Her whom I bear, ’twas guilty I betray’d.
Yet, if her father had been just or mild,
He would have been less impious to his child;
In her, have pitied force in the abuse;
In me, admitted love for my excuse:
O let relief for her hard case be found,
Her, whom paternal rage expell’d from ground;
Her, whom paternal rage relentless drown’d.
Grant her some place, or change her to a place
Which I may ever clasp with my embrace.’

“His nodding head the sea’s great ruler bent,
And all his waters shook with his assent:
The nymph still swam, though with the fright distress’d;
I felt her heart leap trembling in her breast;
But, hard’ning soon, while I her pulse explore,
A crusting cased her stiff body o’er;
And, as accretions of new-cleaving soil
Enlarged the mass, the nymph became an isle.”

Thus Achelous ends; his audience hear
With admiration, and, admiring, fear
The powers of heaven, except Ixion’s son,
Who laugh’d at all the gods, believed in none:
He shook his impious head, and thus replies:
“These legends are no more than pious lies.
You attribute too much to heavenly sway,
To think they gave us forms, and take away.”

The rest, of better minds, their sense declared
Against this doctrine, and with horror heard.
Then Lelex rose, an old experienced man,
And thus, with sober gravity, began:
“Heaven’s power is infinite: earth, air, and sea,
The manufacture mass, the making power obey:
By proof to clear your doubt; in Phrygian ground
Two neighbouring trees, with walls encompass’d round,
Stand on a moderate rise, with wonder shown,
One a hard oak, a softer linden one:
I saw the place, and them, by Pittheus sent
To Phrygian realms; my grandsire’s government.
Not far from thence is seen a lake, the haunt
Of coots, and of the fishing cormorant:
Here Jove with Hermes came; but in disguise
Of mortal men conceal’d their deities;
One laid aside his thunder, one his rod,
And many toilsome steps together trod:
For harbour at a thousand doors they knock’d;
Not one of all the thousand but was lock’d.
At last a hospitable house they found,
A homely shed; the roof, not far from ground,
Was thatch’d, with reeds and straw together bound.
There Baucis and Philemon lived, and there
Had lived long married, and a happy pair:
Now old in love, though little was their store,
Inured to want, their poverty they bore,
Nor aim’d at wealth, professing to be poor.
For master or for servant here to call
Were all alike, where only two were all.
Command was none, where equal love was paid,
Or rather both commanded, both obey’d.

“From lofty roofs the gods repulsed before,
Now stooping, enter’d through the little door:
The man (their hearty welcome first express’d)
A common settle drew for either guest,
Inviting each his weary limbs to rest.
But ere they sat, officious Baucis lays
Two cushions stuff’d with straw, the seat to raise;
Coarse, but the best she had; then rakes the load
Of ashes from the hearth, and spreads abroad
The living coals; and, lest they should expire,
With leaves and bark she feeds her infant fire:
It smokes; and then with trembling breath she blows,
Till in a cheerful blaze the flames arose.
With brushwood and with chips she strengthens these,
And adds at last the boughs of rotten trees.
The fire thus form’d, she sets the kettle on
(Like burnish’d gold the little seether shone);
Next took the coleworts which her husband got
From his own ground (a small, well-water’d spot);
She stripp’d the stalks of all their leaves; the best
She cull’d, and them with handy care she dress’d.
High o’er the hearth a chine of bacon hung;
Good old Philemon seized it with a prong,
And from the sooty rafter drew it down,
Then cut a slice, but scarce enough for one;
Yet a large portion of a little store,
Which for their sakes alone he wish’d were more.
This in the pot he plunged without delay,
To tame the flesh, and drain the salt away.
The time between, before the fire they sat,
And shorten’d the delay by pleasing chat.

“A beam there was, on which a beechen pail
Hung by the handle, on a driven nail:
This fill’d with water, gently warm’d, they set
Before their guests; in this they bathed their feet,
And after with clean towels dried their sweat.
This done, the host produced the genial bed,
Sallow the feet, the borders, and the sted,
Which with no costly coverlet they spread,
But coarse old garments; yet such robes as these
They laid alone at feasts on holydays.
The good old housewife, tucking up her gown
The table sets; the invited gods lie down.
The trivet-table of a foot was lame,
A blot which prudent Baucis overcame,
Who thrust beneath the limping leg a sherd;
So was the mended board exactly rear’d:
Then rubb’d it o’er with newly-gather’d mint,
A wholesome herb, that breathed a grateful scent.
Pallas began the feast, where first was seen
The parti-colour’d olive, black and green:
Autumnal cornels next in order served,
In lees of wine well pickled and preserved.
A garden salad was the third supply,
Of endive, radishes, and succory:
Then curds and cream, the flower of country fare,
And new-laid eggs, which Baucis’ busy care
Turn’d by a gentle fire, and roasted rare.
All these in earthenware were served to board;
And, next in place, an earthen pitcher stored
With liquor of the best the cottage could afford.
This was the table’s ornament and pride,
With figures wrought: like pages at his side
Stood beechen bowls; and these were shining clean,
Varnish’d with wax without, and lined within.
By this the boiling kettle had prepared,
And to the table sent the smoking lard;
On which with eager appetite they dine,
A sav’ry bit, that served to relish wine;
The wine itself was suiting to the rest,
Still working in the must, and lately press’d.
The second course succeeds like that before,
Plums, apples, nuts; and of their wintry store
Dry figs, and grapes, and wrinkled dates were set
In canisters, to enlarge the little treat:
All these a milk-white honeycomb surround,
Which in the midst the country banquet crown’d:
But the kind hosts their entertainment grace
With hearty welcome, and an open face:
In all they did, you might discern with ease
A willing mind, and a desire to please.

“Meantime the beechen bowls went round, and still,
Though often emptied, were observed to fill:
Fill’d without hands, and of their own accord
Ran without feet, and danced about the board.
Devotion seized the pair, to see the feast
With wine, and of no common grape, increased;
And up they held their hands, and fell to pray’r,
Excusing, as they could, their country fare.

“One goose they had (’twas all they could allow),
A wakeful sentry, and on duty now,
Whom to the gods for sacrifice they vow:
Her with malicious zeal the couple view’d;
She ran for life, and limping they pursued:
Full well the fowl perceived their bad intent,
And would not make her master’s compliment;
But persecuted, to the powers she flies,
And close between the legs of Jove she lies:
He with a gracious ear the suppliant heard,
And saved her life; then what he has declared,
And own’d the god. ‘The neighbourhood,’ said he,
‘Shall justly perish for impiety:
You stand alone exempted; but obey
With speed, and follow where we lead the way:
Leave these accursed, and to the mountain’s height
Ascend, nor once look backward in your flight.’

“They haste, and what their tardy feet denied,
The trusty staff (their better leg) supplied.
An arrow’s flight they wanted to the top,
And there secure, but spent with travel, stop;
Then turn their now no more forbidden eyes;
Lost in a lake the floated level lies:
A watery desert covers all the plains,
Their cot alone, as in an isle, remains.
Wondering, with weeping eyes, while they deplore
Their neighbours’ fate, and country now no more;
Their little shed, scarce large enough for two,
Seems, from the ground increased, in height and bulk to grow.
A stately temple shoots within the skies,
The crotches of their cot in columns rise;
The pavement polish’d marble they behold,
The gates with sculpture graced, the spires and tiles of gold.

“Then thus the sire of gods, with looks serene:
‘Speak thy desire, thou only just of men;
And thou, O woman, only worthy found
To be with such a man in marriage bound.’

“A while they whisper; then to Jove address’d,
Philemon thus prefers their joint request:
‘We crave to serve before your sacred shrine,
And offer at your altar rites divine:
And since not any action of our life
Has been polluted with domestic strife,
We beg one hour of death, that neither she
With widow’s tears may live to bury me,
Nor weeping I, with wither’d arms, may bear
My breathless Baucis to the sepulchre.’
The godheads sign their suit. They run the race
In the same tenor all the appointed space:
Then, when their hour was come, while they relate
These past adventures at the temple gate,
Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen
Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green:
Old Baucis look’d where old Philemon stood,
And saw his lengthen’d arms a sprouting wood:
New roots their fasten’d feet begin to bind,
Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind:
Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,
They give and take at once their last adieu.
‘At once farewell, O faithful spouse,’ they said;
At once the encroaching rinds their closing lips invade.
Ev’n yet, an ancient Tyanaean shows
A spreading oak, that near a linden grows;
The neighbourhood confirm the prodigy,
Grave men, not vain of tongue, or like to lie.
I saw myself the garlands on their boughs,
And tablets hung for gifts of granted vows;
And offering fresher up, with pious prayer,
‘The good,’ said I, ‘are God’s peculiar care,
And such as honour Heaven shall heavenly honour share.’ ”

He ceased in his relation to proceed,
While all admired the author and the deed;
But Theseus most, inquisitive to know
From gods what wondrous alterations grow.
Whom thus the Calydonian stream address’d,
Raised high to speak, the couch his elbow press’d.
“Some, when transform’d, fix in the lasting change;
Some, with more right, through various figures range.
Proteus, thus large thy privilege was found,
Thou inmate of the seas, which earth surround.
Sometimes a blooming youth you graced the shore;
Oft a fierce lion or a furious boar:
With glist’ring spires now seem’d a hissing snake.
The bold would tremble in his hands to take:
With horns assumed a bull; sometimes you proved
A tree by roots, a stone by weight unmoved:
Sometimes two wav’ring contraries became,
Flow’d down in water, or aspired in flame.”

In various shapes thus to deceive the eyes,
Without a settled stint of her disguise,
Rash Erisichthon’s daughter had the power,
And brought it to Autolycus in dower.
Her atheist sire the slighted gods defied,
And ritual honours to their shrines denied.
As fame reports, his hand an axe sustain’d,
Which Ceres’ consecrated grove profaned;
Which durst the venerable gloom invade,
And violate with light the awful shade.
An ancient oak in the dark centre stood,
The covert’s glory, and itself a wood:
Garlands embraced its shaft, and from the boughs
Hung tablets, monuments of prosp’rous vows.
In the cool dusk its unpierced verdure spread,
The dryads oft their hallow’d dances led;
And oft, when round their gauging arms they cast,
Full fifteen ells it measured in the waist:
Its height all under-standards did surpass,
As they aspired above the humbler grass.

These motives, which would gentler minds restrain,
Could not make Triope’s bold son abstain;
He sternly charged his slaves with strict decree
To fell with gashing steel the sacred tree.
But while they, lingering, his commands delay’d,
He snatch’d an axe, and thus blaspheming said:
“Was this no oak, nor Ceres’ favourite care,
But Ceres’ self, this arm, unawed, should dare
Its leafy honours in the dust to spread,
And level with the earth its airy head.”
He spoke, and as he poised a slanting stroke,
Sighs heaved, and tremblings shook the frighted oak:
Its leaves look’d sickly, pale its acorns grew,
And its long branches sweat a chilly dew.
But when his impious hand a wound bestow’d,
Blood from the mangled bark in currents flow’d.
When a devoted bull of mighty size,
A sinning nation’s grand atonement, dies,
With such a plenty from the spouting veins,
A crimson stream the turfy altars stains.

The wonder all amazed; yet one more bold,
The fact dissuading, strove his axe to hold.
But the Thessalian, obstinately bent,
Too proud to change, too harden’d to repent,
On his kind monitor his eyes, which burn’d
With rage, and with his eyes his weapon turn’d:
“Take the reward,” says he, “of pious dread:”
Then with a blow lopp’d off his parted head.
No longer check’d, the wretch his crime pursu’d,
Doubled his strokes, and sacrilege renew’d;
When from the groaning trunk a voice was heard:
“A dryad I, by Ceres’ love preferr’d,
Within the circle of this clasping rind
Coeval grew, and now in ruin join’d:
But instant vengeance shall thy sin pursue,
And death is cheer’d with this prophetic view.”

At last the oak with cords enforced to bow,
Strain’d from the top, and sapp’d with wounds be low,
The humbler wood, partaker of its fate,
Crush’d with its fall, and shiver’d with its weight.

The grove destroy’d, the sister dryads moan,
Grieved at its loss, and frighted at their own.
Straight suppliants for revenge to Ceres go,
In sable weeds, expressive of their wo.

The beauteous goddess with a graceful air
Bow’d in consent, and nodded to their prayer.
The awful motion shook the fruitful ground,
And waved the fields with golden harvests crown’d.
Soon she contrived in her projecting mind
A plague severe, and piteous in its kind
(If plagues for crimes of such presumptuous height
Could pity in the softest breast create);
With pinching want, and hunger’s keenest smart,
To tear his vitals, and corrode his heart.
But since her near approach by Fate’s denied
To Famine, and broad climes their powers divide,
A nymph, the mountain’s ranger, she address’d,
And, thus resolved, her high commands express’d.

“Where frozen Scythia’s utmost bound is placed,
A desert lies, a melancholy waste:
In yellow crops there Nature never smiled,
No fruitful tree to shade the barren wild.
There sluggish cold its icy station makes,
There paleness frights, and anguish trembling shakes.
Of pining Famine this the fated seat,
To whom my orders in these words repeat:
‘Bid her this miscreant with her sharpest pains
Chastise, and sheath herself into his veins;
Be unsubdued by plenty’s baffled store,
Reject my empire, and defeat my power;
And lest the distance, and the tedious way,
Should with the toil and long fatigue dismay,
Ascend my chariot, and, convey’d on high,
Guide the rein’d dragons through the parting sky.’

The nymph, accepting of the granted car,
Sprung to the seat, and posted through the air;
Nor stopp’d till she to a bleak mountain came
Of wondrous height, and Caucasus its name.
There in a stony field the fiend she found,
Herbs gnawing, and roots scratching from the ground.
Her elf-lock hair in matted tresses grew,
Sunk were her eyes, and pale her ghastly hue;
Wan were her lips, and foul with clammy glue,
Her throat was furr’d, her entrails seen within
With snaky crawlings through her parchment skin.
Her jutting hips seem’d starting from their place,
And for a stomach’s was a belly’s space.
Her joints protuberant by leanness grown,
Consumption sunk the flesh, and raised the bone.
Her knees’ large orbits bunch’d to monstrous size,
And ankles to undue proportion rise.

This plague the nymph, not daring to draw near,
At distance hail’d, and greeted from afar;
And though she told her charge without delay,
Though her arrival late, and short her stay,
She felt keen famine, or she seem’d to feel,
Invade her blood, and on her vitals steal.
She turn’d, from the infection to remove,
And back to Thessaly the serpents drove.

The fiend obey’d the goddess’s command
(Though their effects in opposition stand),
She cut her way, supported by the wind,
And reach’d the mansion by the nymph assign’d.

’Twas night, when, entering Erisichthon’s room,
Dissolv’d in sleep, and thoughtless of his doom,
She clasp’d his limbs, by impious labour tired,
With battish wings, but her whole self inspired;
Breathed on his throat and chest a tainting blast,
And in his veins infused an endless fast.

The task despatch’d, away the fury flies
From plenteous regions, and from ripening skies;
To her old barren north she wings her speed,
And cottages distress’d with pinching need.

Still slumbers Erisichthon’s senses drown,
And sooth his fancy with their softest down.
He dreams of viands delicate to eat,
And revels on imaginary meat.
Chews with his working mouth, but chews in vain,
And tires his grinding teeth with fruitless pain;
Deludes his throat with visionary fare,
Feasts on the wind, and banquets on the air.

The morning came, the night and slumbers pass’d,
But still the furious pangs of hunger last;
The cank’rous rage still gnaws with griping pains,
Stings in his throat, and in his bowels reigns.

Straight he requires, impatient in demand,
Provisions from the air, the seas, the land.
But though the land, air, seas, provisions grant,
Starves at full tables, and complains of want.
What to a people might in dole be paid,
Or victual cities for a long blockade,
Could not one wolfish appetite assuage;
For glutting nourishment increased its rage.
As rivers pour’d from every distant shore
The sea insatiate drinks, and thirsts for more,
Or as the fire, which all materials burns,
And wasted forests into ashes turns,
Grows more voracious as the more it preys,
Recruits dilate the flame, and spread the blaze,
So impious Erisichthon’s hunger raves,
Receives refreshments, and refreshments craves.
Food raises a desire for food, and meat
Is but a new provocative to eat.
He grows more empty, as the more supplied,
And endless cramming but extends the void.

Now riches hoarded by paternal care
Were sunk, the glutton swallowing up the heir.
Yet the devouring flame no stores abate,
Nor less the hunger grew with his estate.
One daughter left, as left his keen desire,
A daughter worthy of a better sire:
Her too he sold, spent nature to sustain;
She scorn’d a lord with generous disdain,
And flying, spread her hands upon the main.

The god was moved at what the fair had sued,
When she so lately by her master view’d
In her known figure, on a sudden took
A fisher’s habit, and a manly look.
To whom her owner hasted to inquire:
“O thou,” said he, “whose baits hide treacherous wire;
Whose art can manage, and experienced skill
The taper angle, and the bobbing quill,
So may the sea be ruffled with no storm,
But smooth with calms, as you the truth inform;
So your deceit may no shy fishes feel,
Till struck, and fasten’d on the bearded steel.
Did not you standing view upon the strand
A wandering maid? I’m sure I saw her stand,
Her hair disorder’d, and her homely dress
Betray’d her want, and witness’d her distress.”

“Me heedless,” she replied, “whoe’er you are,
Excuse, attentive to another care.
I settled on the deep my steady eye,
Fix’d on my float, and bent on my employ:
And that you may not doubt what I impart,
So may the ocean’s god assist my art,
If on the beach since I my sport pursued,
Or man or woman, but myself, I view’d.”
Back o’er the sands, deluded, he withdrew,
While she for her old form put off her new.

Her sire her shifting power to change perceived,
And various chapmen by her sale deceived.
A fowl with spangled plumes, a brinded steer,
Sometimes a crested mare, or antler’d deer:
Sold for a price, she parted, to maintain
Her starving parent with dishonest gain.

At last all means, as all provisions, fail’d;
For the disease by remedies prevail’d;
His muscles with a furious bite he tore,
Gorged his own tatter’d flesh, and gulf’d his gore.
Wounds were his feast, his life to life a prey,
Supporting nature by its own decay.

“But foreign stories why should I relate?
I too myself can to new forms translate;
Though the variety’s not unconfined,
But fix’d in number, and restrain’d in kind:
For often I this present shape retain,
Oft curl a snake the volumes of my train.
Sometimes my strength into my horns transferr’d,
A bull I march, the captain of the herd.
But while I once those goring weapons wore,
Vast wresting force one from my forehead tore,
Lo, my maim’d brows the injury still own.”
He ceased; his words concluding with a groan.