A C I S A N D G A L A T E A.
Polyphemus, the most dreadful and hideous of the Cyclops, loved Galatea, one of the beautiful race of the sea-nymphs. Day by day, did the giant sit by the side of a fountain, neglecting his flocks, and murmuring love songs the most touching and impassioned; while he adorned his person and endeavoured to render himself as agreeable, by these and other means, to his nymph as possible.
Galatea treated all his attentions with disrespect, and bestowed her affections upon Acis; meeting him in secret in a grotto, there enjoying the sweet society of one another, unsuspicious of the danger which threatened them.
—————————"Acis knelt
At Galatea's feet. She gazed awhile,
One delicate hand was pressed against her cheek,
That flushed with pleasure, and her dark hair streamed
Shadowing the brightness of her fixed eye,
Which on the young Sicilian shepherd's face
Shone like a star—
'Twas strange that she, a high sea-nymph should leave,
Her watery palaces, and coral caves,
Her home, and all immortal company,
To dwell with him, a simple shepherd boy."
Barry Cornwall.
Polyphemus, however, discovered their retreat, and with it, the cause of all the scorn and indifference, with which he had been treated.
————————"At once he saw
His rival, and the nymph he loved so well,
Twined in each other's arms. 'Away,' he cried,
'Away thou wanton nymph, and thou, my slave.
Earth born and base, thou—thou whom I could shake
To atoms, as the tempest scatters abroad
The sea-sand tow'rd the skies, away, away!'"
Acis came forth from his retreat, and Polyphemus threw an enormous rock upon him, which crushed him beneath its weight.
————————"The shepherd boy,
He felt the Cyclop's wrath, for on his head
The mighty weight descended: not a limb,
Or bone, or fragment, or a glossy hair,
Remained of all his beauty."
Galatea was in despair, and as she could not restore him to life, she changed him into a river, on the banks of which, she could still sport at even time, and sing to her beautiful, but lost love.
——————————"She changed,
As Grecian fables say, the shepherd boy
Into a stream, and on its banks would lie,
And utter her laments in such a tone,
As might have moved the rocks, and then would call
Upon the murdered Acis. He the while
Ran to the sea, but oft on summer nights
Noises were heard, and plaintive music like,
The songs you hear in Sicily—shepherd swains
For many an age would lie by that lone stream,
And from its watery melodies catch an air,
And tune it to their simple instruments."
Barry Cornwall.