When now the god his fury had allayed,
And taken vengeance of the stubborn maid,
From where the bright Athenian turrets rise
He mounts aloft, and reascends the skies.
Jove saw him enter the sublime abodes,
And, as he mixed among the crowd of gods,
Beckoned him out, and drew him from the rest,
And in soft whispers thus his will expressed.
'My trusty Hermes, by whose ready aid
Thy sire's commands are through the world conveyed,
_10
Resume thy wings, exert their utmost force,
And to the walls of Sidon speed they course;
There find a herd of heifers wandering o'er
The neighbouring hill, and drive them to the shore.'
Thus spoke the god, concealing his intent.
The trusty Hermes on his message went,
And found the herd of heifers wandering o'er
A neighbouring hill, and drove them to the shore;
Where the king's daughter, with a lovely train
Of fellow-nymphs, was sporting on the plain.
_20
The dignity of empire laid aside,
(For love but ill agrees with kingly pride,)
The ruler of the skies, the thundering god,
Who shakes the world's foundations with a nod,
Among a herd of lowing heifers ran,
Frisked in a bull, and bellowed o'er the plain.
Large rolls of fat about his shoulders clung,
And from his neck the double dewlap hung.
His skin was whiter than the snow that lies
Unsullied by the breath of southern skies;
_30
Small shining horns on his curled forehead stand,
As turned and polished by the workman's hand;
His eye-balls rolled, not formidably bright,
But gazed and languished with a gentle light.
His every look was peaceful, and expressed
The softness of the lover in the beast.
Agenor's royal daughter, as she played
Among the fields, the milk-white bull surveyed,
And viewed his spotless body with delight,
And at a distance kept him in her sight.
_40
At length she plucked the rising flowers, and fed
The gentle beast, and fondly stroked his head.
He stood well pleased to touch the charming fair,
But hardly could confine his pleasure there.
And now he wantons o'er the neighbouring strand,
Now rolls his body on the yellow sand;
And now, perceiving all her fears decayed,
Comes tossing forward to the royal maid;
Gives her his breast to stroke, and downward turns
His grisly brow, and gently stoops his horns.
_50
In flowery wreaths the royal virgin dressed
His bending horns, and kindly clapped his breast.
Till now grown wanton, and devoid of fear,
Not knowing that she pressed the Thunderer,
She placed herself upon his back, and rode
O'er fields and meadows, seated on the god.
He gently marched along, and by degrees
Left the dry meadow, and approached the seas;
Where now he dips his hoofs and wets his thighs,
Now plunges in, and carries off the prize.
_60
The frighted nymph looks backward on the shore,
And hears the tumbling billows round her roar;
But still she holds him fast: one hand is borne
Upon his back, the other grasps a horn:
Her train of ruffling garments flies behind,
Swells in the air and hovers in the wind.
Through storms and tempests he the virgin bore,
And lands her safe on the Dictean shore;
Where now, in his divinest form arrayed,
In his true shape he captivates the maid;
_70
Who gazes on him, and with wondering eyes
Beholds the new majestic figure rise,
His glowing features, and celestial light,
And all the god discovered to her sight.
BOOK III.
THE STORY OF CADMUS.
When now Agenor had his daughter lost,
He sent his son to search on every coast;
And sternly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or see his face no more,
But live an exile in a foreign clime:
Thus was the father pious to a crime.
The restless youth searched all the world around;
But how can Jove in his amours be found?
When tired at length with unsuccessful toil,
To shun his angry sire and native soil,
_10
He goes a suppliant to the Delphic dome;
There asks the god what new-appointed home
Should end his wanderings and his toils relieve.
The Delphic oracles this answer give:
'Behold among the fields a lonely cow,
Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plough;
Mark well the place where first she lays her down,
There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,
And from thy guide, Boetia call the land,
In which the destined walls and town shall stand.'
_20
No sooner had he left the dark abode,
Big with the promise of the Delphic god,
When in the fields the fatal cow he viewed,
Nor galled with yokes, nor worn with servitude:
Her gently at a distance he pursued;
And, as he walked aloof, in silence prayed
To the great power whose counsels he obeyed.
Her way through flowery Panope she took,
And now, Cephisus, crossed thy silver brook;
When to the heavens her spacious front she raised,
_30
And bellowed thrice, then backward turning, gazed
On those behind, till on the destined place
She stooped, and couched amid the rising grass.
Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails
The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,
And thanks the gods, and turns about his eye
To see his new dominions round him lie;
Then sends his servants to a neighbouring grove
For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove.
O'er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
_40
Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
O'errun with brambles, and perplexed with thorn:
Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,
With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.
Deep in the dreary den, concealed from day,
Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
Fire broke in flashes when he glanced his eyes;
His towering crest was glorious to behold,
_50
His shoulders and his sides were scaled with gold;
Three tongues he brandished when he charged his foes;
His teeth stood jagy in three dreadful rows.
The Tyrians in the den for water sought,
And with their urns explored the hollow vault:
From side to side their empty urns rebound,
And rouse the sleepy serpent with the sound.
Straight he bestirs him, and is seen to rise;
And now with dreadful hissings fills the skies,
And darts his forky tongues, and rolls his glaring eyes.
_60
The Tyrians drop their vessels in their fright,
All pale and trembling at the hideous sight
Spire above spire upreared in air he stood,
And gazing round him, overlooked the wood:
Then floating on the ground, in circles rolled;
Then leaped upon them in a mighty fold.
Of such a bulk, and such a monstrous size,
The serpent in the polar circle lies,
That stretches over half the northern skies.
In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,
_70
In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly:
All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;
Some die entangled in the winding train;
Some are devoured; or feel a loathsome death,
Swoln up with blasts of pestilential breath.
And now the scorching sun was mounted high,
In all its lustre, to the noonday sky;
When, anxious for his friends, and filled with cares,
To search the woods the impatient chief prepares.
A lion's hide around his loins he wore,
_80
The well-poised javelin to the field he bore,
Inured to blood, the far-destroying dart,
And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart.
Soon as the youth approached the fatal place,
He saw his servants breathless on the grass;
The scaly foe amid their corps he viewed,
Basking at ease, and feasting in their blood,
'Such friends,' he cries, 'deserved a longer date;
But Cadmus will revenge, or share their fate.'
Then heaved a stone, and rising to the throw
_90
He sent it in a whirlwind at the foe:
A tower, assaulted by so rude a stroke,
With all its lofty battlements had shook;
But nothing here the unwieldy rock avails,
Rebounding harmless from the plaited scales,
That, firmly joined, preserved him from a wound,
With native armour crusted all around. 97
The pointed javelin more successful flew,
Which at his back the raging warrior threw;
Amid the plaited scales it took its course,
_100
And in the spinal marrow spent its force.
The monster hissed aloud, and raged in vain,
And writhed his body to and fro with pain;
And bit the spear, and wrenched the wood away;
The point still buried in the marrow lay.
And now his rage, increasing with his pain,
Reddens his eyes, and beats in every vein;
Churned in his teeth the foamy venom rose,
Whilst from his mouth a blast of vapours flows,
Such as the infernal Stygian waters cast;
_110
The plants around him wither in the blast.
Now in a maze of rings he lies enrolled,
Now all unravelled, and without a fold;
Now, like a torrent, with a mighty force,
Bears down the forest in his boisterous course.
Cadmus gave back, and on the lion's spoil
Sustained the shock, then forced him to recoil;
The pointed javelin warded off his rage:
Mad with his pains, and furious to engage,
The serpent champs the steel, and bites the spear,
_120
Till blood and venom all the point besmear.
But still the hurt he yet received was slight;
For, whilst the champion with redoubled might
Strikes home the javelin, his retiring foe
Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the blow.
The dauntless hero still pursues his stroke,
And presses forward, till a knotty oak
Retards his foe, and stops him in the rear;
Full in his throat he plunged the fatal spear,
That in the extended neck a passage found,
_130
And pierced the solid timber through the wound.
Fixed to the reeling trunk, with many a stroke
Of his huge tail, he lashed the sturdy oak;
Till spent with toil, and labouring hard for breath,
He now lay twisting in the pangs of death.
Cadmus beheld him wallow in a flood
Of swimming poison, intermixed with blood;
When suddenly a speech was heard from high,
(The speech was heard, nor was the speaker nigh,)
'Why dost thou thus with secret pleasure see,
_140
Insulting man! what thou thyself shalt be?'
Astonished at the voice, he stood amazed,
And all around with inward horror gazed:
When Pallas, swift descending from the skies,
Pallas, the guardian of the bold and wise,
Bids him plough up the field, and scatter round
The dragon's teeth o'er all the furrowed ground;
Then tells the youth how to his wondering eyes
Embattled armies from the field should rise.
He sows the teeth at Pallas's command,
_150
And flings the future people from his hand.
The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows;
And now the pointed spears advance in rows;
Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,
Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts:
O'er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,
A growing host, a crop of men and arms.
So through the parting stage a figure rears
Its body up, and limb by limb appears
By just degrees; till all the man arise,
_160
And in his full proportion strikes the eyes.
Cadmus surprised, and startled at the sight
Of his new foes, prepared himself for fight:
When one cried out, 'Forbear, fond man, forbear
To mingle in a blind, promiscuous war.'
This said, he struck his brother to the ground,
Himself expiring by another's wound;
Nor did the third his conquest long survive,
Dying ere scarce he had begun to live.
The dire example ran through all the field,
_170
Till heaps of brothers were by brothers killed;
The furrows swam in blood: and only five
Of all the vast increase were left alive.
Echion one, at Pallas's command,
Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand;
And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,
Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners takes:
So founds a city on the promised earth,
And gives his new Boeotian empire birth.
Here Cadmus reigned; and now one would have guessed
_180
The royal founder in his exile blessed:
Long did he live within his new abodes,
Allied by marriage to the deathless gods;
And, in a fruitful wife's embraces old,
A long increase of children's children told:
But no frail man, however great or high,
Can be concluded blessed before he die.
Actæon was the first of all his race,
Who grieved his grandsire in his borrowed face;
Condemned by stern Diana to bemoan
_190
The branching horns, and visage not his own;
To shun his once-loved dogs, to bound away,
And from their huntsman to become their prey.
And yet consider why the change was wrought,
You'll find it his misfortune, not his fault;
Or if a fault, it was the fault of chance:
For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ACTÆON INTO A STAG.
In a fair chase a shady mountain stood,
Well stored with game, and marked with trails of blood.
Here did the huntsmen till the heat of day
Pursue the stag, and load themselves with prey;
When thus Actæon calling to the rest:
'My friends,' says he, 'our sport is at the best.
The sun is high advanced, and downward sheds
His burning beams directly on our heads;
Then by consent abstain from further spoils,
Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils;
_10
And ere to-morrow's sun begins his race,
Take the cool morning to renew the chase.'
They all consent, and in a cheerful train
The jolly huntsmen, loaden with the slain,
Return in triumph from the sultry plain.
Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,
Refreshed with gentle winds, and brown with shade,
The chaste Diana's private haunt, there stood
Full in the centre of the darksome wood
A spacious grotto, all around o'ergrown
_20
With hoary moss, and arched with pumice-stone.
From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,
And trickling swell into a lake below.
Nature had everywhere so played her part,
That everywhere she seemed to vie with art.
Here the bright goddess, toiled and chafed with heat,
Was wont to bathe her in the cool retreat.
Here did she now with all her train resort,
Panting with heat, and breathless from the sport;
Her armour-bearer laid her bow aside,
_30
Some loosed her sandals, some her veil untied;
Each busy nymph her proper part undressed;
While Crocale, more handy than the rest,
Gathered her flowing hair, and in a noose
Bound it together, whilst her own hung loose.
Five of the more ignoble sort by turns
Fetch up the water, and unlade their urns.
Now all undressed the shining goddess stood,
When young Actæon, wildered in the wood,
To the cool grot by his hard fate betrayed,
_40
The fountains filled with naked nymphs surveyed.
The frighted virgins shrieked at the surprise,
(The forest echoed with their piercing cries,)
Then in a huddle round their goddess pressed:
She, proudly eminent above the rest,
With blushes glowed; such blushes as adorn
The ruddy welkin, or the purple morn;
And though the crowding nymphs her body hide,
Half backward shrunk, and viewed him from aside.
Surprised, at first she would have snatched her bow,
_50
But sees the circling waters round her flow;
These in the hollow of her hand she took,
And dashed them in his face, while thus she spoke:
'Tell if thou canst the wondrous sight disclosed,
A goddess naked to thy view exposed.'
This said, the man began to disappear
By slow degrees, and ended in a deer.
A rising horn on either brow he wears,
And stretches out his neck, and pricks his ears;
Rough is his skin, with sudden hairs o'ergrown,
_60
His bosom pants with fears before unknown.
Transformed at length, he flies away in haste,
And wonders why he flies away so fast.
But as by chance, within a neighbouring brook,
He saw his branching horns and altered look,
Wretched Actæon! in a doleful tone
He tried to speak, but only gave a groan;
And as he wept, within the watery glass
He saw the big round drops, with silent pace,
Run trickling down a savage hairy face.
_70
What should he do? Or seek his old abodes,
Or herd among the deer, and skulk in woods?
Here shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails,
And each by turns his aching heart assails.
As he thus ponders, he behind him spies
His opening hounds, and now he hears their cries:
A generous pack, or to maintain the chase,
Or snuff the vapour from the scented grass.
He bounded off with fear, and swiftly ran
O'er craggy mountains, and the flowery plain;
_80
Through brakes and thickets forced his way, and flew
Through many a ring, where once he did pursue.
In vain he oft endeavoured to proclaim
His new misfortune, and to tell his name;
Nor voice nor words the brutal tongue supplies;
From shouting men, and horns, and dogs he flies,
Deafened and stunned with their promiscuous cries.
When now the fleetest of the pack, that pressed
Close at his heels, and sprung before the rest,
Had fastened on him, straight another pair
_90
Hung on his wounded haunch, and held him there,
Till all the pack came up, and every hound
Tore the sad huntsman, grovelling on the ground,
Who now appeared but one continued wound.
With dropping tears his bitter fate he moans,
And fills the mountain with his dying groans.
His servants with a piteous look he spies,
And turns about his supplicating eyes.
His servants, ignorant of what had chanced,
With eager haste and joyful shouts advanced,
_100
And called their lord Actæon to the game:
He shook his head in answer to the name;
He heard, but wished he had indeed been gone,
Or only to have stood a looker-on.
But, to his grief, he finds himself too near,
And feels his ravenous dogs with fury tear
Their wretched master, panting in a deer.
THE BIRTH OF BACCHUS.
Actæon's sufferings, and Diana's rage,
Did all the thoughts of men and gods engage;
Some called the evils which Diana wrought,
Too great, and disproportioned to the fault:
Others, again, esteemed Actæon's woes
Fit for a virgin goddess to impose.
The hearers into different parts divide,
And reasons are produced on either side.
Juno alone, of all that heard the news,
Nor would condemn the goddess, nor excuse:
_10
She heeded not the justice of the deed,
But joyed to see the race of Cadmus bleed;
For still she kept Europa in her mind,
And, for her sake, detested all her kind.
Besides, to aggravate her hate, she heard
How Semele, to Jove's embrace preferred,
Was now grown big with an immortal load,
And carried in her womb a future god.
Thus terribly incensed, the goddess broke
To sudden fury, and abruptly spoke.
_20
'Are my reproaches of so small a force?
'Tis time I then pursue another course:
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die,
If I'm indeed the mistress of the sky;
If rightly styled among the powers above
The wife and sister of the thundering Jove,
(And none can sure a sister's right deny,)
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die.
She boasts an honour I can hardly claim;
Pregnant, she rises to a mother's name;
_30
While proud and vain she triumphs in her Jove,
And shows the glorious tokens of his love:
But if I'm still the mistress of the skies,
By her own lover the fond beauty dies.'
This said, descending in a yellow cloud,
Before the gates of Semele she stood.
Old Beroe's decrepit shape she wears,
Her wrinkled visage, and her hoary hairs;
Whilst in her trembling gait she totters on,
And learns to tattle in the nurse's tone.
_40
The goddess, thus disguised in age, beguiled
With pleasing stories her false foster-child.
Much did she talk of love, and when she came
To mention to the nymph her lover's name,
Fetching a sigh, and holding down her head,
''Tis well,' says she, 'if all be true that's said;
But trust me, child, I'm much inclined to fear
Some counterfeit in this your Jupiter.
Many an honest, well-designing maid,
Has been by these pretended gods betrayed.
_50
But if he be indeed the thundering Jove,
Bid him, when next he courts the rites of love,
Descend, triumphant from the ethereal sky,
In all the pomp of his divinity;
Encompassed round by those celestial charms,
With which he fills the immortal Juno's arms.'
The unwary nymph, insnared with what she said,
Desired of Jove, when next he sought her bed,
To grant a certain gift which she would choose;
'Fear not,' replied the god, 'that I'll refuse
_60
Whate'er you ask: may Styx confirm my voice,
Choose what you will, and you shall have your choice.'
'Then,' says the nymph, 'when next you seek my arms,
May you descend in those celestial charms,
With which your Juno's bosom you inflame,
And fill with transport heaven's immortal dame.'
The god surprised, would fain have stopped her voice:
But he had swrorn, and she had made her choice.
To keep his promise he ascends, and shrouds
His awful brow in whirlwinds and in clouds;
_70
Whilst all around, in terrible array,
His thunders rattle, and his lightnings play.
And yet, the dazzling lustre to abate,
He set not out in all his pomp and state,
Clad in the mildest lightning of the skies,
And armed with thunder of the smallest size:
Not those huge bolts, by which the giants slain,
Lay overthrown on the Phlegræan plain.
Twas of a lesser mould, and lighter weight;
They call it thunder of a second-rate.
_80
For the rough Cyclops, who by Jove's command
Tempered the bolt, and turned it to his hand,
Worked up less flame and fury in its make,
And quenched it sooner in the standing lake.
Thus dreadfully adorned, with horror bright,
The illustrious god, descending from his height,
Came rushing on her in a storm of light.
The mortal dame, too feeble to engage
The lightning's flashes and the thunder's rage,
Consumed amidst the glories she desired,
_90
And in the terrible embrace expired.
But, to preserve his offspring from the tomb,
Jove took him smoking from the blasted womb;
And, if on ancient tales we may rely,
Enclosed the abortive infant in his thigh.
Here, when the babe had all his time fulfilled,
Ino first took him for her foster-child;
Then the Niseans, in their dark abode,
Nursed secretly with milk the thriving god.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF TIRESIAS.
'Twas now, while these transactions passed on earth,
And Bacchus thus procured a second birth,
When Jove, disposed to lay aside the weight
Of public empire and the cares of state,
As to his queen in nectar bowls he quaffed,
'In troth,' says he, and as he spoke he laughed,
'The sense of pleasure in the male is far
More dull and dead than what you females share.'
Juno the truth of what was said denied;
Tiresias therefore must the cause decide;
_10
For he the pleasure of each sex had tried.
It happened once, within a shady wood,
Two twisted snakes he in conjunction viewed;
When with his staff their slimy folds he broke,
And lost his manhood at the fatal stroke.
But, after seven revolving years, he viewed
The self-same serpents in the self-same wood;
'And if,' says he, 'such virtue in you lie,
That he who dares your slimy folds untie
Must change his kind, a second stroke I'll try.'
_20
Again he struck the snakes, and stood again
New-sexed, and straight recovered into man.
Him therefore both the deities create
The sovereign umpire in their grand debate;
And he declared for Jove; when Juno, fired
More than so trivial an affair required,
Deprived him, in her fury, of his sight,
And left him groping round in sudden night.
But Jove (for so it is in heaven decreed,
That no one god repeal another's deed)
_30
Irradiates all his soul with inward light,
And with the prophet's art relieves the want of sight.