BOOK IV.
THE STORY OF SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITES.
How Salmacis, with weak enfeebling streams
Softens the body, and unnerves the limbs,
And what the secret cause, shall here be shown;
The cause is secret, but the effect is known.
The Naïads nursed an infant heretofore,
That Cytherea once to Hermes bore:
From both the illustrious authors of his race
The child was named; nor was it hard to trace
Both the bright parents through the infant's face.
When fifteen years, in Ida's cool retreat,
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The boy had told, he left his native seat,
And sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil;
The pleasure lessened the attending toil.
With eager steps the Lycian fields he crossed,
And fields that border on the Lycian coast;
A river here he viewed so lovely bright,
It showed the bottom in a fairer light,
Nor kept a sand concealed from human sight.
The stream produced nor slimy ooze, nor weeds,
Nor miry rushes, nor the spiky reeds;
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But dealt enriching moisture all around,
The fruitful banks with cheerful verdure crowned,
And kept the spring eternal on the ground.
A nymph presides, nor practised in the chase,
Nor skilful at the bow, nor at the race;
Of all the blue-eyed daughters of the main,
The only stranger to Diana's train:
Her sisters often, as 'tis said, would cry,
'Fie, Salmacis, what always idle! fie,
Or take thy quiver, or thy arrows seize,
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And mix the toils of hunting with thy ease.'
Nor quiver she nor arrows e'er would seize,
Nor mix the toils of hunting with her ease.
But oft would bathe her in the crystal tide,
Oft with a comb her dewy locks divide;
Now in the limpid streams she viewed her face,
And dressed her image in the floating glass:
On beds of leaves she now reposed her limbs,
Now gathered flowers that grew about her streams:
And then by chance was gathering, as she stood
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To view the boy, and longed for what she viewed.
Fain would she meet the youth with hasty feet,
She fain would meet him, but refused to meet
Before her looks were set with nicest care,
And well deserved to be reputed fair.
'Bright youth,' she cries, 'whom all thy features prove
A god, and, if a god, the god of love;
But if a mortal, bless'd thy nurse's breast,
Bless'd are thy parents, and thy sisters bless'd:
But, oh! how bless'd! how more than bless'd thy bride,
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Allied in bliss, if any yet allied.
If so, let mine the stolen enjoyments be;
If not, behold a willing bride in me.'
The boy knew nought of love, and, touched with shame,
He strove, and blushed, but still the blush became:
In rising blushes still fresh beauties rose;
The sunny side of fruit such blushes shows,
And such the moon, when all her silver white
Turns in eclipses to a ruddy light.
The nymph still begs, if not a nobler bliss,
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A cold salute at least, a sister's kiss:
And now prepares to take the lovely boy
Between her arms. He, innocently coy,
Replies, 'Or leave me to myself alone,
You rude, uncivil nymph, or I'll begone.'
'Fair stranger then,' says she, 'it shall be so;'
And, for she feared his threats, she feigned to go;
But hid within a covert's neighbouring green,
She kept him still in sight, herself unseen.
The boy now fancies all the danger o'er,
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And innocently sports about the shore,
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and shivers as he dips.
The coolness pleased him, and with eager haste
His airy garments on the banks he cast;
His godlike features, and his heavenly hue,
And all his beauties were exposed to view.
His naked limbs the nymph with rapture spies,
While hotter passions in her bosom rise,
Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.
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She longs, she burns to clasp him in her arms,
And looks, and sighs, and kindles at his charms.
Now all undressed upon the banks he stood,
And clapped his sides and leaped into the flood:
His lovely limbs the silver waves divide,
His limbs appear more lovely through the tide;
As lilies shut within a crystal case,
Receive a glossy lustre from the glass.
'He's mine, he's all my own,' the Naiad cries,
And flings off all, and after him she flies.
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And now she fastens on him as he swims,
And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs.
The more the boy resisted, and was coy,
The more she clipped and kissed the struggling boy.
So when the wriggling snake is snatched on high
In eagle's claws, and hisses in the sky,
Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,
And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings.
The restless boy still obstinately strove
To free himself, and still refused her love.
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Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs entwined,
'And why, coy youth,' she cries, 'why thus unkind!
Oh may the gods thus keep us ever joined!
Oh may we never, never part again!'
So prayed the nymph, nor did she pray in vain:
For now she finds him, as his limbs she pressed,
Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast;
Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in one:
Last in one face are both their faces joined,
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As when the stock and grafted twig combined
Shoot up the same, and wear a common rind:
Both bodies in a single body mix,
A single body with a double sex.
The boy, thus lost in woman, now surveyed
The river's guilty stream, and thus he prayed:
(He prayed, but wondered at his softer tone,
Surprised to hear a voice but half his own:)
You parent gods, whose heavenly names I bear,
Hear your Hermaphrodite, and grant my prayer;
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Oh grant, that whomsoe'er these streams contain,
If man he entered, he may rise again
Supple, unsinewed, and but half a man!
The heavenly parents answered, from on high,
Their two-shaped son, the double votary;
Then gave a secret virtue to the flood,
And tinged its source to make his wishes good.
TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS OF WALES,[12]
WITH THE TRAGEDY OF CATO, NOV. 1714.
The Muse that oft, with sacred raptures fired,
Has generous thoughts of liberty inspired,
And, boldly rising for Britannia's laws,
Engaged great Cato in her country's cause,
On you submissive waits, with hopes assured,
By whom the mighty blessing stands secured,
And all the glories that our age adorn,
Are promised to a people yet unborn.
No longer shall the widowed land bemoan
A broken lineage, and a doubtful throne;
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But boast her royal progeny's increase,
And count the pledges of her future peace.
O, born to strengthen and to grace our isle!
While you, fair Princess, in your offspring smile,
Supplying charms to the succeeding age,
Each heavenly daughter's triumphs we presage;
Already see the illustrious youths complain,
And pity monarchs doomed to sigh in vain.
Thou too, the darling of our fond desires,
Whom Albion, opening wide her arms, requires,
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With manly valour and attractive air
Shalt quell the fierce and captivate the fair.
O England's younger hope! in whom conspire
The mother's sweetness and the father's fire!
For thee perhaps, even now, of kingly race,
Some dawning beauty blooms in every grace,
Some Carolina, to heaven's dictates true,
Who, while the sceptred rivals vainly sue,
Thy inborn worth with conscious eyes shall see,
And slight the imperial diadem for thee.
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Pleased with the prospect of successive reigns,
The tuneful tribe no more in daring strains
Shall vindicate, with pious fears oppressed,
Endangered rights, and liberty distressed:
To milder sounds each Muse shall tune the lyre,
And gratitude, and faith to kings inspire,
And filial love; bid impious discord cease,
And soothe the madding factions into peace;
Or rise ambitious in more lofty lays,
And teach the nation their new monarch's praise,
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Describe his awful look and godlike mind,
And Cæsar's power with Cato's virtue joined.
Meanwhile, bright Princess, who, with graceful ease
And native majesty, are formed to please,
Behold those arts with a propitious eye,
That suppliant to their great protectress fly!
Then shall they triumph, and the British stage
Improve her manners and refine her rage,
More noble characters expose to view,
And draw her finished heroines from you.
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Nor you the kind indulgence will refuse,
Skilled in the labours of the deathless Muse:
The deathless Muse with undiminished rays
Through distant times the lovely dame conveys:
To Gloriana[13] Waller's harp was strung;
The queen still shines, because the poet sung.
Even all those graces, in your frame combined,
The common fate of mortal charms may find,
(Content our short-lived praises to engage,
The joy and wonder of a single age,)
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Unless some poet in a lasting song
To late posterity their fame prolong,
Instruct our sons the radiant form to prize.
And see your beauty with their fathers' eyes.
TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER[14] ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING.[15]
Kneller, with silence and surprise
We see Britannia's monarch rise,
A godlike form, by thee displayed
In all the force of light and shade;
And, awed by thy delusive hand,
As in the presence-chamber stand.
The magic of thy art calls forth
His secret soul and hidden worth,
His probity and mildness shows,
His care of friends and scorn of foes:
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In every stroke, in every line,
Does some exalted virtue shine,
And Albion's happiness we trace
Through all the features of his face.
Oh may I live to hail the day,
When the glad nation shall survey
Their sovereign, through his wide command,
Passing in progress o'er the land!
Each heart shall bend, and every voice
In loud applauding shouts rejoice,
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Whilst all his gracious aspect praise,
And crowds grow loyal as they gaze.
This image on the medal placed,
With its bright round of titles graced,
And stamped on British coins, shall live,
To richest ores the value give,
Or, wrought within the curious mould,
Shape and adorn the running gold.
To bear this form, the genial sun
Has daily, since his course begun,
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Rejoiced the metal to refine,
And ripened the Peruvian mine.
Thou, Kneller, long with noble pride,
The foremost of thy art, hast vied
With nature in a generous strife,
And touched the canvas into life.
Thy pencil has, by monarchs sought,
From reign to reign in ermine wrought,
And, in their robes of state arrayed,
The kings of half an age displayed.
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Here swarthy Charles appears, and there
His brother with dejected air:
Triumphant Nassau here we find,
And with him bright Maria joined;
There Anna, great as when she sent
Her armies through the continent,
Ere yet her hero was disgraced:
Oh may famed Brunswick be the last,
(Though heaven should with my wish agree,
And long preserve thy art in thee,)
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The last, the happiest British king,
Whom thou shalt paint, or I shall sing!
Wise Phidias, thus his skill to prove,
Through many a god advanced to Jove,
And taught the polished rocks to shine
With airs and lineaments divine;
Till Greece, amazed, and half afraid,
The assembled deities surveyed.
Great Pan, who wont to chase the fair,
And loved the spreading oak, was there;
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Old Saturn too, with up-cast eyes,
Beheld his abdicated skies;
And mighty Mars, for war renowned,
In adamantine armour frowned;
By him the childless goddess rose,
Minerva, studious to compose
Her twisted threads; the web she strung,
And o'er a loom of marble hung:
Thetis, the troubled ocean's queen.
Matched with a mortal, next was seen,
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Reclining on a funeral urn,
Her short-lived darling son to mourn.
The last was he, whose thunder slew
The Titan race, a rebel crew,
That, from a hundred hills allied
In impious leagues, their king defied.
This wonder of the sculptor's hand
Produced, his art was at a stand:
For who would hope new fame to raise,
Or risk his well-established praise,
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That, his high genius to approve,
Had drawn a GEORGE, or carved a Jove!
THE PLAY-HOUSE.
Where gentle Thames through stately channels glides,
And England's proud metropolis divides;
A lofty fabric does the sight invade,
And stretches o'er the waves a pompous shade;
Whence sudden shouts the neighbourhood surprise,
And thundering claps and dreadful hissings rise.
Here thrifty R——[16] hires monarchs by the day,
And keeps his mercenary kings in pay;
With deep-mouth'd actors fills the vacant scenes,
And rakes the stews for goddesses and queens:
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Here the lewd punk, with crowns and sceptres graced,
Teaches her eyes a more majestic cast;
And hungry monarchs with a numerous train
Of suppliant slaves, like Sancho, starve and reign.
But enter in, my Muse; the stage survey,
And all its pomp and pageantry display;
Trap-doors and pit-falls, form the unfaithful ground,
And magic walls encompass it around:
On either side maim'd temples fill our eyes,
And intermixed with brothel-houses rise;
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Disjointed palaces in order stand,
And groves obedient to the mover's hand
O'ershade the stage, and flourish at command.
A stamp makes broken towns and trees entire:
So when Amphion struck the vocal lyre,
He saw the spacious circuit all around,
With crowding woods and rising cities crown'd.
But next the tiring-room survey, and see
False titles, and promiscuous quality,
Confus'dly swarm, from heroes and from queens,
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To those that swing in clouds and fill machines.
Their various characters they choose with art,
The frowning bully fits the tyrant's part:
Swoln cheeks and swaggering belly make an host,
Pale, meagre looks and hollow voice a ghost;
From careful brows and heavy downcast eyes,
Dull cits and thick-skull'd aldermen arise:
The comic tone, inspir'd by Congreve, draws
At every word, loud laughter and applause:
The whining dame continues as before,
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Her character unchanged, and acts a whore.
Above the rest, the prince with haughty stalks
Magnificent in purple buskins walks:
The royal robes his awful shoulders grace,
Profuse of spangles and of copper-lace:
Officious rascals to his mighty thigh,
Guiltless of blood, the unpointed weapon tie:
Then the gay glittering diadem put on,
Ponderous with brass, and starr'd with Bristol-stone.
His royal consort next consults her glass,
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And out of twenty boxes culls a face;
The whitening first her ghastly looks besmears,
All pale and wan the unfinish'd form appears;
Till on her cheeks the blushing purple glows,
And a false virgin-modesty bestows.
Her ruddy lips the deep vermilion dyes;
Length to her brows the pencil's arts supplies,
And with black bending arches shades her eyes.
Well pleased at length the picture she beholds,
And spots it o'er with artificial molds;
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Her countenance complete, the beaux she warms
With looks not hers: and, spite of nature, charms.
Thus artfully their persons they disguise,
Till the last flourish bids the curtain rise.
The prince then enters on the stage in state;
Behind, a guard of candle-snuffers wait:
There swoln with empire, terrible and fierce,
He shakes the dome, and tears his lungs with verse:
His subjects tremble; the submissive pit,
Wrapt up in silence and attention, sit;
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Till, freed at length, he lays aside the weight
Of public business and affairs of state:
Forgets his pomp, dead to ambitious fires,
And to some peaceful brandy-shop retires;
Where in full gills his anxious thoughts he drowns,
And quaffs away the care that waits on crowns.
The princess next her painted charms displays,
Where every look the pencil's art betrays;
The callow squire at distance feeds his eyes,
And silently for paint and washes dies:
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But if the youth behind the scenes retreat,
He sees the blended colours melt with heat,
And all the trickling beauty run in sweat.
The borrow'd visage he admires no more,
And nauseates every charm he loved before:
So the famed spear, for double force renown'd,
Applied the remedy that gave the wound.
In tedious lists 'twere endless to engage,
And draw at length the rabble of the stage,
Where one for twenty years has given alarms,
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And call'd contending monarchs to their arms;
Another fills a more important post,
And rises every other night a ghost;
Through the cleft stage his mealy face he rears,
Then stalks along, groans thrice, and disappears;
Others, with swords and shields, the soldier's pride,
More than a thousand times have changed their side,
And in a thousand fatal battles died.
Thus several persons several parts perform;
Soft lovers whine, and blustering heroes storm.
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The stern exasperated tyrants rage,
Till the kind bowl of poison clears the stage.
Then honours vanish, and distinctions cease;
Then, with reluctance, haughty queens undress.
Heroes no more their fading laurels boast,
And mighty kings in private men are lost.
He, whom such titles swell'd, such power made proud,
To whom whole realms and vanquish'd nations bow'd,
Throws off the gaudy plume, the purple train,
And in his own vile tatters stinks again.
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