The drowsy sire, from 'midst a thousand sons,
Calls Morpheus forth, an artful god, who well
All shapes can feign. None copies else so close
The bidden gait, the features, and the mode
Of converse; vesture too the same he wears,
And language such as most they wont to speak.
Mankind alone he imitates. To seem
Fierce beasts, and birds, and long-extended snakes
Another claims: this Icelos the gods
Have nam'd; by mortals as Photebor known.
A third is Phantasus of different skill;
His change is happiest when he earth becomes,
Or rocks, or waves, or trees, or substance aught
That animation lacks. These shew their forms
By night to mighty heroes and to kings;
The rest before th' ignobler crowd perform.
All these the ancient Somnus pass'd, and chose
Morpheus alone from all his brethren crowd,
The deed Thaumantian Iris bade, to do;
Then, weigh'd with slumber, dropp'd again his head,
And shrunk once more within the sable couch.
He flies through darkness on unrustling wings,
And short the space, ere in Trachinia's town
He lights; and from his shoulders lays aside
His pinions; when he Ceÿx' form assumes.
In Ceÿx' ghastly shape pallid he stood,
Despoil'd of garments, at the widow'd bed
Of the sad queen: soak'd was his beard, and streams
Seem'd from his heavy dripping locks to flow.
Then leaning o'er the couch, while gushing tears
O'erspread his cheeks, he thus his wife bespoke;—
“Know'st thou thy Ceÿx, wretched, wretched wife?
“Or are my features chang'd by death? Again
“View me, and here behold thy husband's shade,
“Instead of husband: all thy pious prayers
“For me, Alcyöné, were vain. I'm lost!
“No more false hopes encourage, me to see.
“The showery southwind, on th' Ægean main,
“Seiz'd on our vessel, and with mighty blast
“Shiver'd it wide in fragments; and the waves
“Rush'd in my throat as loud thy name I call'd;
“But call'd in vain. No doubtful author brings
“To thee these tidings; no vague rumor this,
“In person I relate it. Shipwreck'd I,
“My fate to thee detail. Rise, and assist!
“Pour forth thy tears; in sable garments clothe;
“Nor send my ghost to wander undeplor'd,
“In shady Tartarus.” Thus Morpheus spoke;
And in such accents, that the queen, deceiv'd,
Believ'd her husband spoke. Adown his cheeks
Seem'd real tears to flow; and even his hand
With Ceÿx' motion mov'd. Deeply she groan'd,
Ev'n in her sleep, and rais'd her longing arms
To clasp his body; empty air she clasp'd:
Exclaiming;—“stay; O whither dost thou fly?
“Together let us hence!”—Rous'd with the noise,
And spectre of her spouse; sleep fled her eyes,
And round she cast her gaze for that to seek
Which she but now beheld. Wak'd by her voice,
Her slaves approach'd with lights; but when in vain
She search'd for what she lack'd, her face she struck;
Rent from her breasts her garments; beat her breasts
Themselves: nor stay'd her twisted hair to loose,
But tore the bands away; then to her nurse
Anxious the subject of her grief to learn—
“Alcyöné,”—she cries—“is now no more!
“She with her Ceÿx in one moment fell.
“Hence with your soothing words; shipwreck'd he dy'd.
“I saw; I knew him; as he fled me, stretch'd
“My arms to hold the fugitive.—Ah! no!
“The shadow fled, 'twas but his ghost; but shade
“My husband mere resembling ne'er was form'd.
“Yet had he not his wonted looks, nor shone
“In former brightness his beloved face.
“I saw him, hapless stand with pallid cheek,
“Naked, with tresses dropping still. Lo! here
“Wretched he stood, just on the spot I point:”—
Then anxious try'd his footmarks there to trace.—
“This did my mind foreboding fear; I pray'd
“When me thou fled'st, the winds thou would'st not trust:
“But since to sure destruction forth thou went'st,
“Would that by me companion'd thou had'st gone.
“With thee my bliss had been;—with thee to go.
“Unwasted then one moment of the space
“For life allow'd; not ev'n in death disjoin'd.
“But now I perish, and upon the waves,
“Though absent, float; the main me overwhelms,
“Though from the main far distant. Mental storms
“To me more cruel were than ocean's waves,
“Should I but longer seek to spin out life,
“And combat such deep grief? I will not strive
“Nor wretched thee desert; but now, though late,
“Now will I join thee; and the funeral verse
“Shall us unite; not in the self-same urn,
“Yet in the self-same tomb; bones join'd with bones,
“Allow'd not, yet shall name with name be seen.”—
The rest by grief was chok'd, and sounding blows
Each sentence interrupted; while deep groans
Burst from her raving bosom. Morning shone,
And forth she issu'd to the shore, and sought
In grief the spot, where last his face she view'd
Departing. “Here,”—she said,—“as slow he went,
“As slow he loos'd his cables; on this beach
“The parting kiss he gave.” While her mind's eye
Retraces every circumstance, she looks,
And something sees far floating on the waves,
Not much unlike a man: dubious at first
What it may be, she views it: nearer now
The billows drive it; and though distant still,
Plain to the eye a body was descry'd.
Whose body, witless, still a shipwreck'd wretch
With boding omen mov'd her; and in tears
She wail'd him as a stranger in these plaints.—
“Unhappy wretch! whoe'er thou art; and she
“Thy wife, if wife thou had'st”—but now the surge
More near the body bore. The more she views
Nearer the corps; the more her senses fly.
And now close driven to shore it floats, and now
Well she discern'd it was, it was—her spouse!
“'Tis he!”—she loudly shriek'd, and tore her face,
Her hair, her garments. Then her trembling arms
To Ceÿx stretching; “Dearest husband!”—cry'd.
“Art thou restor'd thus to my wretched breast?”
High-rais'd by art, adjoining to the beach
A mole was form'd, which broke the primal strength
Of ocean's fury, and the fierce waves tir'd.
Hither she sprung, and, wond'rous that she could!
She flew; the light air winnowing with her wings
New-sprung; a mournful bird she skimm'd along
The water's surface. As she flies, her beak
Slender and small, a creaking noise sends forth,
Of mournful sound, and full of sad complaint.
Soon as the silent bloodless corse she reach'd,
Around his dear-lov'd limbs her wings she clasp'd,
And gave cold kisses with her horny bill.
If Ceÿx felt them, or his head was rais'd
To meet her by the waves, th' unlearned doubt.
But sure he felt them. Both at length, the gods
Commisserating, chang'd to feather'd birds.
The same their love remains, and subject still
To the same fates; and in the plumag'd pair
The nuptial bond is sacred; join'd in one
Parents they soon become; and Halcyon sits
Sev'n peaceful days 'mid winter's keenest rule
Upon her floating nest. Safe then the main:
For Æölus with watchful care the winds
Guards, and prevents their egress; and the seas
Smooths for the offspring, with a grandsire's care.
These, as they skimm'd the surface of the main,
An ancient sire beheld, and prais'd their love:
Constant in death: his neighbour or himself
Also repeats;—the bird which there you see,
Brushing the ocean with his slender legs,
(And shews a corm'rant with his spacious maw)
A monarch's offspring was; would you descend
Through the long series, 'till to him you reach;
Ilus; Assaracus; and Ganymede,
Borne up to heaven by Jove, supply'd the stock
From whence he sprung; Laömedon the old;
And Priam doom'd to end his days with Troy.
Hector his brother; but in spring of youth
He felt this strange adventure, he perchance
As Hector's might have left a towering name:
Though from old Dymas' daughter Hector sprung.
Fair Alixirrhoë, so fame reports,
Daughter of two-horn'd Granicus, brought forth,
By stealth, Æsacus 'neath thick Ida's shade.
Wall'd cities he detested; and remote
From glittering palaces, secluded hills
Inhabited, and unambitious plains;
And scarce at Troy's assemblies e'er was seen.
Yet had he not a clownish heart, nor breast
To love impregnable. By chance he saw
Cebrenus' daughter, fair Hesperië—oft
By him through every shady wood pursu'd—
As on her father's banks her tresses, spread
Adown her back, in Phœbus' rays she dry'd.
The nymph, discover'd, fled. So rapid flies
Th' affrighted stag to 'scape the tawny Wolf;
Or duck, stream-loving, from the hawk, when caught,
Far from her wonted lakes. The Trojan youth
Quick follows, swift through hope; she swift through fear.
Lo! in the herbage hid, her flying foot
With crooked fang a serpent bit, and pour'd
O'er all her limbs the poison: with her flight
Her life was stopp'd. Frantic, he clasps her form
Now lifeless, and exclaims—“how grieve I now,
“That e'er I thee pursu'd; not this I fear'd!
“How mean my conquest, bought at such a price!
“Both, hapless nymph! in thy destruction join'd:
“I gave the cause, the serpent but the wound.
“I guiltier far than he, unless my death
“Shall thine avenge.”—He said, and in the main,
From an high rock, by hoarsely-roaring waves
Deep-worn beneath, prepar'd to plunge. Receiv'd
By pitying Tethys softly in his fall,
She clothes him, as he swims the main, with wings;
And death, so much desir'd, denies him still.
The lover, furious at th' unwelcome gift
Of life upon him forc'd, and his pent soul,
Bent on escaping from its hated seat
Confin'd, soon as the new-shot plumes he felt
Spring from his shoulders, up he flew, and plunged
Again his body in the depths below:
His feathers broke his fall. Æsacus rav'd,
And deeply div'd; with headlong fury still,
And endless perseverance death he sought.
Love keeps him meagre still; from joint to joint
His legs still longer grow; his outstretch'd neck
Is long; and distant far his head is plac'd.
He loves the ocean, and the name he bears,
From constant diving, seems correctly giv'n.
The Twelfth Book.
Rape of Helen. Expedition of the Greeks against Troy. House of Fame. The Trojan war. Combat of Achilles and Cygnus. The latter slain and transformed to a swan. Story of Cæneus. Fight of the Lapithæ and Centaurs. Change of Cæneus to a bird. Contest of Hercules with Periclymenos. Death of Achilles. Dispute for his arms.
THE
Twelfth Book
OF THE
METAMORPHOSES
OF
OVID.
Priam the sire, much mourn'd, to him unknown
That still his son, on pinions borne, surviv'd:
While Hector and his brethren round the tomb,
A name alone possessing, empty rites
Perform'd. Save Paris, from the solemn scene
None absent were; he with the ravish'd wife
Brought to his shores a long protracted war.
Quick was he follow'd by confederate ships
Ten hundred, and the whole Pelasgian race.
Nor had their vengeance borne so long delay,
But adverse raging tempests made the main
Impassable; and on Bœotia's shores,
In Aulis' port th' impatient vessels bound.
Here, while the Greeks the rites of Jove prepare,
Their country's custom, as the altar blaz'd,
They saw an azure serpent writhe around
A plane, which near the altar rear'd its boughs.
Its lofty summit held a nest; within
Eight callow birds were lodg'd; on these he seiz'd,
And seiz'd the mother, who, with trembling wings,
Hover'd around her loss, all burying deep
Within his greedy maw. All stare with dread.
But Thestor's son, prophetic truths who still
Beheld, exclaim'd—“Rejoice! O Greeks, rejoice!
“Conquest is ours, and lofty Troy must fall.
“But great our toil, and tedious our delay.”
Then shew'd the birds a nine years' war foretold.
The snake, entwining 'mid the virid boughs,
Hard stone becomes, but keeps his serpent's form.
But still th' Aönian waves in violent swell
Were lash'd by Neptune, nor their vessels bore;
And many deem'd that Troy he wish'd to spare,
Whose walls his labor rais'd. Not so the son
Of Thestor thought: neither he knew hot so,
Nor what he knew conceal'd:—a victim dire
The virgin-goddess claim'd; a virgin's blood!
When o'er affection public weal prevail'd,
The king o'ercame the father; and before
The altar Iphigenia stood, prepar'd
Her spotless blood to shed, as tears gush'd forth
Even from the sacrificial 'tendants. Then
“Was Dian' mov'd, and threw before their sight
A cloud opaque, and (so tradition tells)
The maid Thycenian to an hind was chang'd,
Amid the priests, the pious crowd and all
Who deprecating heard her doom. This done,
Dian' by such a sacrifice appeas'd
As Dian' best became; and sooth'd her ire,
The angry aspect of the seas was smooth'd;
And all the thousand vessels felt the breeze
Abaft, and bore the long impatient crowd
To Phrygia's shores. A spot there lies, whose seat
Midst of created space, 'twixt earth, and sea,
And heavenly regions, on the confines rests
Of the three-sever'd world; whence are beheld
All objects and all actions though remote,
And every sound by tending ears is heard.
Here Fame resides; and in the loftiest towers
Her dwelling chuses; and some thousand ways,
And thousand portals to the dwelling makes:
No portal clos'd with gates. By day, by night,
Open they stand; of sounding brass all form'd;
All echoing sound; all back the voice rebound:
And all reit'rate every word they hear.
No rest within, no silence there is found,
Yet clamor is not, but a murmur low;
Such as the billows wont to make when heard
From far, or such as distant thunder sends,
When Jove the dark clouds rends and drives aloof.
Crowds fill the halls: the trifling vulgar come
And issue forth. Ten thousand rumors vague
With truth commingled to and fro are heard.
Words in confusion fly. Amid the throng
These preach their words to vacant air, and those
To others tales narrate; the measure still
Of every fiction in narration grows;
And every author adds to what he hears.
Here lives credulity; and here abides
Rash error; transports vain; astonied fear;
Sedition sudden; and, uncertain whence,
Dark whisperings. Fame herself sits high aloft,
And views what deeds in heaven, and earth, and sea
Are done, and searches all creation round.
The news she spreads, that now the Grecian barks
Approach with valiant force; nor did the foe
Unlook'd-for threat the realm. All Troy impedes
Their landing, and the shores defends. Thou first,
Protesilaüs! by great Hector's spear
Unluckily wast slain. The war begun,
Their valiant souls, ere yet they Hector knew,
Dear cost the Greeks. Nor small the blood which flow'd
From Phrygia's sons, by Grecia's valor spill'd.