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 seemed to draw, a dying groan ; The fires themselves but faintly licked 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 feared not fate, but only grieved to die Without an honest wound, and by a death so dry. Happy Ancæus, thrice aloud he cried, With what becoming fate in arms he died! Then called 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 scattered 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 prolonged with pain.
By steel her stubborn soul his mother freed,
And punished on herself her impious deed.
Had I an hundred tongues, a wit so large
As could their hundred offices discharge;
Had Phoebus all his Helicon bestowed,
In all the streams inspiring all the god;
Those tongues, that wit, those streams, that god in
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 corps they cherish, while the corps 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,
Even in that urn their brother they confess,
And hug it in their arms, and to their bosoms press.
His tomb is raised; then, stretched along the
ground,
Those living monuments his tomb surround;
Even 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, perished all the seed,
And her 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 feathered flocks repair.
OUT OF THE EIGHTH BOOK OF
The author, pursuing the deeds of Theseus, relates how he, with his friend Pirithous, were invited by Achelous, the River-God, to stay with him, till his waters were abated. Achelous entertains them with a relation of his own love to Perimele, who was changed into an island by Neptune, at his request. Pirithous, being an Atheist, derides the legend, and denies the power of the Gods to work that miracle. Lelex, another companion of Theseus, to confirm the story of Achelous, relates another metamorphosis, of Baucis and Philemon into trees; of which he was partly an eye
THUS Achelous ends; his audience hear
With admiration, and, admiring, fear
The powers of heaven; except Ixion's son,
Who laughed 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 give 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 encompassed
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 concealed their deities;
One laid aside his thunder, one his rod,
And many toilsome steps together trod;
For harbour at a thousand doors they knocked,
Not one of all the thousand but was locked;
At last an hospitable house they found,
A homely shed; the roof, not far from ground,
Was thatched 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 aimed at wealth, professing to be poor.
For master or for servant here to call,
Was all alike, where only two were all.
Command was none, where equal love was paid,
Or rather both commanded, both obeyed.
From lofty roofs the gods repulsed before,
Now stooping, entered through the little door;
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