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CANACE TO MACAREUS.

EPIST. XI.

THE ARGUMENT.

Macareus and Canace, son and daughter to Eolus, God of the Winds, loved each other incestuously: Canace was delivered of a son, and committed him to her nurse, to be secretly conveyed away. The infant crying out, by that means was discovered to Eolus, who, enraged at the wickedness of his children, commanded the babe to be exposed to wild beasts on the mountains; and withal, sent a sword to Canace, with this message, That her crimes would instruct her how to use it. With this sword she slew herself; but before she died, she writ the following letter to her brother Macareus, who had taken sanctuary in the temple of Apollo.

Ir streaming blood my fatal letter stain,
Imagine, ere you read, the writer slain;
One hand the sword, and one the pen employs,
And in my lap the ready paper lies.

Think in this posture thou behold'st me write;
In this my cruel father would delight.
O! were he present, that his eyes and hands
Might see, and urge the death which he commands!
Than all the raging winds more dreadful, he,
Unmoved, without a tear, my wounds would see.

Jove justly placed him on a stormy throne,
His people's temper is so like his own.

The north and south, and each contending blast,
Are underneath his wide dominion cast :
Those he can rule; but his tempestuous mind
Is, like his airy kingdom, unconfined.
Ah! what avail my kindred Gods above,
That in their number I can reckon Jove!
What help will all my heavenly friends afford,
When to my breast I lift the pointed sword?
That hour, which joined us, came before its time;
In death we had been one without a crime.
Why did thy flames beyond a brother's move?
Why loved I thee with more than sister's love?
For I loved too; and, knowing not my wound,
A secret pleasure in thy kisses found;
My cheeks no longer did their colour boast,
My food grew loathsome, and my strength I lost :
Still ere I spoke, a sigh would stop my tongue;
Short were my slumbers, and my nights were long.
I knew not from my love these griefs did grow,
Yet was, alas! the thing I did not know.
My wily nurse, by long experience, found,
And first discovered to my soul its wound.
'Tis love, said she; and then my down-cast eyes,
And guilty dumbness, witnessed my surprise.
Forced at the last my shameful pain I tell;
And oh, what followed, we both know too well!
"When half denying, more than half content,
Embraces warmed me to a full consent,

Then with tumultuous joys my heart did beat,
And guilt, that made them anxious, made them
great.

But now my swelling womb heaved up my breast, And rising weight my sinking limbs opprest.

* These lines are original.

What herbs, what plants, did not my nurse produce,
To make abortion by their powerful juice!
What medicines tried we not, to thee unknown!
Our first crime common; this was mine alone.
But the strong child, secure in his dark cell,
With nature's vigour did our arts repel.
And now the pale-faced empress of the night
Nine times had filled her orb with borrowed light;
Not knowing 'twas my labour, I complain
Of sudden shootings, and of grinding pain;
My throes came thicker, and my cries increased,
Which with her hand the conscious nurse suppressed.
To that unhappy fortune was I come,

Pain urged my clamours, but fear kept me dumb.
With inward struggling I restrained my cries,
And drunk the tears that trickled from my eyes.
Death was in sight, Lucina gave no aid,
And even my dying had my guilt betrayed.
Thou cam'st, and in thy countenance sat despair;
Rent were thy garments all, and torn thy hair;
Yet feigning comfort, which thou couldst not give,
Prest in thy arms, and whispering me to live;
For both our sakes, saidst thou, preserve thy life;
Live, my dear sister, and my dearer wife.

Raised by that name, with my last pangs I strove;
Such power have words, when spoke by those we love.
The babe, as if he heard what thou hadst sworn,
With hasty joy sprung forward to be born.
What helps it to have weathered out one storm!
Fear of our father does another form.

High in his hall, rocked in a chair of state,
The king with his tempestuous council sate;
Through this large room our only passage lay,
By which we could the new-born babe convey.
Swathed in her lap, the bold nurse bore him out,
With olive branches covered round about;

And, muttering prayers, as holy rites she meant,
Through the divided crowd unquestioned went.
Just at the door the unhappy infant cried;
The grandsire heard him, and the theft he spied.
Swift as a whirlwind to the nurse he flies,
And deafs his stormy subjects with his cries.
With one fierce puff he blows the leaves away;
Exposed the self-discovered infant lay.

The noise reached me, and my presaging mind
Too soon its own approaching woes divined.
Not ships at sea with winds are shaken more,
Nor seas themselves, when angry tempests roar,
Than I, when my loud father's voice I hear;
The bed beneath me trembled with my fear.
He rushed upon me, and divulged my stain;
Scarce from my murder could his hands refrain.
I only answered him with silent tears;

They flowed; my tongue was frozen up with fears.
His little grandchild he commands away,
To mountain wolves and every bird of prey.
The babe cried out, as if he understood,

And begged his pardon with what voice he could.
By what expressions can my grief be shown?
Yet you may guess my anguish by your own,
To see my bowels, and, what yet was worse,
Your bowels too, condemned to such a curse!
Out went the king; my voice its freedom found,
My breasts I beat, my blubbered cheeks I wound.
And now appeared the messenger of death;
Sad were his looks, and scarce he drew his breath,
To say, "Your father sends you"-(with that word
His trembling hands presented me a sword ;)
"Your father sends you this; and lets you know,
That your own crimes the use of it will show."
Too well I know the sense those words impart;
His present shall be treasured in my heart.

Are these the nuptial gifts a bride receives?
And this the fatal dower a father gives?
Thou God of marriage, shun thy own disgrace,
And take thy torch from this detested place!
Instead of that, let furies light their brands,
And fire my pile with their infernal hands!
With happier fortune may my sisters wed,
Warned by the dire example of the dead.
For thee, poor babe, what crime could they pretend?
How could thy infant innocence offend?

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A guilt there was; but, oh, that guilt was mine!
Thou suffer'st for a sin that was not thine.
Thy mother's grief and crime! but just enjoyed,
Shewn to my sight, and born to be destroyed!
Unhappy offspring of my teeming womb!
Dragged headlong from thy cradle to thy tomb!
Thy unoffending life I could not save,
Nor weeping could I follow to thy grave;
Nor on thy tomb could offer my shorn hair,
Nor shew the grief which tender mothers bear.
Yet long thou shalt not from my arms be lost;
For soon I will o'ertake thy infant ghost.
But thou, my love, and now my love's despair,
Perform his funerals with paternal care;
His scattered limbs with my dead body burn,
And once more join us in the pious urn.
If on my wounded breast thou droppest a tear,
Think for whose sake my breast that wound did bear;
And faithfully my last desires fulfil,

As I perform my cruel father's will.

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