Who bared their breasts, and gave their hair to flow,
The signs of grief, and marks of public wo.
Their fountains dried, the weeping Naiads mourn'd,
The trees stood bare, with searing cankers burn'd,
No herbage clothed the ground, a ragged flock
Of goats half famish'd, lick'd the naked rock.
Of manly courage, and with mind serene,
Orion's daughters in the town were seen;
One heaved her chest to meet the lifted knife,
One plunged the poniard through the seat of life, 1029
Their country's victims; mourns the rescued state,
The bodies burns, and celebrates their fate.
To save the failure of the illustrious line,
From the pale ashes rose, of form divine,
Two generous youths; these, Fame Coronæ calls, 1034
Who join the pomp, and mourn their mother's falls.
These burnish'd figures form'd of antique mould,
Shone on the brass, with rising sculpture bold;
A wreath of gilt acanthus round the brim was roll'd.
Nor less expense the Trojan gifts express'd ;
A fuming censer for the royal priest,
A chalice, and a crown of princely cost,
With ruddy gold, and sparkling gems emboss'd.
Now hoisting sail, to Crete the Trojans stood,
Themselves remembering sprung from Teucer's blood;
But Heaven forbids, and pestilential Jove,
From noxious skies, the wandering navy drove.
Her hundred cities left, from Crete they bore,
And sought the destined land, Ausonia's shore;
But toss'd by storms at either Strophas lay,
Till scared by harpies from the faithless bay.
Then passing onward with a prosperous wind,
Left sly Ulysses' spacious realms behind;
Ambracia's state, in former ages known
The strife of gods, the judge transform'd to stone
They saw; for Actian Phœbus since renown'd,
Who Cæsar's arms with naval conquest crown'd;
Next pass'd Dodona, wont of old to boast
Her vocal forest; and Chaonia's coast,
Where king Molossus' sons on wings aspired,
And saw secure the harmless fuel fired.
Now to Phæacia's happy isle they came,
For fertile orchards known to early fame;
Epirus pass'd, they next beheld with joy
A second Ilium, and fictitious Troy;
Here Trojan Helenus the sceptre sway'd,
Who show'd their fate, and mystic truths display'd;
By him confirm'd, Sicilia's isle they reach'd,
Whose sides, to sea, three promontories stretch'd;
Pachynos to the stormy south is placed,
On Lilybæum blows the gentle west,
Peloro's cliffs the northern Bear survey,
Who rolls above, and dreads to touch the sea;
By this they steer, and favor'd by the tide,
Secure by night in Zancle's harbor ride.
Here cruel Scylla gains the rocky shore,
And there the waves of loud Charybdis roar ;
This sucks, and vomits ships, and bodies drown'd,
And ravenous dogs the womb of that surround;
In face a virgin, and (if aught be true
By bards recorded) once a virgin too.
A train of youths in vain desired her bed,
By sea nymphs loved, to nymphs of seas she fled;
The maid to these, with female pride, display'd
Their baffled courtship, and their love betray'd.
When Galatea thus bespoke the fair,
(But first she sigh'd,) while Scylla comb'd her
'You, lovely maid, a generous race pursues,
Whom safe you may (as now you do) refuse;
To me, though powerful in a numerous train
Of sisters, sprung from gods, who rule the main, 1090 My native seas could scarce a refuge prove,
To shun the fury of the Cyclop's love.'
Tears choked her utterance here; the pitying maid
With marble fingers wiped them off, and said;
'My dearest goddess, let thy Scylla know
(For I am faithful) whence these sorrows flow.'
The maid's intreaties o'er the nymph prevail,
Who thus to Scylla tells the mournful tale.
STORY OF ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA.
GALATEA, a sea nymph, is passionately beloved by the Cyclops Polyphemus, whom she treats with disdain, while Acis, a shepherd of Sicily, is the object of her affectionsStung with jealousy, the Cyclops crushes his rival with a piece of broken rock-His mistress is inconsolable for his loss; and, since she is unable to restore him to life, changes him into a fountain.
Acis, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn,
From Faunus, and the nymph Symethis, born,
Was both his parents' pleasure, but, to me,
Was all that love could make a lover be.
The gods our minds in mutual bands did join,
I was his only joy, and he was mine.
Now sixteen summers the sweet youth had seen, 1105
And doubtful down began to shade his chin,
When Polyphemus first disturb'd our joy,
And loved me fiercely, as I loved the boy.
Ask not which passion in my soul was higher,
My last aversion, or my first desire,
Nor this the greater was, nor that the less,
Both were alike, for both were in excess.
Thee, Venus, thee, both heaven and earth obey,
Immense thy power, and boundless is thy sway.
The Cyclops, who defied the ethereal throne,
And thought no thunder louder than his own,
The terror of the woods, and wilder far
Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests, are,
The inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts
On mangled members of his butcher'd guests,
Yet felt the force of love, and fierce desire,
And burnt for me with unrelenting fire;
Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care,
Assumed the softness of a lover's air,
And comb'd, with teeth of rakes, his rugged hair:
Now with a crooked scythe his beard he sleeks, 1126
And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks;
Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try
His courteous bows, and rolls his glaring eye.
His cruelty and thirst of blood are lost;
And ships securely sail along the coast.
'The prophet Telemus (arrived by chance Where Etna's summits to the seas advance, Who mark'd the tracks of every bird that flew, And sure presages from their flying drew) Foretold the Cyclops that Ulysses hand
In his broad eye should thrust a flaming brand.
The giant, with a scornful grin, replied,
'Vain augur, thou hast falsely prophesied ;
Already Love his flaming brand has toss'd,
Looking on two fair eyes my sight I lost.'
Thus, warn'd in vain, with stalking pace he strode,
And stamp'd the margin of the briny flood
With heavy steps, and weary, sought again
The cool retirement of his gloomy den.
A promontory, sharpening by degrees, Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas,
On either side below, the water flows;
This airy walk the giant lover chose.
Here on the midst he sat, his flocks, unled,
Their shepherd follow'd, and securely fed;
A pine, so burly, and of length so vast,
That sailing ships required it for a mast,
He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide,
But laid it by, his whistle while he tried;
A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth,
Scarce made a pipe proportion'd to his mouth,
Which, when he gave it wind, the rocks around,
And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound.
I heard the ruffian-shepherd rudely blow,
Where in a hollow cave I sat below;
On Acis' bosom I my head reclined,
And still preserve the poem in my mind.
"O lovely Galatea! whiter far
Than falling snows, and rising lilies are;
More flowery than the meads, as crystal bright;
Erect as alders, and of equal height:
More wanton than a kid, more sleek thy skin
Than orient shells, that on the shores are seen:
Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade ;
Pleasing as winter suns, or summer shade :
More grateful to the sight than goodly plains,
And softer to the touch than down of swans;
Or curds new turn'd; and sweeter to the taste
Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste: 1175
More clear than ice, or running streams, that stray
Through garden plots, but, ah! more swift than they.
'Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke
Than bullocks, unreclaim'd to bear the yoke,
And far more stubborn than the knotted oak:
Like sliding streams, impossible to hold;
Like them fallacious, like their fountains cold;
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