The judges to the common urn bequeath
Their votes, and drop the fable figns of death;
The box receives all black; but pour'd from
thence
The ftones came candid forth, the hue of inno
Thus Alimonides his fafety won,
Preferv'd from death by Alcumena's fon:
Then to his kinfman god his vows he pays,
And cuts with profp'rous gales th' Ionian feas:
He leaves Tarentum, favour'd by the wind, 65
And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that ftand
Along the shore, he makes in fight of land ;
Still doubling, and ftill coafting, till he found
The mouth of Efaris, and promis'd ground: 70
Then faw where, on the margin of the flood,
The tomb that held the bones of Croton ftood:
Here, by the god's command, he built and wall'd
The place predicted; and Crotona call'd :
Thus fame, from time to time, delivers down 75
The fure tradition of th' Italian town.
Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos
But now felf-banifh'd from his native fhore,
Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear
The chains which none but fervile fouls will
He, though from heaven remote, to heaven could move,
With ftrength of mind, and tread th'abyss above;
And penetrate, with his interior light,
Thofe upper depths, which Nature hid from fight:
And what he had obferv'd, and learnt from thence,
Lov'd in familiar language to difpenfe.
The crowd with filent admiration ftand,
And heard him, as they heard their god's command;
While he difcours'd of heaven's myfterious
The world's original, and nature's caufe;
And what was God, and why the fleecy fnows
In filence fell, and rattling winds arose;
What hook the ftedfast earth, and whence
The dance of planets round the radiant fun;
If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,
Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above : Of these, and things beyond the common reach, He spoke, and charm'd his audience with his fpeech.
He first the taste of flesh from tables drove, And argued well, if arguments could move. 100
O mortals! from your fellows' blood abstain,
Nor taint
your bodies with a food profane :
While corn and pulfe by nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load ;
While labour'd gardens wholefome herbs pro-
And teeming vines afford their generous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are loft,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the froft;
While kine to pails diftended udders bring,
And bees their honey redolent of fpring;
While earth not only can your needs fupply,
But, lavish of her ftore, provides for luxury ;
A guiltless feaft adminifters with eafe,
And without blood is prodigal to please.
Wild beafts their maws with their flain brethren
And yet not all, for fome refufe to kill:
Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler fteed,
On browz, and corn, the flowery meadows
Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's
angry brood, Whom heaven endu'd with principles of blood, He wifely funder'd from the reft, to yell In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell,
Where ftronger beafts opprefs the weak by
And all in prey and purple feafts delight.
O impious ufe! to Nature's laws oppos'd, 125 Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd: Where, fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides
The ftores of all the fhows, and all the hides, 130
If men with fleshly morfels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing
bread :
What elfe is this but to devour our guests,
And barbaroufly renew Cyclopean feafts!
We, by deftroying life, our life sustain;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats ob-
Not fo the golden age, who fed on fruit, Nor durft with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy fpace might fafely move,
And timorous hares on heaths fecurely rove: 140
Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,
For all was peaceful, and that peace fincere.
Whoever was the wretch (and curs'd be he)
That envy'd firft our food's fimplicity;
Th' effay of bloody feafts on brutes began, 145
And after forg'd the fword to murder man.
Had he the fharpen'd steel alone employ'd
On beafts of prey that other beafts deftroy'd,
Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been justify'd by Nature's laws,
And felf-defence: but who did feasts begin
Offlesh, he stretch'd neceffity to fin.
To kill man-killers, man has lawful pow'r,
But not th' extended licence, to devour.
Ill habits gather by unfeen degrees, As brooks make rivers, rivers run to feas. The fow, with her broad fnout for rooting up Th' intrufted feed, was judg'd to fpoil the
And intercept the fweating farmer's hope :
The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,
Th' offender to the bloody prieft refign'd:
Her hunger was no plea; for that she dy'd.
The goat came next in order, to be try'd:
The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine:
In vengeance laity and clergy join,
Where one has loft his profit, one his wine.
Here was, at leaft, fome fhadow of offence:
The sheep was facrific'd on no pretence,
But meek and unrefifting innocence.
A patient, ufeful creature, born to bear
The warm and woolly fleece, that cloath'd her
murderer,
And daily to give down the milk she bred,
A tribute for the grafs on which the fed.
Living, both food and raiment fhe supplies,
And is of least advantage when she dies. 175
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