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Slides down the belt, and from her ftation flies,
And night with fable clouds involves the skies.
Bold Myrrha ftill pursues her black intent:
She stumbled thrice, (an omen of th' event ;)
Thrice fhriek'd the fun'ral owl, yet on she went,
Secure of fhame, becaufe fecure of fight;
Ev'n bashful fins are impudent by night.

Link'd hand in hand, th' accomplice, and the dame,
Their way exploring, to the chamber came :
The door was ope, they blindly grope their way,
Where dark in bed th' expecting monarch lay;
Thus far her courage held, but here forfakes;
Her faint knees knock at ev'ry step she makes.
The nearer to her crime, the more within
She feels remorfe, and horror of her fin;
Repents too late her criminal defire,

And wishes, that unknown fhe could retire.
Her ling'ring thus, the nurse (who fear'd delay
The fatal fecret might at length betray)
Pull'd forward, to complete the work begun,
And faid to Cinyras, Receive thy own:
Thus faying, fhe deliver'd kind to kind,
Accurs'd, and their devoted bodies join'd.
The fire, unknowing of the crime, admits
His bowels, and profanes the hallow'd sheets ;
He found fhe trembled, but believ'd fhe ftrove
With maiden modefty, against her love;

And fought with flatt'ring words vain fancies to remove.
Perhaps he faid, My daughter, cease thy fears,
(Because the title fuited with her years ;)
And, Father, fhe might whisper him again,'
That names might not be wanting to the fin.
Full of her fire, fhe left th' incestuous bed,
And carry'd in her womb the crime fhe bred:
Another, and another night fhe came;
For frequent fin had left no sense of shame:

}

Till Cinyras defir'd to see her face,
Whose body he had held in clofe embrace,
And brought a taper; the revealer, light,
Expos'd both crime, and criminal to fight:
Grief, rage, amazement, cou'd no speech afford,
But from the fheath he drew th' avenging fword;
The guilty fled: the benefit of night,

That favour'd firft the fin, fecur'd the flight.

Long wandring through the fpacious fields, fhe bent
Her voyage to th' Arabian continent;

Then pafs'd the region which Panchæa join'd,
And flying left the palmy plains behind.

Nine times the moon had mew'd her horns; at length
With travel weary, unfupply'd with strength,
And with the burden of her womb opprefs'd
Sabæan fields affords her needful reft:
There, loathing life, and yet of death afraid,
In anguish of her fpirit, thus fhe pray'd.
Ye powers, if any fo propitious are

T' accept my penitence, and hear my pray❜r;
Your judgments, I confefs, are justly sent ;
Great fins deferve as great a punishment:
Yet fince my life the living will profane,
And fince my death the happy dead will stain,
A middle state your mercy may bestow,
Betwixt the realms above, and thofe below:
Some other form to wretched Myrrha give,
Nor let her wholly die, nor wholly live.
The prayers of penitents are never vain ;
At least, she did her laft requeft obtain ;
For while fhe spoke, the ground began to rife,
And gather'd round her feet, her legs, and thighs:
Her toes in roots defcend, and, fpreading wide,
A firm foundation for the trunk provide:
Her folid bones convert to folid wood,
To pith her marrow, and to fap her blood:

C 3

Her

Her arms are boughs, her fingers change their kind,
Her tender fkin is harden'd into rind.

And now the rifing tree her womb invcfts,
Now fhooting upwards ftill, invades her breafts,
And fhades the neck; and, weary with delay,
She funk her head within, and met it half the way.
And tho' with outward fhape fhe lost her fenfe,
With bitter tears fhe wept her laft offence;
And still fhe weeps, nor fheds her tears in vain ;
For ftill the precious drops her name retain.
Mean time the mifbegotten infant grows,
And, ripe for birth, diftends with deadly throes
The swelling rind, with unavailing ftrife,
To leave the wooden womb, and pushes into life.
The mother-tree, as if opprefs'd with pain,

Writhes here and there, to breath the bark, in vain ;
And, like a lab'ring woman, wou'd have pray'd,
But wants a voice to call Lucina's aid:

The bending bole fends out a hollow found,
And trickling tears fall thicker on the ground.
The mild Lucina came uncall'd, and stood

Befide the ftruggling boughs, and heard the groaning wood:

Then reach'd her midwife-hand, to fpeed the throes,
And spoke the powerful fpells that babes to birth disclose.
The bark divides, the living load to free,
And fafe delivers the convulfive tree.

The ready nymphs receive the crying child,

And wash him in the tears the parent plant diftill'd.
'They fwath'd him with their scarfs; beneath him fpread
The ground with herbs; with rofes rais'd his head.
The lovely babe was born with ev'ry grace:
Ev'n envy muft have prais'd so fair a face :
Such was his form, as painters, when they fhow
Their utmost art, on naked loves beftow:

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And

And that their arms no diff'rence might betray,
Give him a bow, or his from Cupid take away.
Time glides along, with undiscover'd hafte,
The future but a length behind the past :
So fwift are years: the babe, whom juft before
His grandfire got, and whom his fifter bore;
The drop, the thing which late the tree inclos'd,
And late the yawning bark to life expos'd;
A babe, a boy, a beauteous youth appears;
And lovelier than himself at riper years.
Now to the queen of love he gave defires,
And, with her pains, reveng'd his mother's fires.

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Out of the Tenth Book of

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

Connection of this Fable with the former.

Ceyx, the fon of Lucifer (the morning ftar) and king of Trachin in Theffaly, was married to Alcyone daughter to Eolus god of the winds. Both the bufband and the wife loved each other with an entire affection. Dædalion, the elder brother of Ceyx, whom he fucceeded, having been turned into a falcon by Apollo, and Chione, Dadalion's daughter, flain by Diana, Ceyx prepares a ship to fail to Claros, there to confult the oracle of Apollo, and (as Ovid Seems to intimate) to enquire how the anger of the Gods might be atoned.

Hefe prodigies affect the pious prince,

TH

But more perplex'd with thofe that happen'd fince, He purposes to feek the Clarian God, Avoiding Delphos, his more fam'd abode ; Since Phlegian robbers made unsafe the road, Yet could not he from her he lov'd fo well, The fatal voyage, he refoly'd, conceal: But when fhe faw her lord prepar'd to part, A deadly cold ran fhiv'ring to her heart: Her faded cheeks are chang'd to boxen hue, And in her eyes the tears are ever new: She thrice effay'd to fpeak; her accents hung, And faltring dy'd unfinish'd on her tongue, Or vanish'd into fighs: with long delay Her voice return'd; and found the wonted way.

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