Should I be snatch'd from hence, and thou remain, Without relief, or partner of thy pain,
How couldst thou such a wretched life sustain ?
Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea,
That buried her I lov'd, should bury me.
Oh could our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolish'd man retrieve,
And perish'd people in new souls might live!
But heaven is pleas'd, nor ought we to complain,
That we, the examples of mankind remain.
He said the careful couple join their tears,
And then invoke the gods, with pious prayers.
Thus in devotion having eas'd their grief,
From sacred oracles they seek relief:
And to Cephisus' brook their way pursue:
The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew. With living waters in the fountain bred,
They sprinkle first their garments, and their head,
Then took the way which to the temple led.
The roofs were all defil'd with moss and mire,
The desert altars void of solemn fire.
Before the gradual prostrate they ador'd,
The pavement kiss'd; and thus the saint implor'd.
O righteous Themis, if the powers above
By prayers are bent to pity, and to love;
If human miseries can move their mind;
If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind;
Tell how we may restore, by second birth,
Mankind, and people desolated earth.
Then thus the gracious goddess, nodding, said;
Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:
And stooping lowly down, with loosen'd zones,
Throw each behind your backs your mighty
mother's bones.
Amaz'd the pair, and mute with wonder, stand,
Till Pyrrha first refus'd the dire command.
Forbid it heaven, said she, that I should tear
Those holy relics from the sepulchre.
They ponder'd the mysterious words again,
For some new sense; and long they sought in vain.
At length Deucalion clear'd his cloudy brow, 525
And said; The dark enigma will allow
A meaning, which, if well I understand,
From sacrilege will free the god's command:
This earth our mighty mother is, the stones
In her capacious body are her bones:
These we must cast behind. With hope, and fear,
The woman did the new solution hear:
The man diffides in his own augury,
And doubts the gods; yet both resolve to try.
Descending from the mount, they first unbind
Their vests, and, veil'd, they cast the stones behind:
The stones (a miracle to mortal view,
But long tradition makes it pass for true)
Did first the rigour of their kind expel,
And suppled into softness as they fell;
Then swell'd, and, swelling, by degrees grew
And took the rudiments of human form; [warm;
Imperfect shades, in marble such are seen,
When the rude chisel does the man begin ;
While yet the roughness of the stone remains,
Without the rising muscles, and the veins.
The sappy parts, and next resembling juice,
Were turn'd to moisture, for the body's use:
Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment:
The rest, too solid to receive a bent,
Converts to bones; and what was once a vein,
Its former name and nature did retain.
By help of power divine, in little space,
What the man threw, assum'd a manly face;
And what the wife, renew'd the female race.
Hence we derive our nature, born to bear
Laborious life, and harden'd into care.
The rest of animals, from teeming earth Produc'd, in various forms receiv'd their birth. The native moisture, in its close retreat, Digested by the sun's ethereal heat, As in a kindly womb, began to breed: Then swell'd and quicken'd by the vital seed. And some in less, and some in longer space, Were ripen'd into form, and took a several face. Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled, And seeks, with ebbing tides, his ancient bed, The fat manure with heavenly fire is warm'd; And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are form'd : These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants find: Some rude, and yet unfinish'd in their kind : Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth; One half alive, and one of lifeless earth.
For heat and moisture, when in bodies join'd,
The temper that results from either kind,
Conception makes; and fighting, till they mix,
Their mingled atoms in each other fix.
Thus nature's hand the genial bed prepares
With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars.
From hence the surface of the ground with mud
And slime besmear'd (thé fæces of the flood),
Receiv'd the rays of heaven; and sucking in
The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin :
Some were of several sorts produc'd before;
But of new monsters earth created more.
Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light
Thee, Python, too, the wondering world to fright,
And the new nations with so dire a sight.
So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space
Did his vast body and long train embrace:
Whom Phoebus basking on a bank espied,
Ere now the god his arrows had not tried,
But on the trembling deer, or mountain-goat;
At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.
Though every shaft took place, he spent the store
Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before
The expiring serpent wallow'd in his gore.
Then to preserve the fame of such a deed,
For Python slain, he Pythian games decreed,
Where noble youths for mastership should strive,
To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive.
The prize was fame, in witness of renown,
An oaken garland did the victor crown.
The laurel was not yet for triumphs born,
But every green alike by Phoebus worn
Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks adorn.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF DAPHNE INTO
The first and fairest of his loves was she,
Whom not blind fortune, but the dire decree
Of angry Cupid forc'd him to desire :
Daphne her name, and Peneus was her sire. 610
Swell'd with the pride that new success attends,
He sees the stripling, while his bow he bends,
And thus insults him: Thou lascivious boy,
Are arms like these for children to employ ?
Know, such achievements are my proper claim;
Due to my vigour and unerring aim:
Resistless are my shafts, and Python late,
In such a feather'd death, has found his fate.
Take up thy torch, and lay my weapons by;
With that the feeble souls of lovers fry.
To whom the son of Venus thus replied:
Phoebus, thy shafts are sure on all beside;
But mine on Phoebus: mine the fame shall be
Of all thy conquests, when I conquer thee.
He said, and soaring swiftly wing'd his flight; Nor stopp'd but on Parnassus' airy height. Two different shafts he from his quiver draws; One to repel desire, and one to cause.
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