PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY.

From the Fifteenth Book of

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

The fourteenth book conclades with the death and deification of Romulus: the fifteenth begins with the election of Numa to the crown of Rome. On this occafion, Ovid, following the opinion of fome authors, makes Numa the scholar of Pythagoras; and to have begun his acquaintance with that philofopher at Crotona, a town in Italy; from thence be makes a digreffion to the moral and natural philofophy of Pythagoras: on both which our author enlarges; and which are the most learned and beautiful parts of the Metamorphofes.

A King is fought to guide the growing state,

One able to fupport the publick weight,

And fill the throne where Romulus had fate.
Renown, which oft bespeaks the publick voice,
Had recommended Numa to their choice:
A peaceful, pious prince; who, not content
To know the Sabine rights, his study bent.
To cultivate his mind: to learn the laws
Of nature, and explore their hidden cause.
Urg'd by this care, his country he forfook,
And to Crotona thence his journey took.
Arriv'd, he firft enquir'd the founder's name
Of this new colony; and whence he came.
Then thus a fenior of the place replies,
(Well read, and curious of antiquities)

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"Tis faid, Alcides hither took his way

From Spain, and drove along his conquer'd prey;
Then, leaving in the fields his grazing cows,
He fought himfelf fome hofpitable houfe:
Good Croton entertain'd his godlike gueft;
While he repair'd his weary limbs with reft.
The hero, thence departing, blefs'd the place;
And here, he said, in Time's revolving race,
A rifing town fhall take its name from thee;
Revolving Time fulfill'd the prophecy :
For Myfcelos, the jufteft man on earth,
Alemon's fon, at Argos had his birth:
Him Hercules, arm'd with his club of oak,
O'ershadow'd in a dream, and thus bespoke ;
Go, leave thy native foil, and make abode
Where Efaris rolls down his rapid flood;
He faid; and fleep forfook him, and the God.
Trembling he wak'd, and rose with anxious heart;
His country laws forbad him to depart:
What should he do? 'Twas death to go away;
And the God menac'd if he dar'd to stay :
All day he doubted, and when night came on,
Sleep, and the fame forewarning dream, begun :
Once more the God flood threatning o'er his head ;
With added curfes if he disobey'd.

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Twice warn'd, he ftudy'd flight; but would convey,
At once, his person and his wealth away :
Thus while he linger'd, his defign was heard;
A fpeedy procefs form'd, and death declar'd.
Witness there needed none of his offence,
Against himself the wretch was evidence :
Condemn'd, and deftitute of human aid,
To him, for whom he fuffer'd, thus he pray'd.
O Pow'r, who haft deferv'd in heav'n a throne
Not giv'n, but by thy labours made thy own,
Pity thy fuppliant, and protect his cause,

Whom thou haft made obnoxious to the laws.

A cuftom was of old, and ftill remains,
Which life or death by fuffrages ordains;
White ftones and black within an urn are caft,
The firft abfolve, but fate is in the laft.

The judges to the common urn bequeath
Their votes, and drop the fable figns of death;
The bax receives all black; but pour'd from thence
The ftones came candid forth, the hue of innocence.
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,
And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand
Along the fhore, he makes in fight of land;
Still doubling, and ftill coafting, till he found
The mouth of Æfaris, and promis'd ground:
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
The fure tradition of th' Italian town.

Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore,
But now felf-banifh'd from his native fhore,
Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear

The chains which none but fervile fouls will wear: He, tho' from heay'n remote, to heav'n could move, With ftrength of mind, and tread th' abyfs above; And penetrate, with his interiour 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 heav'n's mysterious laws,
The world's original, and nature's caufe;
And what was God, and why the Reecy fnows
In filence fell, and rattling winds arole;
What shook the stedfast earth, and whence begun
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 speech.
He firit the taste of flesh from tables drove,
And argu'd well, if arguments could move.
O mortals! from your fellows blood abftain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
While corn and pulfe by nature are beftow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholfome herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their gen'rous 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 feast adminifters with ease,

And without blood is prodigal to please.

Wild beafts their maws with their flain brethren fill,
And yet not all, for fome refufe to kill:

Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler fteed,
On browse, and corn, the flow'ry meadows feed.
Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's angry brood,
Whom heav'n endu'd with principles of blood,
He wifely funder'd from the reft, to yell
In forefts, and in lonely caves to dwell,
Where ftronger beasts oppress the weak by might,
And all in prey and purple feafts delight.

O impious ufe! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
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 she shows, and all she hides,
If men with fleshy morfels must be fed,

And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread;
What elfe is this but to devour our guests,
And barb'roufly renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by deftroying life, our life sustain ;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obfcene.
Not fo the golden age, who fed on fruit,
Nor durft with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy space might safely move,
And tim'rous hares on heaths fecurely rove :
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,
And after forg'd the fword to murder man.
Had he the fharpen'd steel alone employ'd
On beafts of prey that other beasts destroy'd,
Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been juftify'd by Nature's laws,
And felf-defence: but who did feasts begin
Of flesh, he ftretch'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 crop,
And intercept the fweating farmer's hope :
The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,
Th' offender to the bloody prieft refign'd:

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