All sorts of venison; and of birds the best;
A pair of turtles taken from the nest.
I walk'd the mountains, and two cubs I found,
(Whose dam had left them on the naked ground,)
So like, that no distinction could be seen:
So pretty, they were presents for a queen;
And so they shall: I took them both away,
And keep to be companions of your play.
"Oh raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face above The waves, nor scorn my presents and my love. Come, Galatea, come, and view my face;
I late beheld it in the watery glass,
And found it lovelier than I fear'd it was.
Survey my towering stature, and my size:
Not Jove, the Jove you dream that rules the skies,
Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread :
My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head)
Hang o'er my manly face, and dangling down,
As with a shady grove, my shoulders crown:
Nor think, because my limbs and body bear
A thickset underwood of bristling hair,
My shape deform'd; what fouler sight can be
Than the bald branches of a leafless tree?
Foul is the steed without a flowing mane,
And birds without their feathers and their train.
Wool decks the sheep, and man receives a grace
From bushy limbs, and from a bearded face:
My forehead with a single eye is fill'd,
Round as a ball, and ample as a shield;
The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun,
Is nature's eye, and she's content with one :
Add, that my father sways your seas, and I,
Like you, am of the watery family;
I make you his, in making you my own;
You I adore, and kneel to you alone.
Jove, with his fabled thunder, I despise,
And only fear the lightning of your eyes.
Frown not, fair nymph; yet I could bear to be
Disdain'd, if others were disdain'd with me.
But to repulse the cyclop, and prefer
The love of Acis, heavens! I cannot bear.
But let the stripling please himself; nay, more, 1275
Please you, though that's the thing I most abhor;
The boy shall find, if e'er we cope in fight,
These giant limbs endued with giant might.
His living bowels, from his belly torn,
And scatter'd limbs, shall on the flood be borne; 1280
Thy flood, ungrateful nymph, and fate shall find
That way for thee and Acis to be join'd:
For, oh! I burn with love, and thy disdain
Augments at once my passion and my pain.
Translated Etna flames within my heart,
And thou, inhuman, wilt not ease my smart.'
“Lamenting thus in vain, he rose, and strode
With furious paces to the neighbouring wood:
Restless his feet, distracted was his walk,
Mad were his motions, and confused his talk: 1290 Mad as the vanquish'd bull when forced to yield
His lovely mistress, and forsake the field.
"Thus far unseen I saw; when fatal chance
His looks directing, with a sudden glance,
Acis and I were to his sight betray'd,
Where, naught suspecting, we securely play'd,
From his wide mouth a bellowing cry he cast:
'I see, I see; but this shall be your last.'
A roar so loud made Etna to rebound;
And all the cyclop labour'd in the sound.
Affrighted with his monstrous voice, I fled,
And in the neighbouring ocean plunged my head:
Poor Acis turn'd his back, and, Help,' he cried,
Help, Galatea; help, my parent gods,
And take me, dying, to your deep abodes.'
The cyclop follow'd, but he sent before
A rib, which from the living rock he tore :
Though but an angle reach'd him of the stone,
The mighty fragment was enough alone
To crush all Acis. 'Twas too late to save;
But what the fates allow'd to give, I gave;
That Acis to his lineage should return,
And roll among the river gods his urn.
Straight issued from the stone a stream of blood,
Which lost the purple, mingling with the flood:
Then like a double torrent it appear'd,
The torrent too, in little space was clear'd
The stone was cleft and through the yawning chink
New reeds arose on the new river's brink.
The rock, from out its hollow womb, disclosed 1320
A sound like water in its course opposed,
When, wondrous to behold! full in the flood,
Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood;
Horns from his temples rise, and either horn
Thick wreaths of reeds (his native growth) adorn.
Were not his stature taller than before,
His bulk augmented, and his beauty more,
His colour blue, for Acis he might pass,
And Acis changed into a stream he was:
But mine no more; he rolls along the plains
With rapid motion, and his name retains."
STORY OF GLAUCUS AND SCYLLA.
GLAUCUS, a fisherman of Boeotia, is transformed into a sea god, and becomes enamoured of a nereid, named Scylla, who rejects his suit.
HERE ceased the nymph; the fair assembly broke, The sea-green nereids to the waves betook; While Scylla, fearful of the wide-spread main, Swift to the safer shore returns again; There o'er the sandy margin, unarray'd, With printless footsteps, flies the bounding maid; Or in some winding creek's secure retreat
She bathes her weary limbs, and shuns the noonday heat.
Her, Glaucus saw, as o'er the deep he rode, 1340 New to the seas, and late received a god.
He saw, and languish'd for the virgin's love,
With many an artful blandishment he strove
Her flight to hinder, and her fears remove.
The more he sues, the more she wings her flight.
And nimbly gains a neighbouring mountain's height.
Steep shelving to the margin of the flood,
A neighbouring mountain bare and woodless stood.
Here, by the place secured, her steps she stay'd,
And, trembling still, her lover's form survey'd. 1350
His shape, his hue, her troubled sense appal,
And drooping locks, that o'er his shoulders fall;
She sees his face divine, and manly brow,
End in a fish's writhy tail below;
She sees, and doubts within her anxious mind, 1355
Whether he comes of god or monster kind.
This Glaucus soon perceived, and, “Oh, forbear!"
His hand supporting on a rock lay near,
"Forbear," he cried, " fond maid, this needless fear;
Nor fish am I, nor monster of the main,
But equal with the watery gods I reign;
Nor Proteus, nor Palæmon me excel,
Nor he whose breath inspires the sounding shell.
My birth, 'tis true, I owe to mortal race,
And I myself but late a mortal was:
Ev'n then, in seas, and seas alone, I joy'd,
The seas my hours and all my cares employ'd.
In meshes now the twinkling prey I drew;
Now skilfully the slender line I threw,
And silent sat the moving float to view.
Not far from shore there lies a verdant mead,
With herbage half, and half with water spread:
There nor the horned heifers browsing stray,
Nor shaggy kids, nor wanton lambkins play:
There nor the sounding bees their nectar cull, 1375
Nor rural swains their genial chaplets pull,
Nor flocks, nor herds, nor mowers, haunt the place,
To crop the flowers, or cut the bushy grass:
Thither sure first of living race came I,
And sat, by chance, my drooping nets to dry. 1380
My scaly prize, in order all display'd,
By number on the greensward there I laid
My captives, which or in my nets I took,
Or hung unwary on my wily hook.
Strange to behold! yet what avails a lie ?
I saw them bite the grass as I sat by,
Then sudden darting o'er the verdant plain,
They spread their fins, as in their native main;
I paused, with wonder struck, while all my prey
Left their new master, and regain'd the sea.
Amazed, within my secret self I sought,
What god, what herb, the miracle had wrought.
'But sure no herbs have power like this,' I cried,
And straight I pluck'd some neighbouring herbs and
Scarce had I bit, and proved the wondrous taste,
When strong convulsions shook my troubled breast,
I felt my heart grow fond of something strange,
And my whole nature labouring with a change.
Restless I grew, and ev'ry place forsook,
And still upon the seas I bent my look.
'Farewell for ever! farewell, land!' I said,
And plunged among the waves my sinking head.
The gentle powers, who that low empire keep,
Received me as a brother of the deep :
To Tethys, and to Ocean old they pray
To purge my mortal earthy parts away.
The watery parents to their suit agreed,
And thrice nine times a secret charm they read,
Then with lustrations purify my limbs,
And bid me bathe beneath a hundred streams: 1410
A hundred streams from various fountains run,
And on my head at once come rushing down.
Thus far each passage I remember well,
And faithfully thus far the tale I tell ;
But then oblivion dark on all my senses fell.
Again, at length, my thoughts reviving came,
When I no longer found myself the same;
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