ESACUS TRANSFORMED INTO A CORMO
ESACUS, a prince of Troy, becomes enamoured of Hesperia, whom he pursues into the woods, where the maiden is killed by the venom of a snake-Her lover in despair throws himself into the sea, and is changed into a cormorant.
THESE Some old man sees wanton in the air, 1060 And praises the unhappy constant pair;
Then to his friend the long-neck'd cormorant shows, The former tale reviving others' woes.
"That sable bird," he cries, "which cuts the flood,
With slender legs, was once of royal blood,
His ancestors from mighty Tros proceed,
The brave Laomedon, and Ganymede,
(Whose beauty tempted Jove to steal the boy.)
And Priam, hapless prince! who fell with Troy:
Himself was Hector's brother, and (had fate
But given this hopeful youth a longer date)
Perhaps had rivall'd warlike Hector's worth,
Though on the mother's side of meaner birth.
Fair Alyxothoe, a country maid,
Bare Esacus, by stealth, in Ida's shade.
He fled the noisy town, and pompous court,
Loved the lone hills and simple rural sport,
And seldom to the city would resort;
Yet he no rustic clownishness profess'd,
Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast;
The youth had long the nymph Hesperia woo'd,
Oft through the thicket, or the mead, pursued:
Her haply on her father's bank he spied,
While fearless she her silver tresses dried;
Away she fled; not stags with half such speed, 1085
Before the prowling wolf, scud o'er the mead;
Not ducks, when they the safer flood forsake,
Pursued by hawks, so swift regain the lake;
As fast he follow'd in the hot career,
Desire the lover wing'd, the virgin fear,
A snake unseen now pierced her heedless foot,
Quick through the veins the venom'd juices shoot;
She fell, and 'scaped by death his fierce pursuit.
Her lifeless body, frighted, he embraced,
And cried, 'Not this I dreaded, but thy haste; 1095
Oh! had my love been less, or less thy fear:
The victory, thus bought, is far too dear.
Accursed snake! yet I more cursed than he :
He gave the wound; the cause was given by me.
Yet none shall say, that unrevenged you died.' 1100
He spoke; then climb'd a cliff's o'erhanging side,
And, resolute, leap'd on the foaming tide.
Tethys received him gently on the wave,
The death he sought denied, and feathers gave.
Debarr'd the surest remedy of grief,
And forced to live, he cursed th' unask'd relief,
Then on his airy pinions upward flies,
And at a second fall successless tries:
The downy plume a quick descent denies.
Enraged, he often dives beneath the wave,
And there in vain expects to find a grave.
His ceaseless sorrow for the unhappy maid
Meager'd his look, and on his spirits prey'd.
Still near the sounding deep he lives: his name
From frequent diving and emerging came."
PREPARATIONS are making by the Greeks for the hostile inva sion of Troy-Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, is about to be sacrificed to Diana, when her life is saved by the indulgent goddess, and a hind substituted in her stead.
PRIAM, to whom the story was unknown, As dead, deplored his metamorphosed son. A cenotaph his name and title kept,
And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers, wept.
This pious office Paris did not share,
Absent alone, and author of the war,
Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew
To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue.
A thousand ships were mann'd to sail the sea;
Nor had their just resentments found delay,
Had not the winds and waves opposed their way.
At Aulis, with united powers, they meet;
But there, cross winds or calms detain'd the fleet.
Now, while they raise an altar on the shore,
And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore,
A boding sign the priests and people see:
A snake of size immense ascends a tree,
And in the leafy summit spied a nest,
Which o'er her callow young a sparrow press'd;
Eight were the birds, unfledged; their mother flew
And hover'd round her care, but still in view,
Till the fierce reptile first devour'd the brood;
Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her blood.
OVID.-II.-F
This dire ostent the fearful people view;
Calchas alone, by Phoebus taught, foreknew
What heaven decreed; and with a smiling glance,
Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance:
"Oh Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours,
But long delays shall first afflict our powers;
Nine years of labour the nine birds portend,
The tenth shall in the town's destruction end."
The serpent, which his maw obscene had fill'd,
The branches in his curl'd embraces held ;
But, as in spires he stood, he turn'd to stone;
The stony snake retain'd the figure still his own. 35
Yet, not for this, the wind-bound navy weigh'd,
Slack were their sails, and Neptune disobey'd.
Some thought him loth the town should be destroy'd,
Whose building had his hands divine employ'd:
Not so the seer, who knew, and known foreshow'd,
The virgin Phoebe, with a virgin's blood
Must first be reconciled. The common cause
Prevail'd, and pity yielding to the laws,
Fair Iphigenia, the devoted maid,
Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes array'd. All mourn her fate, but no relief appear'd;
The royal victim bound, the knife already rear'd; When that offended power, who caused their wo, Relenting ceased her wrath, and stopp'd the coming blow.
A mist before the ministers she cast,
And, in the virgin's room, a hind she placed.
The oblation slain, and Phebe reconciled,
The storm was hush'd, and dimpled ocean smiled:
A favourable gale arose from shore,
Which to the port desired the Grecian galleys bore.
THE goddess Fame reports through the whole world the invasion of Troy-Protesilaus, who first lands on the hostile shore, is slain by Hector.
FULL in the midst of this created space,
Between heaven, earth, and skies, there stands a place,
Confining on all three, with triple bound,
Whence all things, though remote, are view'd around,
And thither bring their undulating sound.
The palace of loud Fame, her seat of power,
Placed on the summit of a lofty tower;
A thousand winding entries long and wide
Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide.
A thousand crannies in the walls are made,
Nor gate, nor bars, exclude the busy trade:
'Tis built of brass, the better to diffuse
The spreading sounds, and multiply the news;
Where echoes in repeated echoes play;
A mart for ever full, and open night and day.
Nor silence is within, nor voice express,
But a deaf noise of sounds, that never cease.
Confused, and chiding, like the hollow roar
Of tides receding from the insulted shore ;
Or like the broken thunder heard from far,
When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.
The courts are fill'd with a tumultuous din
Of crowds, or issuing forth, or entering in;
A thoroughfare of news, where some devise
Things never heard, some mingle truth with lies;
The troubled air with empty sounds they beat,
Intent to hear, and eager to repeat;
Error sits brooding there, with added train
Of vain credulity, and joys as vain:
Suspicion, with sedition join'd, are near,
And rumours raised, and murmurs mix'd, and panic
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