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And, hell-ward bending, o'er the beach desery
The dolesome passage to th' infernal sky.
The victims, vow'd to each Tartarean power,
Eurylochus and Perimedes bore.

"Here open'd Hell, all Hell I here implor'd,
And from the scabbard drew the shining sword;
And, trenching the black earth on every side,
A cavern form'd, a cubit long and wide.
New wine, with honey-temper'd milk, we bring,
Then living waters from the crystal spring;
O'er these was strew'd the consecrated flour,
And on the surface shone the holy store.

"Now the wan shades we hail, th' infernal gods,
To speed our course, and waft us o'er the floods:
So shall a barren heifer from the stall
Beneath the knife upon your altars fall;
So in our palace, at our safe return,
Rich with unnumber'd gifts the pile shall burn;
So shall a ram the largest of the breed,
Black as these regions, to Tiresias bleed.

"Thus solemn rites and holy vows we paid To all the phantom-nations of the dead, Then dy'd the sheep; a purple torrent flow'd, And all the caverns smok'd with streaming blood. When, lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts, Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts; Fair, pensive youths, and soft enamour'd maids; And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkled shades; Ghastly with wounds the forms of warriors slain Stalk'd with majestic port, a martial train : These, and a thousand more swarm'd o'er the And all the dire assembly shriek'd around. [ground, Astonish'd at the sight, aghast I stood, And a cold fear ran shivering through my blood; Straight I command the sacrifice to haste, Straight the flay'd victims to the flames are cast, And mutter'd vows, and mystic song applied To grizzly Pluto, and his gloomy bride.

"Now swift I wave my falchion o'er the blood; Back started the pale throngs, and trembling stood. Round the black trench the gore untasted flows, Till awful from the shades Tiresias rose. "There wandering through the gloom I first survey'd,

New to the realms of Death, Elpenor's shade:
His cold remains all naked to the sky
On distant shores unwept, unburied lie.
Sad at the sight I stand, deep fix'd in woe,
And ere I spoke the tears began to flow:

"O say, what angry power Elpenor led To glide in shades, and wander with the dead? How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoin'd, Out-fly the nimble sail, and leave the lagging wind?'

"The ghost replied: To Hell my doom I owe, Demons accurst, dire ministers of woe! My feet, through wine unfaithful to their weight, Betray'd me tumbling from a towery height, Staggering I reel'd, and as I reel'd I fell, Lux'd the neck-joint-my soul descends to Hell. But lend me aid, I now conjure thee lend, By the soft tie and sacred name of friend! By thy fond consort! by thy father's cares! By lov'd Telemachus's blooming years! For well I know that soon the heavenly powers Will give thee back to day, and Circe's shores : There pious on my cold remains attend, There call to mind thy poor departed friend. The tribute of a tear is all I crave,

And the possession of a peaceful grave.

But if, unheard, in vain compassion plead,
Revere the gods, the gods avenge the dead!
A tomb along the watery margin raise,
The tomb with manly arms and trophies grace,
To show posterity Elpenor was.

There high in air, memorial of my name, Fix the smooth oar, and bid me live to fame.' "To whom with tears; These rites, O mournful shade,

Due to thy ghost, shall to thy ghost be paid.'

"Still as I spoke, the phantom seem'd to moan,
Tear follow'd tear, and groan succeeded groan.
But, as my waving sword the blood surrounds,
The shade withdrew, and mutter'd empty sounds.
"There as the wondrous visions I survey'd,
All pale ascends my royal mother's shade:
A queen, to Troy she saw our legions pass;
Now a thin form is all Anticlea was !
Struck at the sight, I melt with filial woc,
And down my cheek the pious sorrows flow,
Yet as I shook my falchion o'er the blood,
Regardless of her son the parent stood.

"When lo! the mighty Theban I behold;
To guide his steps he bore a staff of gold;
Awful he trod! majestic was his look!
And from his holy lips these accents broke:

66 6

Why, mortal, wanderest thou from cheerful To tread the downward, melancholy way? [day, What angry gods to these dark regions led Thee yet alive, companion of the dead? But sheath thy poniard, while my tongue relates Heaven's stedfast purpose, and thy future fates.'

"While yet he spoke, the prophet I obey'd,
And in the scabbard plung'd the glittering blade:
Eager he quaff'd the gore, and then exprest
Dark things to come, the counsels of his breast;
"Weary of light, Ulysses here explores
A prosperous voyage to his native shores;
But know-by me unerring Fates disclose
New trains of dangers, and new scenes of woes;
I see! I see thy bark by Neptune tost,
For injur'd Cyclop, and his eye-ball lost!
Yet to thy woes the gods decree an end,

If Heaven thou please, and how to please attend!
Where on Trinacrian rocks the ocean roars,
Graze numerous herds along the verdant shores;
Though hunger press, yet fly the dangerous prey,
The herds are sacred to the god of day,
Who all surveys with his extensive eye
Above, below, on Earth, and in the sky!
Rob not the god; and to propitious gales
Attend thy voyage, and impel thy sails:
But, if his herds ye seize, beneath the waves
I see thy friends o'erwhelm'd in liquid graves!
The direful wreck Ulysses scarce survives!
Ulysses at his country scarce arrives!
Strangers thy guides! nor there thy labours end,
New foes arise, domestic ills attend!
There foul adulterers to thy bride resort,
And lordly gluttons riot in thy court!
But vengeance hastes amain! These eyes behold
The deathful scene, princes on princes roll'd!
That done, a people far from sea explore,
Who ne'er knew salt, or heard the billows roar,
Or saw gay vessel stem the watery plain,
A painted wonder flying on the main !
Bear on thy back an oar: with strange amaze
A shepherd meeting thee, the oar surveys,
And names a van: there fix it on the plain,
To calm the god that holds the watery reign;

A three-fold offering to his altar bring,

A bull, a ram, a boar; and hail the ocean-king.
But, home return'd, to each ethereal power
Slay the due victim in the genial hour:
So peaceful shalt thou end thy blissful days,
And steal thyself from life by slow decays:
Unknown to pain, in age resign thy breath,
When late stern Neptune points the shaft with
To the dark grave retiring as to rest, [death:
Thy people blessing, by thy people blest!

"Unerring truths, O man! my lips relate; This is thy life to come, and this is fate.'

"To whom unmov'd: If this the gods prepare; What Heaven ordains, the wise with courage bear. But say, why yonder on the lonely strands, Unmindful of her son, Anticlea stands? Why to the ground she bends her downcast eye? Why is she silent, while her son is nigh? The latent cause, O sacred seer, reveal!'

"Nor this,' replies the seer, will I conceal. Know, to the spectres, that thy beverage taste, The scenes of life recnr, and actions past: They, seal'd with truth, return the sure reply; The rest, repell'd, a train oblivious fly.'

"The phantom-prophet ceas'd, and sunk from sight,

To the black palace of eternal Night.

"Still in the dark abodes of Death I stood, While near Anticlea mov'd, and drank the blood. Straight all the mother in her soul awakes, And, owning her Ulysses, thus she speaks:

Com'st thou, my son, alive, to realms beneath,
The dolesome realms of Darkness and of Death?
Com'st thou alive from pure, ethereal day?
Dire is the region, dismal is the way!
Here lakes profound, there floods oppose their
waves,

There the wide sea with all his billows raves!
Or (since to dust proud Troy submits her towers)
Com'st thou a wanderer from the Phrygian shores?
Or say, since honour call'd thee to the field,
Hast thou thy Ithaca, thy bride, beheld?'
"Source of my life,' I cry'd, from Earth I fly,
To seek Tiresias in the nether sky,
To learn my doom; for, tost from woe to woe,
In every land Ulysses finds a foe:

Nor have these eyes beheld my native shores,
Since in the dust proud Troy submits her towers.
"But, when thy soul from her sweet mansion fled,
Say, what distemper gave thee to the dead?
Has life's fair lamp declin'd by slow decays,
Or swift expir'd it in a sudden blaze?
Say if my sire, good old Laertes, lives?
If yét Telemachus, my son, survives?
Say, by his rule is my dominion aw'd,
Or crush'd by traitors with an iron rod?
Say, if my spouse maintains her royal trust;
Though tempted, chaste, and obstinately just!
Or if no more her absent lord she wails,
But the false woman o'er the wife prevails?'

Thus I, and thus the parent-shade returns:
'Thee, ever thee, thy faithful consort mourns:
Whether the night descends, or day prevails,
Thee she by night, and thee by day, bewails,
Thee in Telemachos thy realm obeys;
In sacred groves celestial rites he pays,
Aud shares the banquet in superior state,
Grac'd with such honours as become the great.
Thy sire in solitude foments his care:
The court is joyless, for thou art not there!

No costly carpets raise his hoary head,
No rich embroidery shines to grace his bed:
Ev'n when keen winter freezes in the skies,
Rank'd with his slaves, on earth the monarch lies:
Deep are his sighs, his visage pale, his dress
The garb of woe and habit of distress.
And when the autumn takes his annual round,
The leafy honours scattering on the ground;
Regardless of his years, abroad he lies,
His bed the leaves, his canopy the skies.
Thus cares on cares his painful days consume,
And bow his age with sorrow to the tomb!

"For thee, my son, I wept my life away;
For thee through Hell's eternal dungeons stray:
Nor came my fate by lingering pains and slow,
Nor bent the silver-shafted queen her bow;
No dire disease bereav'd me of my breath:
Thou, thou, my son, wert my disease and death;
Unkindly with my love my son conspir'd,
For thee I liv'd, for absent thee expir'd.'
"Thrice in my arms I strove her shade to bind,
Thrice through my arms she slipp'd like empty

wind,

Or dreams, the vain illusions of the mind.
Wild with despair, I shed a copious tide
Of flowing tears, and thus with sighs reply'd:
"Fly'st thou, lov'd shade, while I thus fondly
mourn?

Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn!
Is it, ye powers, that smile at human harms!
Too great a bliss to weep within her arms?
Or has Hell's queen an empty image sent,
That wretched I might ev'n my joys lament?'
"O son of woe!' the pensive shade rejoin'd,
'Oh most inur'd to grief of all mankind!
'Tis not the queen of Hell who thee deceives:
All, all are such, when life the body leaves;
No more the substance of the man remains,
Nor bounds the blood along the purple veins :
These the funereal flames in atoms bear,
To wander with the wind in empty air;
While the impassive soul reluctant flies,
Like a vain dream, to these infernal skies.
But from the dark dominions speed thy way,
And climb the steep ascent to upper day;
To thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell,
The woes, the horrours, and the laws of Hell.'
Thus, while she spoke, in swarms Hell's em-
press brings

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Daughters and wives of heroes and of kings;
Thick and more thick they gather round the blood,
Ghost throng'd on ghost (a dire assembly) stood!
Dauntless my sword 1 seize: the airy crew,
Swift as it flash'd along the gloom, withdrew :
Then shade to shade in mutual forms succeeds,
Her race recounts, and their illustrious deeds.
"Tyro began, whom great Salmoneus bred;
The royal partner of fam'd Cretheus' bed.
For fair Enipeus, as from fruitful urns
He pours his watery store, the virgin burns;
Smooth flows the gentle stream with wanton pride,
And in soft mazes rolls a silver tide.

As on his banks the maid enamour'd roves,
The monarch of the deep beholds and loves!
In her Enipeus' form and borrow'd charms,
The amorous god descends into her arms:
Around a spacious arch of waves he throws,
And high in air the liquid mountain rose;
Thus in surrounding floods conceal'd he proves
The pleasing transport, and completes his loves.

Then softly sighing, he the fair address'd,
And as he spoke her tender hand he press'd;
'Hail, happy nymph! no vulgar births are ow'd
To the prolific raptures of a god;

Lo! when nine times the Moon renews her horn,
Two brother heroes shall from thee be born;
Thy early care the future worthies claim,
To point them to the arduous paths of fame;
But in thy breast th' important truth conceal,
Nor dare the secret of a god reveal:

For know, thou Neptune view'st! and at my nod
Earth trembles, and the waves confess their god.'
"He added not, but mounting spurn'd the plain,
Then plung'd into the chambers of the main.

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Now in the time's full process forth she brings Jove's dread vicegerents, in two future kings: O'er proud Icolos Pelias stretch'd his reign, And godlike Neleus rul'd the Pylian plain : Then, fruitful, to her Cretheus' royal bed She gallant Pheres and fam'd Æson bred : From the same fountain Amythaon rose, Pleas'd with the din of war, and noble shout of foes. "There mov'd Antiope with haughty charms, Who blest th' almighty thunderer in her arms: Hence sprung Amphion, hence brave Zethus came, Founders of Thebes, and men of mighty name; Though bold in open field, they yet surround The own with walls, and mound inject on mound; Here ramparts stood, there towers rose high in air, And here, through seven wide portals rush'd the

war.

"There with soft step the fair Alcmena trod, Who bore Alcides to the thundering god : And Megara, who charm'd the son of Jove, And soften'd his stern soul to tender love.

"Sullen and sour with discontented mien Jocasta frown'd, th' incestuous Theban queen ; With her own son she join'd in nuptial bands, Though father's blood imbrued his murderous hands:

The gods and men the dire offence detest,
The gods with all their furies rend his breast:
In lofty Thebes he wore th' imperial crown,
A pompous wretch! accurs'd upon a throne.
The wife self-murder'd from a beam depends;
And her foul soul to blackest Hell descends;
Thence to her son the choicest plagues she brings,
And his fiends haunt him with a thousand stings.
"And now the beauteous Chloris I descry,
A lovely shade, Amphion's youngest joy!
With gifts unnumber'd Neleus sought her arms,
Nor paid too dearly for unequall'd charms;
Great in Orchomenos, in Pylos great,
He sway'd the sceptre with imperial state.
Three gallant sons the joyful monarch told,
Sage Nestor, Periclimenus the bold,

And Chromius last; but of the softer race,
One nymph alone, a miracle of grace.
Kings on their thrones for lovely Pero burn;
The sire denies, and kings rejected mourn.
To him alone the beauteous prize he yields
Whose arm should ravish from Phylacian fields
The herds of Iphy clus, detain'd in wrong;
Wild, furious herds, unconquerably strong!
This dares a seer, but nought the seer prevails,
In beauty's cause illustriously he fails;
Twelve moons the foe the captive youth detains
le painful dungeons, and coercive chains;
The foe at last, from durance where he lay,
His art revering, gave him back to day;

Won by prophetic knowledge, to fulfil
The stedfast purpose of th' almighty will.
"With grateful port advancing now I spy'd
Leda the fair, the godlike Tyndar's bride :
Hence Pollux sprung, who wields with furious sway
The deathful gauntlet matchless in the fray;
And Castor glorious on th' embattled plain
Curbs the proud steed, reluctant to the rein:
By turns they visit this ethereal sky,
And live alternate, and alternate die :
In Hell beneath, on Earth, in Heaven above,
Reign the twin-gods, the favourite sons of Jove.

"There Ephimedia trod the gloomy plain, Who charm'd the monarch of the boundless main; Hence Ephialtes, hence stern Otus sprung, More fierce than giants, more than giants strong; The Earth o'erburthen'd groan'd beneath their weight,

None but Orion e'er surpass'd their height:
The wonderous youths had scarce nine winters told,
When high in air, tremendous to behold,
Nine ells aloft they rear'd their towering head,
And full nine cubits broad their shoulders spread.
Proud of their strength and more than mortal size,
The gods they challenge, and affect the skies;
Heav'd on Olympus tottering Ossa stood;
On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood: [grown,
Such were they youths! had they to manhood
Almighty Jove had trembled on his throne.
But e'er the harvest of the beard began
To bristle on the chin, and promise man,
His shafts Apollo aim'd; at once they found,
And stretch the giant-monsters o'er the ground.
"There mournful Phedra with sad Procris

moves,

Both beauteous shades, both hapless in their loves;
And near them walk'd, with solemn pace and slow,
Sad Ariadne, partner of their woe;
The royal Minos Ariadne bred,

She Thesens lov'd; from Crete with Theseus fled;
Swift to the Dian isle the hero flies,

And tow'rds his Athens bears the lovely prize;
There Bacchus with fierce rage Diana fires,
The goddess aims her shaft, the nymph expires.
"There Clymenè and Mera I behold;
There Eriphylè weeps, who loosely sold
Her lord, her honour, for the lust of gold.
But should I all recount, the night would fail,
Unequal to the melancholy tale :
And all-composing rest my nature craves,
Here in the court, or yonder on the waves;
In you I trust, and in the heavenly powers,
To land Ulysses on his native shores."

He ceas'd: but left so charming on their ear His voice, that listening still they seem'd to hear. Till, rising up, Aretè silence broke,

Stretch'd out her snowy hand, and thus she spoke: "What wonderous man Heaven sends us in our

guest!

Through all his woes the hero shines confest;
His comely port, his ample frame, express

A manly air, majestic in distress.

He, as my guest, is my peculiar care,

You share the pleasure, then in bounty share;
To worth in misery a reverence pay,
And with a generous hand reward his stay; [blest,
For since kind Heaven with wealth our realm has
Give it to Heaven, by aiding the distrest."

Then sage Echeneus, whose grave reverend brow The hand of time had silver'd o'er with snow,

A three-fold offering to his altar bring,
A bull, a ram, a boar; and hail the ocean-king,
But, home return'd, to each ethereal power
Slay the due victim in the genial hour:
So peaceful shalt thou end thy blissful days,
And steal thyself from life by slow decays:
Unknown to pain, in age resign thy breath,
When late stern Neptune points the shaft with
To the dark grave retiring as to rest, [death:
Thy people blessing, by thy people blest!
"Unerring truths, Oman! my lips relate;
This is thy life to come, and this is fate.'

·

"To whom unmov'd: If this the gods prepare;
What Heaven ordains, the wise with courage bear.
But say, why yonder on the lonely strands,
Unmindful of her son, Anticlea stands?
Why to the ground she bends her downcast eye?
Why is she silent, while her son is nigh?
The latent cause, O sacred seer, reveal!'
"Nor this, replies the seer,
⚫ will I conceal.
Know, to the spectres, that thy beverage taste,
The scenes of life recur, and actions past:
They, seal'd with truth, return the sure reply;
The rest, repell'd, a train oblivious fly.'

"The phantom-prophet ceas'd, and sunk from
sight,

To the black palace of eternal Night.

"Still in the dark abodes of Death I stood,
While near Anticlea mov'd; and drank the blood.
Straight all the mother in her soul awakes,
And, owning her Ulysses, thus she speaks:

Com'st thou, my son, alive, to realms beneath,
The dolesome realms of Darkness and of Death?
Com'st thou alive from pure, ethereal day?
Dire is the region, dismal is the way!
Here lakes profound, there floods oppose their

waves,

There the wide sea with all his billows raves!
Or (since to dust proud Troy submits her towers)
Com'st thou a wanderer from the Phrygian shores?
Or say, since honour call'd thee to the field,
Hast thou thy Ithaca, thy bride, beheld?'

No costly carpets raise his hoary head,
No rich embroidery shines to grace his bed:
Ev'n when keen winter freezes in the skies,
Rank'd with his slaves, on earth the monarch lies:
Deep are his sighs, his visage pale, his dress
The garb of woe and habit of distress.
And when the autumn takes his annual round,
The leafy honours scattering on the ground;
Regardless of his years, abroad he lies,
His bed the leaves, his canopy the skies.
Thus cares on cares his painful days consume,
And bow his age with sorrow to the tomb !

"For thee, my son, I wept my life away;
For thee through Hell's eternal dungeons stray:
Nor came my fate by lingering pains and slow,
Nor bent the silver-shafted queen her bow;
No dire disease bereav'd ine of my breath:
Thou, thou, my son, wert my discase and death;
Unkindly with my love my son conspir'd,
For thee I liv'd, for absent thee expir'd.'

"Thrice in my arms I strove her shade to bind, Thrice through my arms she slipp'd like empty

wind,

Or dreams, the vain illusions of the mind.
Wild with despair, I shed a copious tide
Of flowing tears, and thus with sighs reply'd:
"Fly'st thou, lov'd shade, while I thus fondly
mourn?

Turn to my arms, to my embraces turn!
Is it, ye powers, that smile at human barms!
Too great a bliss to weep within her arms?
Or has Hell's queen an empty image sent,
That wretched I might ev'n my joys lament?'

"O son of woe!' the pensive shade rejoin'd,
'Oh most inur'd to grief of all mankind!
'Tis not the queen of Hell who thee deceives:
All, all are such, when life the body leaves;
No more the substance of the man remains,
Nor bounds the blood along the purple veins :
These the funereal flames in atoms bear,
To wander with the wind in empty air;
While the impassive soul reluctant flies,

"Source of my life,' I cry'd, ' from Earth I fly, Like a vain dream, to these infernal skies.

To seek Tiresias in the nether sky,

To learn my doom; for, tost from woe to woe,
In every land Ulysses finds a foe:

Nor have these eyes beheld my native shores,
Since in the dust proud Troy submits her towers.
"But, when thy soul from her sweet mansion filed,
Say, what distemper gave thee to the dead?
Has life's fair lamp declin'd by slow decays,
Or swift expir'd it in a sudden blaze?
Say if my sire, good old Laertes, lives?
If yét Telemachus, my son, survives?
Say, by his rule is my dominion aw'd,
Or crush'd by traitors with an iron rod?
Say, if my spouse maintains her royal trust;
Though tempted, chaste, and obstinately just!
Or if no more her absent lord she wails,
But the faise woman o'er the wife prevails?'

Thus I, and thus the parent-shade returns:
'Thee, ever thee, thy faithful consort mourns:
Whether the night descends, or day prevails,
Thee she by night, and thee by day, bewails,
Thee in Telemachus thy realm obeys;
In sacred groves celestial rites he pays,
Aud-shares the banquet in superior state,
Grac'd with such honours as become the great.
Thy sire in solitude foments his care:
The court is joyless, for thou art not there!

But from the dark dominions speed thy way,
And climb the steep ascent to upper day;
To thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell,
The woes, the horrours, and the laws of Hell.'
"Thus, while she spoke, in swarms Hell's em-
press brings

Daughters and wives of heroes and of kings;
Thick and more thick they gather round the blood,
Ghost throng'd on ghost (a dire assembly) stood!
Dauntless my sword I seize the airy crew,
Swift as it flash'd along the gloom, withdrew:
Then shade to shade in mutual forms succeeds,
Her race recounts, and their illustrious deeds.

"Tyro began, whom great Salmoneus bred;
The royal partner of fam'd Cretheus' bed.
For fair Enipeus, as from fruitful urns
He pours his watery store, the virgin burns;
Smooth Rows the gentle stream with wanton pride,
And in soft mazes rolls a silver tide.
As on his banks the maid enamour'd roves,
The monarch of the deep beholds and loves!
In her Enipeus' form and borrow'd charms,
The amorous god descends into her arms:
Around a spacious arch of waves he throws,
And high in air the liquid mountain rose;
Thus in surrounding floods conceal'd he proves
The pleasing transport, and completes his loves.

1

Then softly sighing, he the fair address'd,
And as he spoke her tender hand he press'd :
'Hail, happy nymph! no vulgar births are ow'd
To the prolific raptures of a god;

Lo! when nine times the Moon renews her horn,
Two brother heroes shall from thee be born;
Thy early care the future worthies claim,
To point them to the arduous paths of fame;
But in thy breast th' important truth conceal,
Nor dare the secret of a god reveal:

For know, thou Neptune view'st! and at my nod
Earth trembles, and the waves confess their god.'
"He added not, but mounting spurn'd the plain,
Then plung'd into the chambers of the main.
"Now in the time's full process forth she brings
Jove's dread vicegerents, in two future kings:
O'er prond Icolos Pelias stretch'd his reign,
And godlike Neleus rul'd the Pylian plain :
Then, fruitful, to her Cretheus' royal bed
She gallant Pheres and fam'd Eson bred:
From the same fountain Amythaon rose,
Pleas'd with the din of war, and noble shout of foes.
"There mov'd Antiope with haughty charms,
Who blest th' almighty thunderer in her arms :
Hence sprung Amphion, hence brave Zethus came,
Founders of Thebes, and men of mighty name;
Though old in open field, they yet surround
The own with walls, and mound inject on mound;
Here ramparts stood, there towers rose high in air,
And here, through seven wide portals rush'd the

war.

"There with soft step the fair Alcmena trod, Who bore Alcides to the thundering god : And Megara, who charm'd the son of Jove, And soften'd his stern soul to tender love.

"Sullen and sour with discontented mien Jocasta frown'd, th' incestuous Theban queen ; With her own son she join'd in nuptial bands, Though father's blood imbrued his murderous hands:

A

The gods and men the dire offence detest,
The gods with all their furies rend his breast:
In lofty Thebes he wore th' imperial crown,
pompous wretch! accurs'd upon a throne.
The wife self-murder'd from a beam depends;
And her foul soul to blackest Heli descends;
Thence to her son the choicest plagues she brings,
And his fiends haunt him with a thousand stings.
"And now the beauteous Chloris I descry,
A lovely shade, Amphion's youngest joy!
With gifts unnumber'd Neleus sought her arms,
Nor paid too dearly for unequall'd charms;
Great in Orchomenos, in Pylos great,
He sway'd the sceptre with imperial state.
Three gallant sons the joyful monarch told,
Sage Nestor, Periclimenus the bold,
And Chromius last; but of the softer race,
One nymph alone, a miracle of grace.
Kings on their thrones for lovely Pero burn;
The sire denies, and kings rejected mourn.
To him alone the beauteous prize he yields
Whose arm should ravish from Phylacian fields
The herds of Iphyclus, detain'd in wrong;
Wild, furious herds, unconquerably strong!
This dares a seer, but nought the seer prevails,
In beauty's cause illustriously he fails;
Twelve moons the foe the captive youth detains
In painful dungeons, and coercive chains ;
The foe at last, from durance where he lay,
His art revering, gave him back to day;

Won by prophetic knowledge, to fulfil
The stedfast purpose of th' almighty will.
"With grateful port advancing now I spy'd
Leda the fair, the godlike Tyndar's bride :
Hence Pollux sprung, who wields with furious sway
The deathful gauntlet matchless in the fray;
And Castor glorions on th' embattled plain
Curbs the proud steed, reluctant to the rein:
By turns they visit this ethereal sky,
And live alternate, and alternate die :
In Hell beneath, on Earth, in Heaven above,
Reign the twin-gods, the favourite sons of Jove.
"There Ephimedia trod the gloomy plain,
Who charm'd the monarch of the boundless main;
Hence Ephialtes, hence stern Otus sprung,
More fierce than giants, more than giants strong;
The Earth o'erburthen'd groan'd beneath their
weight,

None but Orion e'er surpass'd their height:
The wonderous youths had scarce nine winters told,
When high in air, tremendous to behold,
Nine ells aloft they rear'd their towering head,
And full nine cubits broad their shoulders spread.
Proud of their strength and more than mortal size,
The gods they challenge, and affect the skies;
Heav'd on Olympus tottering Ossa stood;
On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood: [grown,
Such were they youths! had they to manhood
Almighty Jove had trembled on his throne.
But e'er the harvest of the beard began
To bristle on the chin, and promise man,
His shafts Apollo aim'd; at once they found,
And stretch the giant-monsters o'er the ground.
There mournful Phædra with sad Procris

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moves,

Both beauteous shades, both hapless in their loves;
And near them walk'd, with solemn pace and slow,
Sad Ariadne, partner of their woe;
The royal Minos Ariadne bred,

She Thesens lov'd; from Crete with Theseus fled;
Swift to the Dian isle the hero flies,

And tow'rds his Athens bears the lovely prize;
There Bacchus with fierce rage Diana fires,
The goddess ains her shaft, the nymph expires.
"There Clymenè and Mera I behold;
There Eriphyle weeps, who loosely sold
Her lord, her honour, for the lust of gold.
But should I all recount, the night would fail,
Unequal to the melancholy tale :

And all-composing rest my nature craves,
Here in the court, or yonder on the waves;
In you I trust, and in the heavenly powers,
To land Ulysses on his native shores."

He ceas'd: but left so charming on their ear His voice, that listening still they seem'd to hear. Till, rising up, Aretè silence broke,

Stretch'd out her snowy hand, and thus she spoke: "What wonderous man Heaven sends us in our

guest!

Through all his woes the hero shines confest;
His comely port, his ample frame, express

A mauly air, majestic in distress.

He, as my guest, is iny peculiar care,
You share the pleasure, then in bounty share;
To worth in misery a reverence pay,
And with a generous hand reward his stay; [blest,
For since kind Heaven with wealth our realm has
Give it to Heaven, by aiding the distrest."

Then sage Echeneus, whose grave reverend brow The hand of time had silver'd o'er with snow,

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