One of us two must rule, and one obey
And since in Lian right reason bears the sway
Let that frail thing, weak woman, have her way.
The wives of all my family have ruled

Their tender husbands, and their passions cool'd,
Rie, 'tis unmanly thus to sigh and groan:
What would you have me to yourself alone?
Why take me, love! take all and every part!
Here's your revenge! you love it at your heart.
Would I vouchsafe to sell what nature gave,
You little think what custom I could have.
But see! I'm all your own-nay hold-for shame
What means my dear-indeed-you are to blame.
Thus with my first three lords I pass'd my life
A very woman and a very wife.

What sums from these old spouses I could raise,
Procured young husbands in my riper days,
Though past my bloom, not yet decay'd was I,
Wanton and wild, and chatter'd like a pie.
In country dances still I bore the bell,
And sung as sweet as evening Philomel.
To clear my quailpipe, and refresh my soul,
Full oft I drain'd the spicy nut-brown bowl;
Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve,
And warm the swelling veins to feats of love:
For 'tis as sure, as cold engenders hail,

A liquorish mouth must have a lecherous tail:
Wine lets no lover unrewarded go,

As all true gamesters by experience know.
But oh, good gods! whene'er a thought I cast
On all the joys of youth and beauty pass'd,
To find in pleasures I have had my part,
Still warms me to the bottom of my heart.
This wicked world was once my dear delight;
Now, all my conquests, all my charms, good night!
The flour consumed, the best that now I can,
Is e'en to make my market of the bran.

My fourth dear spouse was not exceeding true;
He kept, 'twas thought, a private miss or two;
But all that score I paid-as how? you'll say,
Not with my body in a filthy way:

But I so dress'd, and danced, and drank, and dined,
And view'd a friend with eyes so very kind,
As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry
With burning rage, and frantic jealousy.
His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory,
For here on earth I was his purgatory.
Oft, when his shoe the most severely wrung,
He put on careless airs, and sate and sung.
How sore I gall'd him, only Heaven could know,
And he that felt, and I that caused the woe.
He died, when last from pilgrimage I came,
With other gossips, from Jerusalem;
And now lies buried underneath a rood,
Fair to be seen, and rear'd of honest wood:
A tomb indeed, with fewer sculptures graced
Than that Mausolus' pious widow placed,
Or where inshrined the great Darius lay;
But cost on graves is merely thrown away.
The pit fill'd up, with turf we cover'd o'er;
So bless the good man's soul, I'll say no more.

Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and best,
(Kind Heaven afford him everlasting rest!)
Full hearty was his love, and I can shew
The tokens on my ribs in black and blue;
Yet, with a knack, my heart he could have won,
While yet the smart was shooting in the bone.
How quaint an appetite in women reigns!

Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains:
Let men avoid us, and on them we leap;
A glutted market makes provision cheap.

In pure good-will I took this jovial spark,

Of Oxford he, a most egregious clerk.
He boarded with a widow in the town,

A trusty gossip, one dame Alison.
Full well the secrets of my soul she knew,
Better than e'er our parish priest could do.
To her I told whatever could befall:

Had but my husband piss'd against the wall,
Or done a thing that might have cost his life,
She and my niece-and one more worthy wife,
Had known it all: what most he would conceal;
To these I made no scruple to reveal.
Oft has he blush'd from ear to ear for shame,
That e'er he told a secret to his dame.

It so befell, in holy time of Lent, 'That oft a day I to this gossip went. (My husband, thank my stars, was out of town); From house to house we rambled up and down, This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse, To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales.

Visits to every church we daily paid,
Ana march'd in every holy masquerade,
The stations duly and the vigils kept;
Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoil'd my best array;
The cause was this, I wore it every day.
'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields,
This clerk and I were walking in the fields,
We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,
I pawn'd my honour, and engaged my vow.
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, should serve my turn.
We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul..

I vow'd I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, And durst be sworn he had bewitch'd me to him;

If e'er I slept, I dream'd of him alone,

And dreams fortell, as learned men have shown,
All this I said; but dreams, sirs, I had none:
I follow'd but my crafty crony's lore,

Who bid me tell this lie and twenty more.

Thus day by day, and month by month we pass'd, It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last.

I tore my gown, I soil'd my locks with dust,
And beat my breasts as wretched widows-must.
Before my face my handkerchief I spread,
To hide the flood of tears I did not shed..
The good man's coffin to the church was borne:
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too, mourn
But as he march'd, good gods! he shew'd a pair
Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair!
Of twenty winters' age he seem'd to be,
I (to say truth) was twenty more than he :
But vigorous still, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wondrous gift to quench a flame.
A conjuror once, that deeply could divine,
Assured me, Mars in Taurus was my sign.
As the stars order'd, such my life has been:
Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!
Fair Venus gave me fire and sprightly grace,
And Mars assurance and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this powerful constellation,
I follow'd always my own inclination.
But to my tale: A month scarce pass d away,
With dance and song we kept the nuptial day,
All I possess'd I gave to his command,

My goods and chattels, money, house, and land:
But oft repented, and repent it still:
He proved a rebel to my sovereign will:
Nay once, by Heaven, he struck me on the face;
Hear but the fact, and judge yourselves the case
Stubborn as any lioness was I;

And knew full well to raise my voice on high;
As true a rambler as I was before,
And would be so, in spite of all he swore.
He against this right sagely would advise,
Aud old examples set before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And close the sermon, as beseem'd his wit,
With some grave sentence out of holy writ.
Oft would he say, Who builds his house on sands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands;
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deserves a fool's-cap, and long ears at home.'
All this avail'd not; for whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And so do numbers more, I boldly say,
Men, women, clergy, regular and lay.

My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred)
A certain treatise oft at evening read,
Where divers authors (whom the devil confound
For all their lies !) were in one volume bound.
Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;
Chrysippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art,
Solomon's Proverbs, Elofsa's loves;
And many more than sure the church approves.
More legions were there here of wicked wives,
Than good in all the Bible and saints' lives.
Who drew the lion vanquish'd? 'twas a man.
But could we women write as scholars can,
Men should stand mark'd with far more wickednesa
Than all the sons of Adam could redress.
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.
Those play the scholars, who can't play the men,
And use that weapon which they have, their pen;
When old, and past the relish of delight,
Then down they sit, and in their dotage write,

That not one woman keeps her marriage vow. (This by the way, but to my purpose now).

It chanced my husband, on a winter's night,
Read in this book, aloud, with strange delight,
How the first female (as the Scriptures show)
Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe.
How Samson fell; and he whom Dejanire
Wrapp'd in the envenom'd shirt, and set on fire.
How cursed Eriphyle her lord betray'd,
And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid.
But what most pleased him was the Cretan Dame,
And Husband bull-oh monstrous! fie, for shame!
He had by heart the whole detail of woe
Xantippe made her good man undergo;
How oft she scolded in a day he knew,
How many piss-pots on the sage she threw,
Who took it patiently and wiped his head;
Rain follows thunder,'-that was all he said.
He read, how Arius to his friend complain'd,
A fatal tree was growing in his land,

On which three wives successively had twined
A sliding noose, and waver'd in the wind.

Where grows this plant,' replied the friend, 'oh where? For better fruit did never orchard bear:

Give me some slip of this most blissful tree,

And in my garden planted shall it be.'

Then how two wives their lords' destruction prove,
Through hatred one, and one through too much love;
That for her husband mix'd a poisonous draught,
And this for lust an amorous philtre bought:
The nimble juice soon seized his giddy head,
Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.

How some with swords their sleeping lords have slain,
And some have hammer'd nails into their brain,
And some have drench'd them with a deadly potion;
All this he read, and read with great devotion.
Long time I heard, and swell'd, and blush'd, and frown'd:

But when no end to these vile tales I found,
When still he read, and laugh'd, and read again,
And half the night was thus consumed in vain;
Provoked to vengeance, three large leaves I tore,
And with one buffet fell'd him on the floor.
With that my husband in a fury rose,
And down he settled me with hearty blows.
I groan'd, and lay extended on my side;

Oh! thou hast slain me for my wealth,' I cried.
'Yet I forgive thee-take my last embrace-'
He wept, kind soul! and stoop'd to kiss my face:
I took him such a box as turn'd him blue,
Then sigh'd, and cried, 'Adieu, my dear, adicu !*
But after many a hearty struggle pass'd,
I condescended to be pleased at last.
Soon as he said, 'My mistress and my wife,
Do what you list, the term of all your life;'
I took to heart the merits of the cause,
And stood content to rule by wholesome laws;
Received the reins of absolute command,
With all the government of house and land,
And empire o'er his tongue, and o'er his hand.
As for the volume that reviled the dames,
"Twas torn to fragments, and condemn'd to flames.
Now, Heaven, on all my husbands gone, bestow
Pleasures above for tortures felt below:

That rest they wish'd for, grant them in the grave,
And bless those souls my conduct help'd to save!

message to the Shades, to the ghost of Laius, who is to appear to Eteocles, and provoke him to break the agreement. Polynices in the mean time departs from Thebes by night, is overtaken by a storm, and arrives at Argos; where he meets with Tydeus, who had fled from Calydon, having killed his brother. Adrastus entertains them, having receiv ed an oracle from Apollo, that his daughter should be married to a boar and a lion, which he understands to be meant of these strangers, by whom the hides of those beasts were worn, and who arrived at the time when he kept an annual feast in honour of that god. The rise of this solemnity he relates to his guests, the loves of Phoebus and Psamathe, and the story of Choroebus. He inquires, and is made acquainted with their descent and quality. The sacrifice is renewed, and the book concludes with a hymn to Apollo.

The translator hopes he need not apologise for his choice of this piece, which was made almost in his childhood: but, finding the version better than he expected, he gave it some correction a few years afterwards.

STATIUS HIS THE BAIS.

FRATERNAL rage, the guilty Thebes alarms,
The alternate reign destroy'd by impious arms,
Demand our song; a sacred fury fires
My ravish'd breast, and all the muse inspires.
O goddess! say, shall I deduce my rhymes
From the dire nation in its early times,
Europa's rape, Agenor's stern decree,
And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea?
How with the serpent's teeth he sowed the soil,
And reap'd an iron harvest of his toil?

Or how from joining stones the city sprung,
While to his harp divine Amphion sung?
Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound,
Whose fatal rage the unhappy monarch found?
The sire against the son his arrows drew.
O'er the wide fields the furious mother flow,
And while her arms a second hope contain,
Sprung from the rocks, and plunged into the main:
But wave whate'er to Cadmus may belong,
And fix, O Muse! 'the barrier of thy song
At Edipus-from his disasters trace
The long confusions of his guilty race:
Nor yet attempt to stretch thy older wing,
And mighty Cæsar's conquering eagles sing:
How twice he tamed proud Ister's rapid flood,

While Dacian mountains stream'd with barbarous blood:
Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,
And stretch'd his empire to the frozen pole:
Or long before, with early valour, strove
In youthful arms to assert the cause of Jove.
And thou, great heir of all thy father's fame,
Increase of glory to the Latian name,
O bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,
Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain!
What though the stars contract their heavenly space,
And crowd their shining ranks to yield thee place;
Though all the skies, ambitious of thy sway,
Conspire to court thee from our world away:
Though Phoebus longs to mix his rays with thine,
And in thy glories more serenely shine;
Though Jove himself no less content would be
To part his throne, and share his heaven with thee;
Yet stay, great Cæsar! and vouchsafe to reign
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the watery main;
Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,
And people heaven with Roman deities.

The time will come, when a diviner flame
Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar's fame:
Meanwhile permit, that my preluding muse
In Theban wars a humbler theme may choose:
Of furious hate surviving death, she sings,
A fatal throne to two contending kings,
And funeral flames, that parting wide in air,
Express the discord of the souls they bear:
Of towns dispeopled, and the wandering ghosts
Of kings unburied in the wasted coasts;
When Dirce's fountain blush'd with Grecian blood,
And Thetis, near Ismenos' swelling flood,
With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep,
In heaps, her slaughter'd sons into the deep..
What hero, Clio! wilt thou first relate?
The rage of Tydeus, or the prophet's fate?
Or how, with hills of slain on every side,
Hippomedon repell'd the hostile tide?

Or how the youth, with every grace adorn'd,
Untimely fell, to be for ever mourn'd?
Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend,
And sing with horror his prodigious end.
Now wretched Edipus, deprived of sight,
Led a long death in everlasting night;

But while he dwells where not a cheerful ray
Can pierce the darkness, and abhors the day;
The clear reflecting mind presents his sin
In frightful views, and makes it day within;
Returning thoughts in endless circles roll,
And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul;
The wretch then lifted to the unpitying skies
Those empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes,
Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook,
While from his breast these dreadful accents broke:
Ye gods! that o'er the gloomy regions reign,
Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain;

Thou, sable Styx! whose livid streams are roll'd
Through dreary coasts, which I, though blind, behold:
Tisiphone, that oft hast heard my prayer,
Assist, if Edipus deserve thy care!

If you received me from Jocasta's womb,

And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come :
If, leaving Polybus, I took my way

To Cyrrha's temple, on that fatal day,
When by the son the trembling father died,
Where the three roads the Phocian fields divide:
If I the Sphinx's riddles durst explain,
Taught by thyself to win the promised reign;
If wretched I, by baleful Furies led,
With monstrous mixture stain'd my mother's bed,
For hell and thee begot an impious brood,
And with full lust those horrid joys renew'd;
Then, self-condemn'd to shades of endless night,
Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight;
O hear, and aid the vengeance I require,
If worthy thee, and what thou mightst inspire!
My sons their old unhappy sire despise,
Spoil'd of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes;
Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn,
While these exalt their sceptres o'er my urn;
These sons, ye gods! who, with flagitious pride,
Insult my darkness, and my groans deride.
Art thou a father, unregarding Jove!
And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above?
Thou Fury, then, some lasting curse entail,
Which o'er their children's children shall prevail :
Place on their heads that crown distain'd with gore,
Which these dire hands from my slain father tore;
Go, and a parent's heavy curses bear;
Break all the bonds of nature, and prepare
Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war.
Give them to dare, what I might wish to see,
Blind as I am, some glorious villany!
Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands,
Their ready guilt preventing thy commands:
Couldst thou some great, proportion'd mischief trame,
'They'd prove the father from whose loins they came.'
The Fury heard, while on Cocytus' brink
Her snakes, untied, sulphureous waters drink;
But at the summons roll'd her eyes around,
And snatch'd the starting serpents from the ground.
Not half so swiftly shoots along in air
The gliding lightning, or descending star.
Through crowds of airy shades she wing'd her flight,
And dark dominions of the silent night;
Swift as she pass'd, the flitting ghosts withdrew,
And the pale spectres trembled at her view:
To the iron gates of Tenarus she flies,
There spreads her dusky pinions to the skies.
The day beheld, and, sickening at the sight,
Veil'd her fair glories in the shades of night.
Affrighted Atlas, on the distant shore,
Trembled, and shook the heavens and gods he bore.
Now from beneath Malea's airy height
Aloft she sprung, and steer'd to Thebes her flight;
With eager speed the well-known journey took,
Nor here regrets the hell she late forsook.
A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade,

A hundred serpents guard her horrid head,

In her sunk eye-balls dreadful meteors glow:
Such rays from Phoebe's bioody circles flow,

A robe obscene was o'er her shoulders thrown,
A dress by Fates and Furies worn alone.
She toss'd her meagre arms: her better hand
In waving circles whirl'd a funeral brand:
A serpent from her left was seen to rear
His flaming crest, and lash the yielding air.

But when the Fury took her stand on high,
Where vast Citharon's top salutes the sky,
A hiss from all the snaky tire went round;
The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound,
And through the Achaian cities send the sound.
Ete, with high Parnassus, heard the voice:
Eurotas' banks remurmur'd to the noise;
Again Leucothoë shook at these alarms,
And press'd Palæmon closer in her arms.
Headlong from thence the glowing Fury springs,
And o'er the Theban palace spreads her wings,
Once more invades the guilty dome, and shrouds
Its bright pavilions in a veil of clouds.

Straight with the rage of all their race possess',
Stung to the soul, the brothers start from rest,
And all their furies wake within their breast.
Their tortured minds repining envy tears,
And hate, engender'd by suspicious fears;
And sacred thirst of sway; and all the ties
Of nature broke; and royal perjuries;
And impotent desire to reign alone,
That scorns the dull reversion of a throne;
Each would the sweets of sovereign rule devour,
While discord waits
upon divided
power.
As stubborn steers by brawny plowmen broke,
And join'd reluctant to the galling yoke,
Alike disdain with servile necks to bear
The unwonted weight, or drag the crooked share
But rend the reins, and bound a different way,
And all the furrows in confusion lay:
Such was the discord of the royal pair,
Whom fury drove precipitate to war.

In vain the chiefs contrived a specious way,
To govern Thebes by their alternate sway:
Unjust decree! while this enjoys the state,
That mourns in exile his unequal fate,
And the short monarch of a hasty year
Foresees with anguish his returning heir.
Thus did the league their impious arms restrain,
But scarce subsisted to the second reign.

Yet then no proud aspiring piles were raised,
No fretted roof with polish'd metals blazed;
No labour'd columns in long order placed,
No Grecian stone the pompous arches graced;
No nightly bands in glittering armour wait
Before the sleepless tyrant's guarded gate;
No chargers then were wrought in burnish'd gold,
Nor silver vases took the forming mould;
Nor gems on bowls emboss'd were seen to shine,
Blaze on the brims, and sparkle in the wine-
Say, wretched rivals! what provokes your rage?
Say, to what end your impious arms engage?
Not all bright Phoebus views in early morn,
Or when his evening beams the west adorn,
When the south glows with his meridian ray,
And the cold north receives a fainter day;
For crimes like these, not all those realms suffice,
Were all those realms the guilty victor's prize!

A fiery gleam, and reddens all the sky.

came

Blue steaming poisons, and a length of flame.
From every blast of her contagious breath,

Famine and drought proceed, and plagues and death.

E'en fortune rules no more:-O servile land,
Where exiled tyrants still by turns command
Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove!
Is this the eternal doom decreed above?

On thy own offspring hast thou fix'd this fate,
From the first birth of our unhappy state;
When banish'd Cadmus, wandering o'er the main,
For lost Europa search'd the world in vain,
And, fated in Boeotian fields to found

A rising empire on a foreign ground,
First raised our walls on that ill-omen'd plain,
Where earth-born brothers were by brothers slain?
What lofty looks the unrivall'd monarch bears.
How all the tyrant in his face appeara!
What sudden fury clouds his scornful brow!
Gods! how his eyes with threatening ardour glow!
Can this imperious lord forget to reign,
Quit all his state, descend, and serve again?
Yet who, before, more popularly bow'd?
Who more propitious to the suppliant crowd?
Patient of right, familiar in the throne?
What wonder then? he was not then alone.
O wretched we, a vile submissive train,
Fortune's tame fools, and slaves in every reign!

As when two winds with rival force contend,
This way and that, the wavering sails they bend,
While freezing Boreas and black Eurus blow,
Now here, now there, the reeling vessel throw:
'Thus on each side, alas! our tottering state
Feels all the fury of resistless fate;
And doubtful still, and still distracted stands,
While that prince threatens, and while this commands.'
And now the almighty father of the gods
Convenes a council in the bless'd abodes:
Far in the bright recesses of the skies,
High o'er the rolling heavens, a mansion lies,
Whence, far below, the gods at once survey,
The realms of rising and declining day,

And all the extended space of earth, and air, and sea.
Full in the midst, and on a starry throne,"
The majesty of heaven superior shone:
Serene he look'd, and gave an awful nod,
And all the trembling spheres confess'd the god.
At Jove's assent, the deities around
In solemn state the consistory crown'd.
Next a long order of inferior powers
Ascend from hills, and plains, and shady bowers;
Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow;
And those that give the wandering winds to blow;
Here all their rage, and e'en their murmurs cease,
And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace.
A shining synod of majestic gods
Gilds with new lustre the divine abodes;
Heaven seems improved with a superior ray,
And the bright arch reflects a double day.
The monarch then his solemn silence broke,
The still creation listen'd while he spoke;
Each sacred accent bears eternal weight,
And each irrevocable word is fate.

'How long shall man the wrath of Heaven defy,
And force unwilling vengeance from the sky!
Oh race confederate into crimes, that prove
Triumphant o'er the eluded rage of Jove!
This wearied arm can scarce the bolt sustain,
And unregarded thunder rolls in vain;
The o'erlabour'd Cyclop from his task retires;
The Eolian forge exhausted of its fires.
For this I suffer'd Phoebus' steeds to stray,
And the mad ruler to misguide the day,
When the wide earth to heaps of ashes turn'd,
And heaven itself the wandering chariot burn'd.
For this, my brother of the watery reign
Released the impetuous sluices of the main :
But flames consumed, and billows raged in vain.
Two races now, allied to Jove, offend:
To punish these, see Jove himself descend.
The Theban kings their line from Cadmus trace,
From godlike Perseus those of Argive race.
Unhappy Cadmus' fate who does not know,
And the long series of succeeding woe?
How oft the Furies, from the deeps of night,
Arose, and mix'd with men in mortal fight:
The exulting mother, stain'd with filial blood;
The savage hunter, and the haunted wood?
The direful banquet why should I proclaim,

And crimes that grieve the trembling gods to name?
Ere I recount the sins of these profane,
The sun would sink into the western main,
And rising gild the radiant east again.
Have we not seen (the blood of Laïus shed)
The murdering son ascend his parent's bed,
Through violated nature force his way,

And stain the sacred womb where once he lay?
Yet now in darkness and despair he groans,
And for the crimes of guilty fate atones;

His sons with scorn their eyeless father view,
Insult his wounds, and make them bleed anew
Thy curse, oh (Edipus, just Heaven alarms,
And sets the avenging Thunderer in arms.
I from the root thy guilty race will tear,
And give the nations to the waste of war.
Adrastus soon, with gods averse, shall join
In dire alliance with the Theban line:
Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed;
The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed:
Fix'd is their doom; this all-remembering breast
Yet harbours vengeance for the tyrant's feast.'

He said; and thus the queen of heaven return'd
(With sudden grief her labouring bosom burn'd):
Must I, whose cares Phoroneus' towers defend,
Must I, oh Jove, in bloody wars contend?
Thou know'st those regions my protection claim,
Glorious in arms, in riches, and in fame:
Though there the fair Egyptian heifer fed,
And there deluded Argus slept, and bled;
Though there the brazen tower was storm'd of old,
When Jove descended in almighty gold.
Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes,
Those bashful crimes disguised in borrow'd shapes;
But Thebes, where, shining in celestial charms,
Thou camest triumphant to a mortal's arms,
When all my glories o'er her limbs were spread,
And blazing lightnings danced around her bed;
Cursed Thebes the vengeance it deserves may prove
Ah, why should Argos feel the rage of Jove?
Yet, since thou wilt thy sister queen control,
Since still the lust of discord fires thy soul,
Go, raze my Samos, let Mycene fall,
And level with the dust the Spartan wall;
No more let mortals Juno's power invoke,
Her fanes no more with eastern incense smoke,
Nor victims sink beneath the sacred stroke;
But to your Isis all my rights transfer,
Let altars blaze and temples smoke for her;
For her, through Egypt's fruitful clime renown d,
Let weeping Nilus hear the timbrel sound.
But if thou must reform the stubborn times,
Avenging on the sons the father's crimes,
And from the long records of distant age
Derive incitements to renew thy rage;
Say, from what period then has Jove design'd
To date his vengeance; to what bounds confined?
Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides
His wandering stream, and through the briny tides
Unmix'd to his Sicilian river glides.

Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,
Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;
Who raise thy temples where the chariot stood
Of fierce Enomäus, defiled with blood;
Where once his steeds their savage banquet found,
And human bones yet whiten all the ground.
Say, can those honours please? and canst thou love
Presumptuous Crete, that boasts the tomb of Jove!
And shall not Tantalus's kingdom share
Thy wife and sister's tutelary care?
Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,
Nor doom to war a race derived from thee:

On impious realms and barbarous kings impose
Thy plagues, and curse them with such sous as those.
Thus, in reproach and prayer, the queen express'd
The rage and grief contending in her breast;
Unmoved remain'd the ruler of the sky,
And from his throne return'd this stern reply:

"Twas thus I deem'd thy haughty soul would bear
The dire, though just, revenge which I prepare
Against a nation thy peculiar care.
No less Dione might for Thebes contend,
Nor Bacchus less his native town defend;
Yet these in silence see the fates fulfil
Their work, and reverence our superior will.
For, by the black infernal Styx I swear
(That dreadful oath which binds the Thunderer),
"Tis fix'd; the irrevocable doom of Jove;
No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
Haste then, Cyllenius, through the liquid air;
Go mount the winds, and to the shades repair;
Bid hell's black monarch my commands obey,
And give up Laius to the realms of day.
Whose ghost, yet shivering on Cocytus' sand,
Expects its passage to the farther strand;
Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear
These pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear;
That, from his exiled brother, swell'd with pride
Of foreign forces, and his Argive bride,
Almighty Jove commands him to detain
The promised empire, and alternate reign;

Be this the cause of more than mortal hate:
The rest succeeding times shall ripen into fate.'
The god obeys, and to his feet applies
Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies.
His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread,
And veil'd the starry glories of his head.
He seized the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye;
That drives the dead to dark Tartarian coasts,
Or back to life compels the wandering ghosts.
Thus, through the parting clouds, the son of May
Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way;
Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight,
Now springs aloft, and towers the ethereal height;
Then wheeling down the steep of heaven he flies,
And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.

Meantime the banish'd Polynices roves
(His Thebes abandon'd) through the Aonian groves,
While future realms his wandering thoughts delight,
His daily vision, and his dream by night;
Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye,
From whence he sees his absent brother fly,
With transport views the airy rule his own,
And swells on an imaginary throne.
Fain would he cast a tedious age away
And live out all in one triumphant day
He chides the lazy progress of the sun,
And bids the year with swifter motion run.
With anxious hopes his craving mind is toss'd,
And all his joys in length of wishes lost.

The hero then resolves his course to bend
Where ancient Danaus' fruitful fields extend,
And famed Mycenc's lofty towers ascend,
(Where late the sun did Atreus' crimes detest,
And disappear'd in horror of the feast).
And now, by chance, by fate, or furies led,
From Bacchus' consecrated caves he fled,
Where the shrill cries of frantic matrons sound,
And Pentheus' blood enrich'd the rising ground.
Then sees Citharon towering o'er the plain,
And thence declining gently to the main.
Next to the bounds of Nisus' realm repairs,
Where treacherous Scylla cut the purple hairs:
The hanging cliffs of Scyron's rock explores,
And hears the murmurs of the different shores:
Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas,
And stately Corinth's pleasing site surveys.

'Twas now the time when Phoebus yields to night,
And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light:
Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drew
Her airy chariot, hung with pearly dew;

All birds and beast lie hush'd: Sleep steals away
The wild desires of men, and toils of day,
And brings, descending through the silent air,
A sweet forgetfulness of human care.
Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay,
Promise the skies the bright return of day;
No faint reflections of the distant light

Streak with long gleams the scattering shades of night;
From the damp earth impervious vapours rise,
Increase the darkness, and involve the skies.
At once the rushing winds with roaring sound
Burst from the Eolian caves, and rend the ground,
With equal rage their airy quarrel try,
And win by turns the kingdom of the sky;
But with a thicker night black Auster shrouds
The heavens, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds,
From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours,
Which the cold North congeals to haily showers.
From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud,
And broken lightnings flash from every cloud.
Now smokes with showers the misty mountain-ground,
And floated fields lie undistinguish'd round,
The Inachian streams with headlong fury run,
And Erasinus rolls a deluge on:

The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds,
And spreads its ancient poisons o'er the grounds:
Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play,
Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams away:
Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn,
Are whirl'd in air, and on the winds are borne:
The storm the dark Lycæan groves display'd,
And first to light exposed the sacred shade.
The intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky
Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly
And views astonish'd from the hills afar,
The floods descending, and the watery war,
That, driven by storms, and pouring o'er the plain,
Bwept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main.
Through the brown horrors of the night he fled,
Nor knows, amazed, what doubtful path to tread;

His brother's image to his mind appears,

Inflames his heart with rage, and wings his feet with fears.

So fares a sailor on the stormy main, When clouds conceal Böotes' golden wain, When not a star its friendly lustre keeps,

Nor trembling Cynthia glimmers on the deeps;

He dreads the rocks, and shoals, and seas, and skies
While thunder roars, and lightning round him flies.
Thus strove the chief, on every side distress'd,
Thus still his courage with his toils increased;
With his broad shield opposed he forced his way
Through thickest woods, and roused the beasts of prey
Till he beheld, where from Larissa's height
The shelving walls reflect a glancing light:
Thither with haste the Theban hero flies;
On this side Lerna's poisonous water lies,
On that Prosymna's grove and temple rise:
He pass'd the gates, which then unguarded lay,
And to the regal palace bent his way;
On the cold marble, spent with toil, he lies,
And waits till pleasing slumbers seal his eyes.
Adrastus here his happy people sways,
Bless'd with calm peace in his declining days.
By both his parents of descent divine,

Great Jove and Phoebus graced his noble line:
Heaven had not crown'd his wishes with a son,
But two fair daughters heir'd his state and throne.
To him Apollo (wondrous to relate!

But who can pierce into the depths of Fate?)
Had sung Expect thy sons on Argos' shore
A yellow lion, and a bristly boar.'

This, long revolved in his paternal breast,
Sate heavy on his heart, and broke his rest;
This, great Amphiarus, lay hid from thee,
Though skill'd in fate, and dark futurity.
The father's care and prophet's art were vain:
For thus did the predicting god ordain.

Lo, hapless Tydeus, whose ill-fated hand
Had slain his brother, leaves his native land,
And, seized with horror, in the shades of night,
Through the thick deserts headlong urged his flight.
Now by the fury of the tempest driven,

He seeks a shelter from the inclement heaven,
Till, led by fate, the Theban's steps he treads,
And to fair Argos' open court succeeds.

When thus the chiefs from different lands resort
To Adrastus' realms, and hospitable court;
The king surveys his guests with curious eyes,
And views their arms and habit with surprise.
A lion's yellow skin the Theban wears,
Horrid his mane, and rough with curling hairs
Such once employ'd Alcides' youthful toils,
Ere yet adorn'd with Nemea's dreadful spoils.
A boar's stiff hide, of Calydonian breed,
Enides' manly shoulders overspread:
Oblique his tusks, erect his bristles stood;
Alive, the pride and terror of the wood.

Struck with the sight, and fix'd in deep amaze,
The king the accomplish'd oracle surveys,
Reveres Apollo's vocal caves, and owns
The guiding godhead, and his future sons.
O'er all his bosom secret transports reign,
And a glad horror shoots through every vein.
To heaven he lifts his hands, erect his sight,
And thus invokes the silent queen of night:

Goddess of shades, beneath whose gloomy reign. Yon spangled arch glows with the starry train; You, who the cares of heaven and earth allay, Till nature, quicken'd by the inspiring ray, Wakes to new vigour with the rising day: O thou, who freest me from my doubtful state, Long lost and wilder'd in the maze of fate! Be present still: oh goddess! in our aid Proceed, and 'firm those omens thou hast made. We to thy name our annual rites will pay, And on thy altars sacrifices lay;

The sable flock shall fall beneath the stroke,
And fill thy temples with a graceful smoke.
Hail, faithful Tripos! hail, ye dark abodes
Of awful Phoebus: I confess the gods!'

Thus, seized with sacred fear, the monarch pray'd
Then to his inner court the guests convey'd:
Where yet thin fumes from dying sparks arise,
And dust yet white upon each altar lies,
The relics of a former sacrifice.
The king once more the solemn rites requires,
And bids renew the feasts, and wake the fires.
His train obey, while all the courts around
With noisy care and various tumult sound.
Embroider'd purple clothes the golden beds:
This slave the floor, and that the table spreads;