BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE.

The sire superior leans, and points to show
What wonderous combats mortals wage below:
How strong, how large, the numerous heroes stride;
What length of lance they shake with warlike pride;
What eager fire their rapid march reveals!
So the fierce Centaurs ravaged o'er the dales;
And so confirm'd the daring Titans rose,
Heap'd hills on hills, and bade the gods be foes.
This seen, the power his sacred visage rears,
He casts a pitying smile on worldly cares,
And asks what heavenly guardians take the list,
Or who the mice, or who the frogs assist?
Then thus to Pallas: If my daughter's mind
Have join'd the mice, why stays she still behind?
Drawn forth by savoury steams, they wind their way,
And sure attendance round thine altar pay,
Where while the victims gratify their taste,
They sport to please the goddess of the feast.

Thus spake the ruler of the spacious skies;
When thus, resolved, the blue-eyed maid replies:
In vain, my father! all their dangers plead;
To such, thy Pallas never grants her aid.
My flowery wreaths they petulantly spoil,
And rob my crystal lamps of feeding oil:
(Ills following ills) but what afflicts me more,
My veil that idle race profanely tore.
The web was curious, wrought with art divine;
Relentless wretches! als the work was mine:
Along the loom the purple warp I spread,
Cast the light shoot, and crost the silver thread.
In this their teeth a thousand breaches tear;
The thousand breaches skilful hands repair;
For which, vile earthly duns thy daughter grieve:
But gods, that use no coin, have none to give;
And learning's goddess never less can owe;
Neglected learning gets no wealth below.
Nor let the frogs to gain my succour sue,
Those clamorous fools have lost my favour too.
For late, when all the conflict ceased at night,
When my stretch'd sinews ach'd with eager fight;
When spent with glorious toil I left the field,
And sunk for slumber on my swelling shield;
Lo from the deep, repelling sweet repose,
With noisy croakings half the nation rose:
Devoid of rest, with aching brows I lay,
Till cocks proclaim'd the crimson dawn of day.
Let all, like me, from either host forbear,
Nor tempt the flying furies of the spear.
Let heavenly blood (or what for blood may flow)
Adorn the conquest of a nobler foe,

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The strong Lymnocharis, who view'd with ire
A victor triumph, and a friend expire;
With heaving arms a rocky fragment caught,
And fiercely dung where Troglodytes fought,
A warrior versed in arts of sure retreat,
Yet arts in vain elude impending fate;
Full on his sinewy neck the fragment fell,
And o'er his eye-lids clouds eternal dwell.
Lychenor (second of the glorious name)
Striding advanced, and took no wandering aim;
95 Through all the frog the shining javelin flies,
And near the vanquish'd mouse the victor dies.
The dreadful stroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, less inured to fights;
Heedless he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly floundering, flashes up the deep:
Lychenor, following, with a downward blow
Reach'd, in the lake, his unrecover'd foe;
Gasping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Distains the surface of the silver flood;

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105 Through the wide wound the rushing entrails throng, And slow the breathless carcass floats along.

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110 He came to perish on the bank of fate.

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The dread Pternoglyphus demands the fight,
Which tender Calaminthius shuns by flight,
Drops the green target, springing quits the foe,
Glides through the lake, and safely dives below.

115 The dire Pternophagus divides his way
Through breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day; 60
No nibbling prince excell'd in fierceness more;
His parents fed him on the savage boar:
But where his lance the field with blood imbrued,
120 Swift as he moved Hydrocharis pursued,

"Till fallen in death he lies; a shattering stone
Sounds on the neck, and crushes all the bone;
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his nostrils bursts the gushing brain.
125 Lychopinax with Borbocætes fights,

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Who, wildly rushing, meet the wondrous odds,
Though gods oppose, and brave the wounded gods.
O'er gilded clouds reclined, the danger view,
And be the wars of mortals scenes for you.

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A blameless frog, whom humbler life delights;
The fatal javelin unrelenting flies,
And darkness seals the gentle croaker's eyes.
Incensed Prassophagus, with sprightly bound,
Bears Cnissodioctes off the rising ground;
Then drags him o'er the lake, deprived of breath:
And downward plunging, sinks his soul to death.
But now the great Psycarpax shines afar
(Scarce he so great whose loss provoked the war),
Swift to revenge his fatal javelin fled.

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So moved the blue-eyed queen, her words pursuade;
Great Jove assented, and the rest obey'd.

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BOOK III.

Now front to front the marching armies shine,
Halt ere they meet, and form the lengthening line;
The chiefs conspicuous seen, and heard afar,
Give the loud sign to loose the rushing war;
Their dreadful trumpets deep-mouth'd hornets sound,
The sounded charge remurmurs o'er the ground;
Even Jove proclaims a field of horror nigh,
And rolls low thunder through the troubled sky.
First to the fight the large Hypsiboas flew,
And brave Lychenor with a javelin slew;
The luckless warrior fill'd with generous flame,
Stood foremost glittering in the post of fame,
When in his liver struck, the javelin hung;
The mouse fell thundering and the target rung:
Prone to the ground he sinks his closing eye,
And soil'd in dust, his lovely tresses lie.
A spear at Pelion, Troglodytes cast;
The missive spear within the bosom past;
Death's sable shades the fainting frog surround,
And life's red tide runs ebbing from the wound.
Embasichytros felt Sentlæus dart

Transfix and quiver in his panting heart!
But great Artophagus avenged the slain,
And big Seutlæus tumbling loads the plain.
And Polyphonus dies, a frog renown'd
For boastful speech, and turbulence of sound;
Deep through the belly pierced, supine he lay,
And breath'd his soul against the face of day.

And through the liver struck Pelusius dead;
His freckled corse before the victor fell,
His soul indignant sought the shades of hell.
This saw Pelobates, and from the flood
Lifts with both hands a monstrous mass of mud;
The cloud obscene o'er all the warrior flies,
Dishonours his brown face, and blots his eyes.
Enraged, and wildly sputtering from the shore,
A stone immense of size the warrior bore;
A load for labouring earth, whose bulk to raise,
Ask ten degenerate mice of modern days:
Full to the leg arrives the crushing wound;
The frog supportless writhes upon the ground.
Thus flush'd the victor wars with matchless force,
"Till loud Craugasides arrests his course:
Hoarse croaking threats precede; with fatal speed
Deep through the belly runs the pointed reed,
5 Then, strongly tugg'd, return'd imbrued with gore,
And on the pile his reeking entrails bore.
The lame Sitophagus, oppress'd with pain,
Creeps from the desperate dangers of the plain:
And where the ditches rising weeds supply,
10 To spread the lowly shades beneath the sky;
There lurks the silent mouse relieved of heat,
And, safe imbower'd, avoids the chance of fate.
But here Troxartes, Physignathus there,
Whirl the dire furies of the pointed spear:
15 Then where the foot around its ankle plies,
Troxartes wounds, and Physignathus flies,
Halts to the pool, a safe retreat to find.
And trails a dangling length of leg behind.
The mouse still urges, still the frog retires,
And halfin anguish of the flight expires:
Then pious ardour young Prasseus brings,
Betwixt the fortunes of contending kings:
Lank, harmless frog! with forces hardly grown,
He darts the reed in combats not his own,
25 Which faintly tinkling on Troxartes' shield,
Hangs at the point, and drops upon the field.
Now nobly towering o'er the rest appears
A gallant prince that far transcends his years,