To woods and wilds the pleasing burden bears,
And trusts her infant to a shepherd's cares.
"How mean a fate, unhappy child! is thine!
Ah, how unworthy those of race divine!
On flow'ry herbs in some green covert laid,
His bed the ground, his canopy the shade,
He mixes with the bleating lambs his cries,
While the rude swain his rural music tries
To call soft slumbers on his infant eyes.
Yet ev'n in those obscure abodes to live,
Was more, alas! than cruel fate would give,
For on the grassy verdure as he lay
And breathed the freshness of the early day,
Devouring dogs the helpless infant tore,
Fed on his trembling limbs, and lapped the gore
Th' astonished mother, when the rumour came,
Forgets her father, and neglects her fame,
With loud complaints she fills the yielding air,
And beats her breast, and rends her flowing hair;
Then wild with anguish to her sire she flies:
Demands the sentence, and contented dies.
"But touched with sorrow, for the dead too late,
The raging God prepares t' avenge her fate.
He sends a monster, horrible and fell,
Begot by furies in the depths of hell,
The pest a virgin's face and bosom bears;
High on a crown a rising snake appears,
Guards her black front, and hisses in her hairs: About the realm she walks her dreadful round, When night with sable wings o'erspreads the ground Devours young babes before their parents' eyes, And feeds and thrives on public miseries.
"But generous rage the bold Chorobus warms, Chorobus, famed for virtue, as for arms; Some few like him, inspired with martial flame, Thought a short life well lost for endless fame. These, where two ways in equal parts divide, The direful monster from afar descried; Two bleeding babes depending at her side, Whose panting vitals, warm with life, she draws, And in their hearts embrues her cruel claws. The youths surround her with extended spears; But brave Chorobus in the front appears,
Deep in her breast he plunged his shining sword,
And hell's dire monster back to hell restored.
Th' Inachians view the slain with vast surprise,
Her twisting volumes and her rolling eyes,
Her spotted breast, and gaping womb embrued
With livid poison, and our children's blood.
The crowd in stupid wonder fixed appear,
Pale even in joy, nor yet forget to fear.
Some with vast beams the squalid corpse engage,
And weary all the wild efforts of rage.
The birds obscene, that nightly flocked to taste,
With hollow screeches fled the dire repast;
And rav'nous dogs, allured by scented blood,
And starving wolves, ran howling to the wood.
"But fired with rage, from cleft Parnassus' brow
Avenging Phoebus bent his deadly bow,
And hissing flew the feathered fates below:
A night of sultry clouds involved around
The tow'rs, the fields, and the devoted ground:
And now a thousand lives together fled,
Death with his scythe cut off the fatal thread,
And a whole province in his triumph led.
"But Phoebus, asked why noxious fires appear, And raging Sirius blasts the sickly year; Demands their lives by whom his monster fell And dooms a dreadful sacrifice to hell.
'Blessed be thy dust, and let eternal fame
Attend thy Manes, and preserve thy name;
Undaunted hero! who divinely brave,
In such a cause disdained thy life to save;
But viewed the shrine with a superior look,
And its upbraided Godhead thus bespoke:
"With piety, the soul's securest guard,
And conscious virtue, still its own reward,
Willing I come, unknowing how to fear;
Nor shalt thou, Phoebus, find a suppliant here.
Thy monster's death to me was owed alone,
And 'tis a deed too glorious to disown.
Behold him here, for whom, so many days,
Impervious clouds concealed thy sullen rays;
For whom, as man no longer claimed thy care,
Such numbers fell by pestilential air!
But if th' abandoned race of human kind
From gods above no more compassion find;
If such inclemency in heaven can dwell,
Yet why must unoffending Argos feel
The vengeance due to this unlucky steel?
On me, on me, let all thy fury fall,
Nor err from me, since I deserve it all:
Unless our desert cities please thy sight,
Or funeral flames reflect a grateful light.
Discharge thy shafts, this ready bosom rend,
And to the shades a ghost triumphant send;
But for my country let my fate atone,
Be mine the vengeance, as the crime my own.'
"Merit distressed, impartial heav'n relieves:
Unwelcome life relenting Phoebus gives;
For not the vengeful pow'r, that glowed with rage
With such amazing virtue durst engage.
The clouds dispersed, Apollo's wrath expired,
And from the wondering god th' unwilling youth
Thence we these altars in his temple raise, [retired
And offer annual honours, feasts, and praise;
These solemn feasts propitious Phoebus please:
These honors, still renewed, his ancient wrath
appease.
"But say, illustrious guest" (adjoined the king)
"What name you bear, from what high race you
spring?
The noble Tydeus stands confessed, and known
Our neighbour prince, and heir of Calydon.
Relate your fortunes, while the friendly night
And silent hours to various talk invite."
The Theban bends on earth his gloomy eyes, Confused, and sadly thus at length replies: "Before these altars how shall I proclaim (Oh, generous prince) my nation or my name, Or through what veins our ancient blood has rolled? Let the sad tale for ever rest untold!
Yet if propitious to a wretch unknown,
You seek to share in sorrows not your own;
Know then from Cadmus I derive my race,
Jocasta's son, and Thebes my native place.'
To whom the king (who felt his gen'rous breast
Touched with concern for his unhappy guest)
Replies "Ah, why forbears the son to name
His wretched father known too well by fame?
Fame, that delights around the world to stray,
Scorns not to take our Argos in her way.
E'en those who dwell where suns at distance roll,
In northern wilds, and freeze beneath the pole;
And those who tread the burning Libyan lands,
The faithless Syrtes' and the moving sands;
Who view the western sea's extremest bounds,
Or drink of Ganges in their eastern grounds;
All these the woes of Edipus have known,
Your fates, your furies, and your haunted town.
If on the sons the parents' crimes descend,
What prince from those his lineage can defend?
Be this thy comfort, that 'tis thine t'efface
With virtuous acts thy ancestor's disgrace,
And be thyself the honour of thy race.
But see! the stars begin to steal away,
And shine more faintly at approaching day;
Now pour the wine; and in your tuneful lays
Once more resound the great Apollo's praise."
"Oh, father Phoebus! whether Lycia's coast
And snowy mountains thy bright presence boast;
Whether to sweet Castalia thou repair,
And bathe in silver dews thy yellow hair;
Or pleased to find fair Delos float no more,
Delight in Cynthus, and the shady shore;
Or choose thy seat in Ilion's proud abodes,
The shining structures raised by lab'ring gods,
By thee the bow and mortal shafts are borne;
Eternal charms thy blooming youth adorn:
Skilled in the laws of secret fate above,
And the dark counsels of almighty Jove,
"Tis thine the seeds of future war to know,
The change of sceptres, and impending woe;
When direful meteors spread through glowing air
Long trails of light, and shake their blazing hair.3
Thy rage the Phrygian felt, who durst aspire
To excel the music of thy heavenly lyre;
Thy shafts avenged lewd Tityus' guilty flame,
The immortal victim of thy mother's fame;
1 Two large sandbanks in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Africa: one near Leptis, the other near Carthage. As they constantly varied in position, their names became proverbial for dangerous navigation.
2 Delos was a floating island till fixed by Apollo. He was born on Mount Cynthus.
3 Alluding to the superstition of comets foretelling war and woe. 4 Marsyas.
5 A giant who assaulted Latona, the mother of Apollo, and was slain by her son and daughter.
Thy hand slew Python, and the dame1 who lost
Her numerous offspring for a fatal boast.
In Phlegyas' doom thy just revenge appears,
Condemned to furies and eternal fears;
He views his food, but dreads. with lifted eye,
The mouldering rock that trembles from on high.
"Propitious hear our prayer,
O power divine!
And on thy hospitable Argos shine.
Whether the style of Titan please thee more,
Whose purple rays th' Achæmenes adore;
Or great Osiris, who first taught the swain
In Pharian fields to sow the golden grain;
Or Mitra, to whose beams the Persian bows,
And pays, in hollow rocks, his awful vows;
Mitra, whose head the blaze of light adorns,
Who grasps the struggling heifer's lunar horns."
1 Niobe, who boasted that her children excelled those of Latona. Her fourteen children were slain by Phoebus, and she, from grief, was turned into stone.
2 King of the Lapithæ in Thessaly. To revenge an affront to his daughter he marched to Delphi and reduced the temple of Apollo to ashes. The god killed Phlegyas and placed him in hell, where a huge stone suspended over his head, and threatening momentarily to fall, kept him in constant dread.
Osiris, Egyptian sun-god.
4 Persian god of the sun.
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