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Whence Tiber fills his urn, whence Anio glides,
Whence rocky Hypanis' resounding tides,
Caïcus swift, and, awful to behold,

Grim-visaged like a bull, with horns of gold,
Eridanus, that feeds the richest plain,

And swells with fiercest flood th' empurpled main.
Now when Cyrene heard his fruitless woe,
Where fretted pumice arch'd the cave below,
The sister nymphs the smooth shorn napkins bring,
And cleansing water from their native spring;
These pile the banquet, crown the cups with wine,
And with Panchean flames illume the shrine.

My son, these bowls, Mæonian vintage, take,

To Ocean first the due libation make;

Hail, sire, primeval; hail, ye sister train!
Who o'er a thousand woods and rivers reign!'

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The hearth thrice flow'd with wine, the roof thrice

blazed:

Cheer'd at the sign, her voice Cyrene raised.

'Son, in Carpathia's gulf a seer resides, Proteus, who cleaves with finny steeds the tides;

435

431 Strabo mentions a country called Catacecaumene, which is otherwise called Mysia and Mæonia, and was remarkable for affording no other tree than that sort of vine from which the celebrated Catacecaumenian wine is obtained. -Martyn.

437 Carpathia, now called Scarpanto, is an island of the Mediterranean, over against Egypt, from which the neighboring sea was called Carpathian.-Martyn.

Ancient history is doubtful on the subject of Proteus. Homer makes him an Egyptian; Herodotus, a king of that country. Sir Isaac Newton, finding him a contemporary with Amenophis or Memnon, supposes him to have governed some part of Lower Egypt in the absence of the sovereign. The poets have made him a sea-god, and servant to Neptune. This whole fable of Proteus is an imitation of the fourth

He now revisiting Æmathia's port,
Pallene seeks, his native loved resort:

440

445

We and hoar Nereus' self, his prescience own,
By him all past, all present, future, known;
So Neptune wills: whose herd, a monstrous train,
Safe in his guidance feeds beneath the main.
Bind him in chains, then bid the god disclose
Whence first began, and what shall soothe thy woes.
Presents nor prayers can move his stubborn soul,
Constraint must tame and violence control;
Alone he yields beneath the galling chain,
And, captive, tries each varied art in vain.

450

I, I myself, when noontide burns the blade,

And cattle pant beneath th' o'erhanging shade,

Will guide thy step, where wearied from the wave,
The prophet slumbers in his inmost cave;

There safely seize, there closely chain'd pursue

455

Shape after shape that changeful mocks thy view.
Now bristles like a boar his horrent crest,
Now a fierce tiger springs upon thy breast,
Or wreathes in dragon folds his scaly train,
Or like a lion shakes his brindled mane:
The crackling fire shall now thy grasp betray,
Or a wave glide in liquid lapse away.

460

The more each monstrous form the seer belies,
More closely fetter in each new disguise,

Till the tired god, through every change pursued, 465 Resume the shape he wore when first by sleep subdued.'

She spoke, and all the air with odor fill'd,

And o'er her son ambrosial dew distill'd;

book of the Odyssey, where Homer represents Menelaus consulting this deity, by the advice and with the assistance of his own daughter Eidothea.-Martyn.

440 Pallene, a peninsula of Macedon.

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Wide from his wavy tresses fragrance flow'd,
And in each limb diffusive vigor glow'd.
Deep in the mountain spreads a spacious cave
By driving tempests worn with frequent wave,
Where oft embosom'd in the winding bay,

470

Safe from the storm the shelter'd vessel lay:
There, where a rock's vast bulk the godhead hides, 475
The nymph her son in ambush'd darkness guides,
Herself in clouds far off: 'twas now the time

When Sirius burnt swart India's thirsty clime;

'Twas when the blade was parch'd, and noon of day Drain'd the slow streams, that work'd through ooze

their way:

When Proteus, sea-worn, sought his wonted cave,
And round him roll'd the monsters of the wave,
In awkward gambols dash'd the briny spray,
Then stretch'd along the strand in slumber lay.
He, as a mountain swain, when Hesper leads
His flock returning from the twilight meads,
And the rous'd wolf the distant bleat pursues,
Sits on the cliff, and all his charge reviews.
The time invites: while Proteus bends to rest,
The youth impatient springs upon his breast,
Binds with loud clamor, as he writhes in vain,
And closely fetters with triumphant chain.
Yet, not forgetful of his art, the sire,
In wondrous change of monster, flood, and fire,
Strove to elude th' indissoluble yoke,
Then rose in human form, and sternly spoke :
'Rash youth! what frenzy urged thy impious feet
To rush unbidden on my lone retreat?'

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485

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'Proteus, full well thou know'st,' the youth replies, Vain were the hope to blind thy searching eyes: 500 As vain thy strife; by Heaven's directing will,

I claim relief from thy prophetic skill.'

505

510

He said, and, fill'd with fate, the struggling sire
Roll'd his blue eyes that flash'd indignant fire;
From his pale lip reluctant accents broke,
Loud gnash'd his teeth, and thus the prophet spoke :
'Great is thy guilt; on thy devoted head
Indignant gods no common vengeance shed;
Thee, hapless Orpheus, if no fate oppose,
Dooms, for his ravish'd bride to unjust woes.
When urg'd by thee the nymph in wild affright,
By the deep river sped her headlong flight;
She saw not, doom'd to die, where, cross her way,
Couch'd in the grass, th' enormous hydra lay.
But they, the dryad choirs, their sister dead,
O'er Rhodope's high mounts their clamor spread,
Pangæa, Getæ, Orithyia wept,

And woe down Thrace and plaintive Hebrus swept.
He, lonely, on his harp, 'mid wilds unknown,

515

Sooth'd his sad love with music's melting tone: 520 Thee sung, sweet bride! with unreposing lay,

Thee first at dawn deplored, thee last at close of day. For thee he pass'd the lofty gates of hell,

Trod in dark groves, where gloomiest horrors dwell, Sought death's dread king, and shades that sweep

below,

And hearts insensible to human woe.

Drawn by his song from Erebus profound,

525

Pale spectres and dark phantoms flock around,
Countless as birds that fill the leafy bow'r
Beneath late eve, or winter's driving show'r.

530

509 The son of ŒŒagrus, a king, or, according to Servius, a river of Thrace.

517 Rhodope and Pangæus, mountains of Thrace. Getæ, inhabitants of the banks of the Danube. Hebrus, a river of Thrace. Orithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, was carried away by Boreas.

Matrons and sires, and unaffianced maids,
Forms of bold warriors and heroic shades,
Youths and pale infants laid upon the pyre,
While their fond parents saw th' ascending fire:
All whom the squalid reeds and sable mud
Of slow Cocytus' unrejoicing flood,

All whom the Stygian lake's dark confine bounds,
And with nine circles maze in maze surrounds.
On him, astonish'd Death and Tartarus gazed,
Their viper hair the wond'ring Furies raised:
Grim Cerberus stood, his triple jaws half closed,
And fix'd in air Ixion's wheel reposed.

And now his foot had ev'ry peril fled,

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540

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550

And now his bride, recover'd from the dead,
Had pass'd to upper air, his path behind,
Such the fix'd law by Proserpine enjoin'd,
When, seized with frenzy-such might love atone,
And hell had pardon'd, had hell pardon known,
He stopp'd, and, ah! forgetful, weak of mind,
Cast, as she reach'd the light, one look behind.
Hell's ruthless league is broke, all hope is o'er,
Thrice groans of horror shook th' Avernian shore.
"Alas! what fates our hapless love divide !
What frenzy, Orpheus, tears thee from thy bride!
Again I sink; a voice resistless calls,
Lo! on my swimming eye cold slumber falls.
Now, now farewell! deep darkness clouds me o'er,
Now while I stretch towards thee arms, ah! thine no

more.'

She spoke, and from his gaze for ever fled,

555

Swift as dissolving smoke through ether spread, 560
Nor more beheld him, while he fondly strove
To catch her shade, and breathe repeated love.

542 Ixion, for attempting to violate Juno, was condemned to perpetual rotation on a wheel in hell.

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