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Deaf to his pray'r, no more stern Charon gave
To cross the Stygian lake's forbidden wave.

What should he do? where, dead to hope, reside? 565
Bereft of joy, and doubly lost his bride;

How? By what tears, what prayers, the gods allay?
Now shivering in the bark her spirit swam away.—
'For sev'n long months beneath th' aërial cave.
He mourn'd, 'tis said, by Strymon's lonely wave; 570
With melting melodies the beasts subdued,
And drew around his harp the list'ning wood.
Thus Philomel, beneath the poplar spray,
Mourns her lost brood untimely snatch'd away,

Whom some rough hind, that watch'd her fost❜ring

nest,

Tore yet unfledged from the maternal breast:

She, on the bough, all night her plaint pursues,

575

Fills the far woods with woe, and each sad note re

news.

No earthly charms had pow'r his soul to move,

No second hymeneal lured to love.

580

'Mid climes where Tanais freezes as it flows,

'Mid deserts hoary with Rhipæan snows,

Lone roam'd the bard, his ravish'd bride deplored,
And the vain gift of hell's relenting lord.

Scorn'd Thracia's dames, 'mid orgies of their god, 585
O'er their wide plains his mangled body strow'd.
Then from his marble neck, untimely torn,

While roll'd his head down whirling Hebrus borne,
His last, last voice, his tongue, now cold in death,
Still named Eurydice with parting breath;
'Ah! lost Eurydice!' his spirit sigh'd,

And all the rocks Eurydice replied.'

570 A river of Macedon.

590

581 The Tanais, or Don, flows into the lake Mæotis, and divides Europe from Asia.

Thus Proteus spoke, and with impetuous bound Plunged 'mid the waves that foam'd in eddies round. Not thus Cyrene: Son! thy cares are o'er, 595 Cease thy vain fears, and heave the sigh no more! Clear is the cause; the nymphs that loved the maid, Their sportful partner in the woodland shade, Laid waste thy hive; thou, bend with suppliant

strain,

600

Woo with rich gifts, and soothe to peace again;
Soon will th' indulgent dryads cease their rage,
And solemn rites their yielding souls assuage.
Four beauteous bulls that on Lycæus feed,
Four heifers choose that range untamed the mead;
Before the nymphs' high shrines four altars rear, 605
And slaughter there each consecrated steer;
Then leave the victims welt'ring in their blood
To waste unseen beneath th' umbrageous wood.
On the ninth dawn to Orpheus poppies strow,
And soothe with sable sheep his shade below;
A votive heifer to his bride be slain,
Then seek, with hope revived, the grove again.'-
The youth obey'd her voice; the nymphs revered,
Before their shrines th' appointed altars rear'd;
Four beauteous bulls from green Lycæus drew, 615
Four untamed heifers on the altars slew,

610

620.

With solemn offerings soothed th' Orphean shade,
And, the ninth dawn, explored th' umbrageous glade.
Oh, wondrous sight! from every bruised pore
Dissolving entrails and fermenting gore,
Buzz the wing'd bees, and trail in clouds their flight,
On topmost trees in confluent crowds unite,
And from the bending boughs on high suspend
Swarms that like clust'ring grapes to earth descend.
While thus I sing of trees, and flocks, and fields, 625
Great Cæsar, thundering, war o'er Euphrat wields,

Victor o'er willing realms his law extends,
And from the world to opening heav'n ascends.
I, VIRGIL, then, 'mid Naples' syren bow'rs,
In ease inglorious nursed my studious hours,
I, whose bold youth the pastoral strain essay'd,
And sung thee, Tityrus, in the beechen shade.

630

626 These lines prove that Virgil, as long as he lived, ceased not to polish the Georgics. In the year before Virgil's death, Augustus Cæsar compelled Phraates, on the banks of the Euphrates, to restore the eagles which the Parthians had conquered from Crassus, and received the voluntary submission of the neighboring nations.

631 According to Servius, Virgil was twenty-eight years old when he wrote his Eclogues.

THE ENEID.

TRANSLATED BY

JOHN DRYDEN, ESQ.

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