Fraternal rage, the guilty Thebes' alarms,Th' alternate reign destroyed by impious arms,Demand our song; a sacred fury firesMy ravished breast, and all the muse inspires.O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes5From the dire[1]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 reaped an iron harvest of his toil?[2]10Or how from joining stones the city sprung,While to his harp divine Amphion sung?[3]Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound,Whose fatal rage th' unhappy monarch found?[4]The sire against the son his arrows drew,15O'er the wide fields the furious mother flew,And while her arms a second hope contain,Sprung from the rocks and plunged into the main.But waive whate'er to Cadmus may belong,And fix, O muse! the barrier of thy song20At Œdipus: from his disasters traceThe long confusions of his guilty race:Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing,And mighty Cæsar's[5]conqu'ring eagles sing;How twice he tamed proud Ister's rapid flood,25While Dacian mountains streamed with barb'rous blood;Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,And stretched his empire to the frozen pole;Or long before, with early valour, strove,In youthful arms, t' assert the cause of Jove.[6]30And thou, great heir of all thy father's fame,Increase of glory to the Latian name,Oh! bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain.What though the stars contract their heav'nly space,35And 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 Phœbus longs to mix his rays with thine,And in thy glories more serenely shine;40Though Jove himself no less content would beTo part his throne and share his heaven with thee;Yet stay, great Cæsar! and vouchsafe to reignO'er the wide earth, and o'er the wat'ry main;Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,45And people heav'n with Roman deities.[7]The time will come, when a diviner flame[8]Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar's fame:Meanwhile permit, that my preluding museIn Theban wars an humbler theme may chuse:50Of furious hate surviving death, she sings,A fatal throne to two contending kings,And fun'ral flames that, parting wide in air,Express the discord of the souls they bear:[9]Of towns dispeopled, and the wand'ring ghosts55Of kings unburied in the wasted coasts;When Dirce's fountain blushed with Grecian blood,[10]And Thetis, near Ismenos'[11]swelling flood,With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep,In heaps, his slaughtered sons into the deep.[12]60What hero, Clio! wilt thou first relate?[13]The rage of Tydeus,[14]or the prophet's fate?[15]Or how, with hills of slain on ev'ry side,Hippomedon repelled the hostile tide?[16]Or how the youth[17]with ev'ry grace adorned65Untimely fell, to be for ever mourned?Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend,And sing with horror his prodigious end.[18]Now wretched Œdipus, deprived of sight,Led a long death in everlasting night;70But while he dwells where not a cheerful rayCan pierce the darkness, and abhors the day,The clear reflecting mind presents his sinIn frightful views, and makes it day within;Returning thoughts in endless circles roll,75And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul:The wretch then lifted to th' unpitying skiesThose empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes,Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook,[19]While from his breast these dreadful accents broke.80"Ye gods! that o'er the gloomy regions reign,Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain;Thou, sable Styx! whose livid streams are rolledThrough dreary coasts, which I though blind behold:Tisiphone,[20]that oft hast heard my pray'r,85Assist, if Œdipus deserve thy care!If you received me from Jocasta's womb,[21]And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come:If leaving Polybus, I took my way,[22]To Cirrha's temple[23]on that fatal day,90When 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:[24]If wretched I, by baleful furies led,95With monstrous mixture stained my mother's bed,For hell and thee begot an impious brood,And with full lust those horrid joys renewed;Then self-condemned to shades of endless night,Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight:100Oh hear! and aid the vengeance I require,If worthy thee, and what thou mightst inspire.My sons their old, unhappy sire despise,Spoiled of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes;Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn,105Whilst these exalt their sceptres o'er my urn;These sons, ye gods! who with flagitious prideInsult my darkness, and my groans deride.Art thou a father, unregarding Jove![25]And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above?110Thou fury, then some lasting curse entail,Which o'er their children's children shall prevail:[26]Place on their heads that crown distained with gore,Which these dire hands from my slain father tore;[27]Go! and a parent's heavy curses bear;}115Break all the bonds of nature, and prepare[28]}Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war.}Give them to dare, what I might wish to seeBlind as I am, some glorious villainy!Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands,120Their ready guilt preventing[29]thy commands:Couldst thou some great, proportioned mischief frame,They'd prove the father from whose loins they came."The fury heard, while on Cocytus'[30]brinkHer snakes untied, sulphureous waters drink;125But at the summons rolled her eyes around,And snatched the starting serpents from the ground.Not half so swiftly shoots along in airThe gliding lightning, or descending star.Through crowds of airy shades she winged her flight,130And dark dominions of the silent night;Swift as she passed the flitting ghosts withdrew,[31]And the pale spectres trembled at her view:To th' iron gates of Tænarus[32]she flies,There spreads her dusky pinions to the skies.135The day beheld, and sick'ning at the sight,Veiled her fair glories in the shades of night.Affrighted Atlas, on the distant shore,Trembled, and shook the heav'ns and gods he bore.[33]Now from beneath Malea's[34]airy height140Aloft she sprung, and steered to Thebes her flight;With eager speed the well-known journey[35]took,Nor here regrets the hell she late forsook.A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade,A hundred serpents guard her horrid head,145In her sunk eye-balls dreadful meteors glow:[36]Such rays from Phœbe's bloody circle flow,When lab'ring with strong charms, she shoots from highA fiery gleam, and reddens all the sky.Blood stained her cheeks, and from her mouth there came150Blue steaming poisons, and a length of flame:From ev'ry blast of her contagious breathFamine and drought proceed, and plagues, and death.A robe obscene was o'er her shoulders thrown,A dress by fates and furies worn alone.155She tossed her meagre arms; her better hand[37]In waving circles whirled a fun'ral brand:A serpent from her left was seen to rearHis flaming crest, and lash the yielding air.[38]But when the fury took her stand on high,160Where vast Cithæron's top salutes the sky,A hiss from all the snaky tire went round:}The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound,}And through th' Achaian cities send the sound.}Œte, with high Parnassus, heard the voice;165Eurotas' banks remurmured to the noise;Again Leucothea shook at these alarms,And pressed Palæmon closer in her arms.[39]Headlong from thence the glowing fury springs,And o'er the Theban palace spreads her wings,[40]170Once more invades the guilty dome, and shroudsIts bright pavilions in a veil of clouds.Straight with the rage of all their race possessed,}Stung to the soul, the brothers start from rest,}And all their furies wake within their breast.}175Their tortured minds repining envy tears,And hate, engendered by suspicious fears;And sacred thirst of sway; and all the tiesOf nature broke;[41]and royal perjuries;And impotent desire to reign alone,180That scorns the dull reversion of a throne;[42]Each would the sweets of sov'reign rule devour,While discord waits upon divided power.As stubborn steers by brawny plowmen broke,And joined reluctant to the galling yoke,185Alike disdain with servile necks to bearTh' unwonted weight, or drag the crooked share,But rend the reins, and bound[43]a diff'rent way,And all the furrows in confusion lay:Such was the discord of the royal pair,190Whom 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,195And the short monarch of a hasty yearForesees 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,200No fretted roofs with polished metals blazed;No laboured columns in long order placed,No Grecian stone the pompous arches graced;No nightly bands in glitt'ring armour wait[44]Before the sleepless tyrant's guarded gate;205No chargers[45]then were wrought in burnished gold,Nor silver vases took the forming mold;Nor gems on bowls embossed were seen to shine,Blaze on the brims, and sparkle in the wine.[46]Say, wretched rivals! what provokes your rage?210Say, to what end your impious arms engage?Not all bright Phœbus views in early morn,Or when his ev'ning beams the west adorn,When the south glows with his meridian ray,And the cold north receives a fainter day;215For crimes like these, not all those realms suffice,[47]Were all those realms the guilty victor's prize!But fortune now (the lots of empire thrown)Decrees to proud Eteocles the crown:What joys, oh tyrant! swelled thy soul that day,220When all were slaves thou couldst around survey,[48]Pleased to behold unbounded power thy own,And singly fill a feared and envied throne!But the vile vulgar, ever discontent,[49]Their growing fears in secret murmurs vent;225Still prone to change, though still the slaves of state,And sure the monarch whom they have, to hate;New lords they madly make, then tamely bear,And softly curse the tyrants whom they fear.[50]And one of those who groan beneath the sway230Of kings imposed, and grudgingly obey,(Whom envy to the great, and vulgar spiteWith scandal armed, th' ignoble mind's delight,)Exclaimed—"O Thebes! for thee what fates remain,What woes attend this inauspicious reign?235Must we, alas! our doubtful necks prepare,}Each haughty master's yoke by turns to bear,}And still to change whom changed we still must fear?}These now control a wretched people's fate,These can divide, and these reverse the state:240Ev'n fortune rules no more!—O servile land,Where exiled[51]tyrants still by turns command.Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove!Is this th' eternal doom decreed above?On thy own offspring hast thou fixed this fate,245From the first birth of our unhappy state;When banished Cadmus, wand'ring o'er the main,For lost Europa searched the world in vain,And fated in Bœotian fields to foundA rising empire on a foreign ground,250First raised our walls on that ill-omened plain,Where earth-born brothers were by brothers slain?[52]What lofty looks th' unrivalled[53]monarch bears!How all the tyrant in his face appears!What sullen fury clouds his scornful brow!255Gods! how his eyes with threat'ning ardour glow!Can this imperious lord forget to reign,Quit all his state, descend, and serve again?Yet, who, before, more popularly bowed?Who more propitious to the suppliant crowd?260Patient 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 ev'ry reign!As when two winds with rival force contend,265This way and that, the wav'ring sails they bend,While freezing Boreas, and black Euros blow,Now here, now there, the reeling vessel throw:Thus on each side, alas! our tott'ring stateFeels all the fury of resistless fate,270And doubtful still, and still distracted stands,While that prince threatens, and while this commands."And now th' almighty father of the godsConvenes a council in the blest abodes:Far in the bright recesses of the skies,275High o'er the rolling heav'ns, a mansion lies,Whence, far below, the gods at once survey}The realms of rising and declining day,}And all th' extended space of earth, and air, and sea.}Full in the midst, and on a starry throne,280The majesty of heav'n superior shone;Serene he looked, and gave an awful nod,[54]And all the trembling spheres confessed the god.At Jove's assent the deities aroundIn solemn state the consistory crowned.[55]285Next a long order of inferior pow'rsAscend from hills, and plains, and shady bow'rs;Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow;And those that give the wand'ring winds to blow:Here all their rage, and ev'n their murmurs cease,[56]290And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace.A shining synod of majestic godsGilds with new lustre the divine abodes;Heav'n seems improved with a superior ray,And the bright arch reflects a double day.295The monarch then his solemn silence broke,The still creation listened while he spoke,Each sacred accent bears eternal weight,And each irrevocable word is fate."How long shall man the wrath of heav'n defy,300And force unwilling vengeance from the sky!Oh race confed'rate into crimes, that proveTriumphant o'er th' eluded rage of Jove![57]This wearied arm can scarce the bolt sustain,And unregarded thunder rolls in vain:305Th' o'erlaboured Cyclops from his task retires,Th' Æolian forge exhausted of its fires.[58]For this, I suffered Phœbus' steeds to stray,And the mad ruler to misguide the day;When the wide earth to heaps of ashes turned,310And heaven itself the wand'ring chariot burned.For this, my brother of the wat'ry reign}Released th' impetuous sluices of the main:}But flames consumed, and billows raged in vain.}Two races now, allied to Jove, offend;315To 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?320How oft the furies, from the deeps of night,Arose, and mixed with men in mortal fight:Th' exulting mother, stained with filial blood;[59]The savage hunter and the haunted wood;The direful banquet why should I proclaim,[60]325And 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 Laius shed)330The murd'ring 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.335His sons with scorn their eyeless father view,Insult his wounds, and make them bleed anew.Thy curse, oh Œdipus, just heav'n alarms,And sets th' avenging thunderer in arms.I from the root thy guilty race will tear,340And give the nations to the waste of war.Adrastus[61]soon, with gods averse, shall joinIn dire alliance with the Theban line;Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed;The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed;345Fixed is their doom; this all-rememb'ring breastYet harbours vengeance for the tyrant's feast."[62]He said; and thus the queen of heav'n returned;(With sudden grief her lab'ring bosom burned)"Must I, whose cares Phoroneus'[63]tow'rs defend,350Must 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;[64]355Though there the brazen tower was stormed of old,[65]When Jove[66]descended in almighty gold:Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes,Those bashful crimes disguised in borrowed shapes;But Thebes, where shining in celestial charms360Thou cam'st triumphant to a mortal's arms,When all my glories o'er her limbs were spread,And blazing light'nings danced around her bed;[67]Cursed Thebes the vengeance it deserves, may prove:Ah why should Argos feel the rage of Jove?365Yet 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;[68]No more let mortals Juno's pow'r invoke,}370Her fanes no more with eastern incense smoke,}Nor victims sink beneath the sacred stroke;}But to your Isis all my rites transfer,Let altars blaze and temples smoke for her;For her, through Egypt's fruitful clime renowned375Let 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 ageDerive incitements to renew thy rage;380Say, from what period then has Jove designedTo date his vengeance; to what bounds confined?Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides}His wand'ring stream, and through the briny tides}Unmixed to his Sicilian river glides.[69]}385Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;[70]Who raise thy temples where the chariot stoodOf fierce Œnomaus, defiled with blood:[71]Where once his steeds their savage banquet found,390And human bones yet whiten all the ground.Say, can those honours please; and canst thou lovePresumptuous Crete that boasts the tomb of Jove?[72]And shall not Tantalus's kingdoms shareThy wife and sister's tutelary care?395Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,Nor doom to war a race derived from, thee;[73]On impious realms and barb'rous kings imposeThy plagues, and curse 'em with such sons[74]as those."Thus, in reproach and pray'r, the queen expressed400The rage and grief contending in her breast;Unmoved remained the ruler of the sky,And from his throne returned this stern reply:"'Twas thus I deemed thy haughty soul would bear}The dire, though just, revenge which I prepare}405Against 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 fulfilTheir work, and rev'rence our superior will.410For by the black infernal Styx I swear,(That dreadful oath which binds the thunderer)'Tis fixed; th' irrevocable doom of Jove;No force can bend me, no persuasion move.Haste then, Cyllenius,[75]through the liquid air;415Go, 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 shiv'ring on Cocytus' sand,Expects its passage to the further strand:420Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bearThese pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear;[76]That from his exiled brother, swelled with prideOf foreign forces, and his Argive bride,Almighty Jove commands him to detain425The 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 appliesThose golden wings that cut the yielding skies.430His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread,And veiled 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 Tartarean coasts,435Or back to life compels the wand'ring ghosts.Thus, through the parting clouds, the son of MayWings on the whistling winds his rapid way;Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight,Now springs aloft, and tow'rs th' ethereal height;440Then wheeling down the steep of heav'n he flies,And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.Meantime the banished Polynices roves(His Thebes abandoned) through th' Aonian groves,While future realms his wand'ring thoughts delight,445His 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.450Fain would he cast a tedious age away,And live out all in one triumphant day.[77]He chides the lazy progress of the sun,And bids the year with swifter motion run.With anxious hopes his craving mind is tost,455And all his joys in length of wishes lost.The hero then resolves his course to bend}Where ancient Danaus' fruitful fields extend,[78]}And famed Mycene's lofty towers ascend,}(Where late the sun did Atreus' crimes detest,460And disappeared in horror of the feast.)[79]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 enriched the rising ground.[80]465Then sees Cithæron tow'ring o'er the plain,And thence declining gently to the main.Next to the bounds of Nisus' realm repairs,Where treach'rous Scylla cut the purple hairs:[81]The hanging cliffs of Sciron's rock explores,470And hears the murmurs of the diff'rent shores:[82]Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas,And stately Corinth's pleasing site surveys.'Twas now the time when Phœbus yields to night,[83]And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light,475Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drewHer airy chariot hung with pearly dew;[84]All birds and beasts lie hushed; sleep steals awayThe wild desires of men, and toils of day,And brings, descending through the silent air,480A sweet forgetfulness of human care.[85]Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay,Promise the skies the bright return of day;No faint reflections of the distant lightStreak with long gleams the scatt'ring shades of night:485From the damp earth impervious vapours rise,Encrease the darkness, and involve the skies.At once the rushing winds with roaring soundBurst from th' Æolian caves, and rend the ground,With equal rage their airy quarrel[86]try,490And win by turns the kingdom of the sky:But with a thicker night black Auster shroudsThe heav'ns, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds,From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours,Which the cold north congeals to haily show'rs.495From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud,And broken lightnings flash from ev'ry cloud.Now smoaks with show'rs[87]the misty mountain-ground,And floated fields lie undistinguished round.Th' Inachian streams with headlong fury run,500And Erasinus[88]rolls a deluge on:The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds,And spreads its ancient poisons[89]o'er the grounds:Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play,Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams away:505Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn,Are whirled in air, and on the winds are borne:The storm the dark Lycæan groves displayed,And first to light exposed the sacred shade.[90]Th' intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky,510Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly,[91]And views astonished, from the hills afar,The floods descending, and the wat'ry war,[92]That, driv'n by storms, and pouring o'er the plain,Swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main.[93]515Through 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.[94]So fares a sailor on the stormy main,520When clouds conceal Boötes' 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.525Thus strove the chief, on every side distressed,Thus still his courage, with his toils increased;With his broad shield opposed, he forced his wayThrough thickest woods, and roused the beasts of prey,Till he beheld, where from Larissa's[95]height530The shelving walls reflect a glancing light:Thither with haste the Theban hero flies;}On this side Lerna's pois'nous water lies,}On that Prosymna's grove and temple rise:[96]}He passed the gates, which then unguarded lay,535And 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,Blest with calm peace in his declining days;540By both his parents of descent divine,Great Jove and Phœbus graced his noble line:Heaven had not crowned his wishes with a son,But two fair daughters heired[97]his state and throne.To him Apollo (wondrous to relate!545But who can pierce into the depths of fate?)Had sung—"Expect thy sons[98]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;550This, great Amphiaraus, lay hid from thee,Though skilled in fate, and dark futurity.The father's care and prophet's art were vain,For thus did the predicting god ordain.[99]Lo hapless Tydeus, whose ill-fated hand555Had slain his brother, leaves his native land,[100]And seized with horror in the shades of night,Through the thick deserts headlong urged his flight:Now by the fury of the tempest driv'n,He seeks a shelter from th' inclement heav'n,560Till, led by fate, the Theban's steps he treads,And to fair Argos' open court succeeds.[101]When thus the chiefs from diff'rent lands resortT' Adrastus' realms, and hospitable court;The king surveys his guests with curious eyes,565And 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 employed Alcides' youthful toils,Ere yet adorned with Nemea's dreadful spoils.[102]570A boar's stiff hide, of Calydonian breed,Œnides' manly shoulders overspread.Oblique his tusks, erect his bristles stood,Alive, the pride and terror of the wood.Struck with the sight, and fixed in deep amaze,575The King th' accomplished oracle surveys,Reveres Apollo's vocal caves, and ownsThe guiding godhead, and his future sonsO'er all his bosom secret transports reign,And a glad horror[103]shoots through ev'ry vein.580To heav'n he lifts his hands, erects his sight,And thus invokes the silent queen of night."Goddess of shades, beneath whose gloomy reignYon spangled arch glows with the starry train:You who the cares of heav'n and earth allay,}585Till nature quickened by th' inspiring ray}Wakes to new vigour with the rising day:}Oh thou who freest me from my doubtful state,Long lost and wildered in the maze of fate!Be present still, oh goddess! in our aid;590Proceed, and firm[104]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 grateful smoke.595Hail, faithful Tripos! hail, ye dark abodesOf awful Phœbus: I confess the gods!"Thus, seized with sacred fear, the monarch prayed;Then to his inner court the guests conveyed;Where yet thin fumes from dying sparks arise,}600And 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.[105]His train obey, while all the courts around605With noisy care and various tumult sound.Embroidered purple clothes the golden beds;This slave the floor, and that the table spreads;A third dispels the darkness of the night,And fills depending lamps with beams of light.610Here loaves in canisters are piled on high,And there in flames the slaughtered victims fry.[106]Sublime in regal state Adrastus shone,Stretched on rich carpets on his iv'ry throne;A lofty couch receives each princely guest;615Around, at awful distance, wait the rest.And now the king, his royal feast to grace,Acestis calls, the guardian[107]of his race,Who first their youth in arts of virtue trained,And their ripe years in modest grace maintained;620Then softly whispered in her faithful ear,And bade his daughters at the rites appear.When from the close apartments of the night,The royal nymphs approach divinely bright;Such was Diana's, such Minerva's face;625Nor shine their beauties with superior grace,But that in these a milder charm endears,And less of terror in their looks appears.As on the heroes first they cast their eyes,O'er their fair cheeks the glowing blushes rise,630Their downcast looks a decent shame confessed,Then on their father's rev'rend features rest.The banquet done, the monarch gives the signTo fill the goblet high with sparkling wine,Which Danaus used in sacred rites of old,635With sculpture graced, and rough with rising gold.Here to the clouds victorious Perseus flies,}Medusa seems to move her languid eyes,}And, ev'n in gold, turns paler as she dies.[108]}There from the chace Jove's tow'ring eagle bears,640On golden wings, the Phrygian to the stars:[109]Still as he rises in th' ethereal height,His native mountains lessen to his sight;While all his sad companions upward gaze,Fixed on the glorious scene in wild amaze;645And the swift hounds, affrighted as he flies,Run to the shade, and bark against the skies.This golden bowl with gen'rous juice was crowned,The first libations sprinkled on the ground,By turns on each celestial pow'r they call;650With Phœbus' name resounds the vaulted hall.The courtly train, the strangers, and the rest,Crowned with chaste laurel, and with garlands dressed,While with rich gums the fuming altars blaze,Salute the god in num'rous hymns of praise.655Then thus the king: "Perhaps, my noble guests,These honoured altars, and these annual feastsTo bright Apollo's awful name designed,Unknown, with wonder may perplex your mind.Great was the cause; our old solemnities660From no blind zeal, or fond tradition rise;But saved from death, our Argives yearly payThese grateful honours to the god of day."When by a thousand darts the Python slainWith orbs unrolled lay cov'ring all the plain,[110]665(Transfixed as o'er Castalia's streams he hung,And sucked new poisons with his triple tongue)[111]To Argos' realms the victor god resorts,And enters old Crotopus' humble courts.This rural prince one only daughter blest,670That all the charms of blooming youth possessed;Fair was her face, and spotless was her mind,Where filial love with virgin sweetness joined.Happy! and happy still she might have proved,Were she less beautiful, or less beloved!675But Phœbus loved, and on the flow'ry sideOf Nemea's stream, the yielding fair enjoyed:Now, ere ten moons their orb with light adorn,Th' illustrious offspring of the god was born;The nymph, her father's anger to evade,680Retires from Argos to the sylvan shade;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?685On flow'ry herbs in some green covert laid,His bed the ground, his canopy the shade,[112]He mixes with the bleating lambs his cries,}While the rude swain his rural music tries}To call soft slumbers on his infant eyes.}690Yet 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,695Fed 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;700Then 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,[113]705Begot by furies in the depths of hell.[114]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,710When night with sable wings o'erspreads the ground,Devours young babes before their parents' eyes,And feeds and thrives on public miseries.[115]"But gen'rous rage the bold Chorœbus warms,Chorœbus, famed for virtue, as for arms;715Some 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;}720Whose panting vitals, warm with life, she draws,And in their hearts embrues her cruel claws.The youths surround her with extended spears;But brave Chorœbus in the front appears,Deep in her breast he plunged his shining sword,725And hell's dire monster back to hell restored.Th' Inachians[116]view the slain with vast surprize,Her twisting volumes and her rolling eyes,Her spotted breast, and gaping womb embruedWith livid poison, and our children's blood.730The crowd in stupid wonder fixed appear,Pale ev'n 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,735With 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 Phœbus bent his deadly bow,}740And hissing flew the feathered fates below:}A night of sultry clouds involved aroundThe tow'rs, the fields, and the devoted ground:And now a thousand lives together fled,}Death with his scythe cut off the fatal thread,[117]}745And a whole province in his triumph led.}"But Phœbus, 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.750"Blest be thy dust, and let eternal fameAttend thy manes, and preserve thy name,Undaunted hero![118]who divinely brave,In such a cause disdained thy life to save;But viewed the shrine with a superior look,755And 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, Phœbus, find a suppliant here.760Thy 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,765Such numbers fell by pestilential air!But if th' abandoned race of human kindFrom gods above no more compassion find;If such inclemency in heav'n can dwell,}Yet why must unoffending Argos feel}770The 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 fun'ral flames reflect a grateful light.775Discharge 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:780Unwelcome life relenting Phœbus 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 wond'ring god th' unwilling[119]youth retired.785Thence we these altars in his temple raise,And offer annual honours, feasts, and praise;These solemn feasts propitious Phœbus please;These honours, still renewed, his ancient wrath appease.""But say, illustrious guest," adjoined the king,790"What name you bear, from what high race you spring?The noble Tydeus stands confessed, and knownOur neighbour prince, and heir of Calydon.Relate your fortunes, while the friendly nightAnd silent hours to various talk invite."795The Theban bends on earth his gloomy eyes,Confused, and sadly thus at length replies:"Before these altars how shall I proclaim,O gen'rous prince! my nation, or my name,Or through what ancient veins our blood has rolled?800Let 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."805To whom the king (who felt his gen'rous breastTouched with concern for his unhappy guest)Replies: "Ah! why forbears the son to nameHis wretched father, known too well by fame?Fame, that delights around the world to stray,810Scorns not to take our Argos in her way.Ev'n those who dwell where suns at distance roll,In northern wilds, and freeze beneath the pole;And those who tread the burning Lybian lands,The faithless Syrtes and the moving sands;815Who view the western sea's extremest bounds,Or drink of Ganges in their eastern grounds;All these the woes of Œdipus have known,Your fates, your furies, and your haunted town.If on the sons the parents' crimes descend,820What 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,825And shine more faintly at approaching day;Now pour the wine; and in your tuneful laysOnce more resound the great Apollo's praise.""O father Phœbus![120]whether Lycia's coast[121]And snowy mountain, thy bright presence boast;830Whether to sweet Castalia[122]thou repair,And bathe in silver dews thy yellow hair;Or pleased to find fair Delos float no more,Delight in Cynthus,[123]and the shady shore;Or choose thy seat in Ilion's proud abodes,835The shining structures raised by lab'ring gods;[124]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,840'Tis thine the seeds of future war to know,[125]The change of sceptres, and impending woe,When direful meteors spread, through glowing air,Long trails of light, and shake their blazing hair.Thy rage the Phrygian felt, who durst aspire845T' excel the music of thy heav'nly lyre;[126]Thy shafts avenged lewd Tityus' guilty flame,Th' immortal victim of thy mother's fame;[127]Thy hand slew Python, and the dame who lostHer num'rous offspring for a fatal boast.[128]850In Phlegyas' doom thy just revenge appears,Condemned to furies and eternal fears;He views his food, but dreads, with lifted eye,The mould'ring rock that trembles from on high.[129]"Propitious hear our prayer, O pow'r divine!855And on thy hospitable Argos shine;Whether the style of Titan[130]please thee more,Whose purple rays th' Achæmenes adore;Or great Osiris,[131]who first taught the swainIn Pharian fields to sow the golden grain;860Or 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."[132]
Fraternal rage, the guilty Thebes' alarms,Th' alternate reign destroyed by impious arms,Demand our song; a sacred fury firesMy ravished breast, and all the muse inspires.O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes5From the dire[1]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 reaped an iron harvest of his toil?[2]10Or how from joining stones the city sprung,While to his harp divine Amphion sung?[3]Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound,Whose fatal rage th' unhappy monarch found?[4]The sire against the son his arrows drew,15O'er the wide fields the furious mother flew,And while her arms a second hope contain,Sprung from the rocks and plunged into the main.But waive whate'er to Cadmus may belong,And fix, O muse! the barrier of thy song20At Œdipus: from his disasters traceThe long confusions of his guilty race:Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing,And mighty Cæsar's[5]conqu'ring eagles sing;How twice he tamed proud Ister's rapid flood,25While Dacian mountains streamed with barb'rous blood;Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,And stretched his empire to the frozen pole;Or long before, with early valour, strove,In youthful arms, t' assert the cause of Jove.[6]30And thou, great heir of all thy father's fame,Increase of glory to the Latian name,Oh! bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain.What though the stars contract their heav'nly space,35And 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 Phœbus longs to mix his rays with thine,And in thy glories more serenely shine;40Though Jove himself no less content would beTo part his throne and share his heaven with thee;Yet stay, great Cæsar! and vouchsafe to reignO'er the wide earth, and o'er the wat'ry main;Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,45And people heav'n with Roman deities.[7]
The time will come, when a diviner flame[8]Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar's fame:Meanwhile permit, that my preluding museIn Theban wars an humbler theme may chuse:50Of furious hate surviving death, she sings,A fatal throne to two contending kings,And fun'ral flames that, parting wide in air,Express the discord of the souls they bear:[9]Of towns dispeopled, and the wand'ring ghosts55Of kings unburied in the wasted coasts;When Dirce's fountain blushed with Grecian blood,[10]And Thetis, near Ismenos'[11]swelling flood,With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep,In heaps, his slaughtered sons into the deep.[12]60What hero, Clio! wilt thou first relate?[13]The rage of Tydeus,[14]or the prophet's fate?[15]Or how, with hills of slain on ev'ry side,Hippomedon repelled the hostile tide?[16]Or how the youth[17]with ev'ry grace adorned65Untimely fell, to be for ever mourned?Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend,And sing with horror his prodigious end.[18]Now wretched Œdipus, deprived of sight,Led a long death in everlasting night;70But while he dwells where not a cheerful rayCan pierce the darkness, and abhors the day,The clear reflecting mind presents his sinIn frightful views, and makes it day within;Returning thoughts in endless circles roll,75And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul:The wretch then lifted to th' unpitying skiesThose empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes,Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook,[19]While from his breast these dreadful accents broke.80"Ye gods! that o'er the gloomy regions reign,Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain;Thou, sable Styx! whose livid streams are rolledThrough dreary coasts, which I though blind behold:Tisiphone,[20]that oft hast heard my pray'r,85Assist, if Œdipus deserve thy care!If you received me from Jocasta's womb,[21]And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come:If leaving Polybus, I took my way,[22]To Cirrha's temple[23]on that fatal day,90When 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:[24]If wretched I, by baleful furies led,95With monstrous mixture stained my mother's bed,For hell and thee begot an impious brood,And with full lust those horrid joys renewed;Then self-condemned to shades of endless night,Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight:100Oh hear! and aid the vengeance I require,If worthy thee, and what thou mightst inspire.My sons their old, unhappy sire despise,Spoiled of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes;Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn,105Whilst these exalt their sceptres o'er my urn;These sons, ye gods! who with flagitious prideInsult my darkness, and my groans deride.Art thou a father, unregarding Jove![25]And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above?110Thou fury, then some lasting curse entail,Which o'er their children's children shall prevail:[26]Place on their heads that crown distained with gore,Which these dire hands from my slain father tore;[27]Go! and a parent's heavy curses bear;}115Break all the bonds of nature, and prepare[28]}Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war.}Give them to dare, what I might wish to seeBlind as I am, some glorious villainy!Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands,120Their ready guilt preventing[29]thy commands:Couldst thou some great, proportioned mischief frame,They'd prove the father from whose loins they came."The fury heard, while on Cocytus'[30]brinkHer snakes untied, sulphureous waters drink;125But at the summons rolled her eyes around,And snatched the starting serpents from the ground.Not half so swiftly shoots along in airThe gliding lightning, or descending star.Through crowds of airy shades she winged her flight,130And dark dominions of the silent night;Swift as she passed the flitting ghosts withdrew,[31]And the pale spectres trembled at her view:To th' iron gates of Tænarus[32]she flies,There spreads her dusky pinions to the skies.135The day beheld, and sick'ning at the sight,Veiled her fair glories in the shades of night.Affrighted Atlas, on the distant shore,Trembled, and shook the heav'ns and gods he bore.[33]Now from beneath Malea's[34]airy height140Aloft she sprung, and steered to Thebes her flight;With eager speed the well-known journey[35]took,Nor here regrets the hell she late forsook.A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade,A hundred serpents guard her horrid head,145In her sunk eye-balls dreadful meteors glow:[36]Such rays from Phœbe's bloody circle flow,When lab'ring with strong charms, she shoots from highA fiery gleam, and reddens all the sky.Blood stained her cheeks, and from her mouth there came150Blue steaming poisons, and a length of flame:From ev'ry blast of her contagious breathFamine and drought proceed, and plagues, and death.A robe obscene was o'er her shoulders thrown,A dress by fates and furies worn alone.155She tossed her meagre arms; her better hand[37]In waving circles whirled a fun'ral brand:A serpent from her left was seen to rearHis flaming crest, and lash the yielding air.[38]But when the fury took her stand on high,160Where vast Cithæron's top salutes the sky,A hiss from all the snaky tire went round:}The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound,}And through th' Achaian cities send the sound.}Œte, with high Parnassus, heard the voice;165Eurotas' banks remurmured to the noise;Again Leucothea shook at these alarms,And pressed Palæmon closer in her arms.[39]Headlong from thence the glowing fury springs,And o'er the Theban palace spreads her wings,[40]170Once more invades the guilty dome, and shroudsIts bright pavilions in a veil of clouds.Straight with the rage of all their race possessed,}Stung to the soul, the brothers start from rest,}And all their furies wake within their breast.}175Their tortured minds repining envy tears,And hate, engendered by suspicious fears;And sacred thirst of sway; and all the tiesOf nature broke;[41]and royal perjuries;And impotent desire to reign alone,180That scorns the dull reversion of a throne;[42]Each would the sweets of sov'reign rule devour,While discord waits upon divided power.As stubborn steers by brawny plowmen broke,And joined reluctant to the galling yoke,185Alike disdain with servile necks to bearTh' unwonted weight, or drag the crooked share,But rend the reins, and bound[43]a diff'rent way,And all the furrows in confusion lay:Such was the discord of the royal pair,190Whom 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,195And the short monarch of a hasty yearForesees 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,200No fretted roofs with polished metals blazed;No laboured columns in long order placed,No Grecian stone the pompous arches graced;No nightly bands in glitt'ring armour wait[44]Before the sleepless tyrant's guarded gate;205No chargers[45]then were wrought in burnished gold,Nor silver vases took the forming mold;Nor gems on bowls embossed were seen to shine,Blaze on the brims, and sparkle in the wine.[46]Say, wretched rivals! what provokes your rage?210Say, to what end your impious arms engage?Not all bright Phœbus views in early morn,Or when his ev'ning beams the west adorn,When the south glows with his meridian ray,And the cold north receives a fainter day;215For crimes like these, not all those realms suffice,[47]Were all those realms the guilty victor's prize!But fortune now (the lots of empire thrown)Decrees to proud Eteocles the crown:What joys, oh tyrant! swelled thy soul that day,220When all were slaves thou couldst around survey,[48]Pleased to behold unbounded power thy own,And singly fill a feared and envied throne!But the vile vulgar, ever discontent,[49]Their growing fears in secret murmurs vent;225Still prone to change, though still the slaves of state,And sure the monarch whom they have, to hate;New lords they madly make, then tamely bear,And softly curse the tyrants whom they fear.[50]And one of those who groan beneath the sway230Of kings imposed, and grudgingly obey,(Whom envy to the great, and vulgar spiteWith scandal armed, th' ignoble mind's delight,)Exclaimed—"O Thebes! for thee what fates remain,What woes attend this inauspicious reign?235Must we, alas! our doubtful necks prepare,}Each haughty master's yoke by turns to bear,}And still to change whom changed we still must fear?}These now control a wretched people's fate,These can divide, and these reverse the state:240Ev'n fortune rules no more!—O servile land,Where exiled[51]tyrants still by turns command.Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove!Is this th' eternal doom decreed above?On thy own offspring hast thou fixed this fate,245From the first birth of our unhappy state;When banished Cadmus, wand'ring o'er the main,For lost Europa searched the world in vain,And fated in Bœotian fields to foundA rising empire on a foreign ground,250First raised our walls on that ill-omened plain,Where earth-born brothers were by brothers slain?[52]What lofty looks th' unrivalled[53]monarch bears!How all the tyrant in his face appears!What sullen fury clouds his scornful brow!255Gods! how his eyes with threat'ning ardour glow!Can this imperious lord forget to reign,Quit all his state, descend, and serve again?Yet, who, before, more popularly bowed?Who more propitious to the suppliant crowd?260Patient 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 ev'ry reign!As when two winds with rival force contend,265This way and that, the wav'ring sails they bend,While freezing Boreas, and black Euros blow,Now here, now there, the reeling vessel throw:Thus on each side, alas! our tott'ring stateFeels all the fury of resistless fate,270And doubtful still, and still distracted stands,While that prince threatens, and while this commands."And now th' almighty father of the godsConvenes a council in the blest abodes:Far in the bright recesses of the skies,275High o'er the rolling heav'ns, a mansion lies,Whence, far below, the gods at once survey}The realms of rising and declining day,}And all th' extended space of earth, and air, and sea.}Full in the midst, and on a starry throne,280The majesty of heav'n superior shone;Serene he looked, and gave an awful nod,[54]And all the trembling spheres confessed the god.At Jove's assent the deities aroundIn solemn state the consistory crowned.[55]285Next a long order of inferior pow'rsAscend from hills, and plains, and shady bow'rs;Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow;And those that give the wand'ring winds to blow:Here all their rage, and ev'n their murmurs cease,[56]290And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace.A shining synod of majestic godsGilds with new lustre the divine abodes;Heav'n seems improved with a superior ray,And the bright arch reflects a double day.295The monarch then his solemn silence broke,The still creation listened while he spoke,Each sacred accent bears eternal weight,And each irrevocable word is fate."How long shall man the wrath of heav'n defy,300And force unwilling vengeance from the sky!Oh race confed'rate into crimes, that proveTriumphant o'er th' eluded rage of Jove![57]This wearied arm can scarce the bolt sustain,And unregarded thunder rolls in vain:305Th' o'erlaboured Cyclops from his task retires,Th' Æolian forge exhausted of its fires.[58]For this, I suffered Phœbus' steeds to stray,And the mad ruler to misguide the day;When the wide earth to heaps of ashes turned,310And heaven itself the wand'ring chariot burned.For this, my brother of the wat'ry reign}Released th' impetuous sluices of the main:}But flames consumed, and billows raged in vain.}Two races now, allied to Jove, offend;315To 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?320How oft the furies, from the deeps of night,Arose, and mixed with men in mortal fight:Th' exulting mother, stained with filial blood;[59]The savage hunter and the haunted wood;The direful banquet why should I proclaim,[60]325And 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 Laius shed)330The murd'ring 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.335His sons with scorn their eyeless father view,Insult his wounds, and make them bleed anew.Thy curse, oh Œdipus, just heav'n alarms,And sets th' avenging thunderer in arms.I from the root thy guilty race will tear,340And give the nations to the waste of war.Adrastus[61]soon, with gods averse, shall joinIn dire alliance with the Theban line;Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed;The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed;345Fixed is their doom; this all-rememb'ring breastYet harbours vengeance for the tyrant's feast."[62]He said; and thus the queen of heav'n returned;(With sudden grief her lab'ring bosom burned)"Must I, whose cares Phoroneus'[63]tow'rs defend,350Must 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;[64]355Though there the brazen tower was stormed of old,[65]When Jove[66]descended in almighty gold:Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes,Those bashful crimes disguised in borrowed shapes;But Thebes, where shining in celestial charms360Thou cam'st triumphant to a mortal's arms,When all my glories o'er her limbs were spread,And blazing light'nings danced around her bed;[67]Cursed Thebes the vengeance it deserves, may prove:Ah why should Argos feel the rage of Jove?365Yet 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;[68]No more let mortals Juno's pow'r invoke,}370Her fanes no more with eastern incense smoke,}Nor victims sink beneath the sacred stroke;}But to your Isis all my rites transfer,Let altars blaze and temples smoke for her;For her, through Egypt's fruitful clime renowned375Let 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 ageDerive incitements to renew thy rage;380Say, from what period then has Jove designedTo date his vengeance; to what bounds confined?Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides}His wand'ring stream, and through the briny tides}Unmixed to his Sicilian river glides.[69]}385Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;[70]Who raise thy temples where the chariot stoodOf fierce Œnomaus, defiled with blood:[71]Where once his steeds their savage banquet found,390And human bones yet whiten all the ground.Say, can those honours please; and canst thou lovePresumptuous Crete that boasts the tomb of Jove?[72]And shall not Tantalus's kingdoms shareThy wife and sister's tutelary care?395Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,Nor doom to war a race derived from, thee;[73]On impious realms and barb'rous kings imposeThy plagues, and curse 'em with such sons[74]as those."Thus, in reproach and pray'r, the queen expressed400The rage and grief contending in her breast;Unmoved remained the ruler of the sky,And from his throne returned this stern reply:"'Twas thus I deemed thy haughty soul would bear}The dire, though just, revenge which I prepare}405Against 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 fulfilTheir work, and rev'rence our superior will.410For by the black infernal Styx I swear,(That dreadful oath which binds the thunderer)'Tis fixed; th' irrevocable doom of Jove;No force can bend me, no persuasion move.Haste then, Cyllenius,[75]through the liquid air;415Go, 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 shiv'ring on Cocytus' sand,Expects its passage to the further strand:420Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bearThese pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear;[76]That from his exiled brother, swelled with prideOf foreign forces, and his Argive bride,Almighty Jove commands him to detain425The 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 appliesThose golden wings that cut the yielding skies.430His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread,And veiled 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 Tartarean coasts,435Or back to life compels the wand'ring ghosts.Thus, through the parting clouds, the son of MayWings on the whistling winds his rapid way;Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight,Now springs aloft, and tow'rs th' ethereal height;440Then wheeling down the steep of heav'n he flies,And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.Meantime the banished Polynices roves(His Thebes abandoned) through th' Aonian groves,While future realms his wand'ring thoughts delight,445His 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.450Fain would he cast a tedious age away,And live out all in one triumphant day.[77]He chides the lazy progress of the sun,And bids the year with swifter motion run.With anxious hopes his craving mind is tost,455And all his joys in length of wishes lost.The hero then resolves his course to bend}Where ancient Danaus' fruitful fields extend,[78]}And famed Mycene's lofty towers ascend,}(Where late the sun did Atreus' crimes detest,460And disappeared in horror of the feast.)[79]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 enriched the rising ground.[80]465Then sees Cithæron tow'ring o'er the plain,And thence declining gently to the main.Next to the bounds of Nisus' realm repairs,Where treach'rous Scylla cut the purple hairs:[81]The hanging cliffs of Sciron's rock explores,470And hears the murmurs of the diff'rent shores:[82]Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas,And stately Corinth's pleasing site surveys.'Twas now the time when Phœbus yields to night,[83]And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light,475Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drewHer airy chariot hung with pearly dew;[84]All birds and beasts lie hushed; sleep steals awayThe wild desires of men, and toils of day,And brings, descending through the silent air,480A sweet forgetfulness of human care.[85]Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay,Promise the skies the bright return of day;No faint reflections of the distant lightStreak with long gleams the scatt'ring shades of night:485From the damp earth impervious vapours rise,Encrease the darkness, and involve the skies.At once the rushing winds with roaring soundBurst from th' Æolian caves, and rend the ground,With equal rage their airy quarrel[86]try,490And win by turns the kingdom of the sky:But with a thicker night black Auster shroudsThe heav'ns, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds,From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours,Which the cold north congeals to haily show'rs.495From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud,And broken lightnings flash from ev'ry cloud.Now smoaks with show'rs[87]the misty mountain-ground,And floated fields lie undistinguished round.Th' Inachian streams with headlong fury run,500And Erasinus[88]rolls a deluge on:The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds,And spreads its ancient poisons[89]o'er the grounds:Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play,Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams away:505Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn,Are whirled in air, and on the winds are borne:The storm the dark Lycæan groves displayed,And first to light exposed the sacred shade.[90]Th' intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky,510Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly,[91]And views astonished, from the hills afar,The floods descending, and the wat'ry war,[92]That, driv'n by storms, and pouring o'er the plain,Swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main.[93]515Through 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.[94]So fares a sailor on the stormy main,520When clouds conceal Boötes' 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.525Thus strove the chief, on every side distressed,Thus still his courage, with his toils increased;With his broad shield opposed, he forced his wayThrough thickest woods, and roused the beasts of prey,Till he beheld, where from Larissa's[95]height530The shelving walls reflect a glancing light:Thither with haste the Theban hero flies;}On this side Lerna's pois'nous water lies,}On that Prosymna's grove and temple rise:[96]}He passed the gates, which then unguarded lay,535And 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,Blest with calm peace in his declining days;540By both his parents of descent divine,Great Jove and Phœbus graced his noble line:Heaven had not crowned his wishes with a son,But two fair daughters heired[97]his state and throne.To him Apollo (wondrous to relate!545But who can pierce into the depths of fate?)Had sung—"Expect thy sons[98]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;550This, great Amphiaraus, lay hid from thee,Though skilled in fate, and dark futurity.The father's care and prophet's art were vain,For thus did the predicting god ordain.[99]Lo hapless Tydeus, whose ill-fated hand555Had slain his brother, leaves his native land,[100]And seized with horror in the shades of night,Through the thick deserts headlong urged his flight:Now by the fury of the tempest driv'n,He seeks a shelter from th' inclement heav'n,560Till, led by fate, the Theban's steps he treads,And to fair Argos' open court succeeds.[101]When thus the chiefs from diff'rent lands resortT' Adrastus' realms, and hospitable court;The king surveys his guests with curious eyes,565And 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 employed Alcides' youthful toils,Ere yet adorned with Nemea's dreadful spoils.[102]570A boar's stiff hide, of Calydonian breed,Œnides' manly shoulders overspread.Oblique his tusks, erect his bristles stood,Alive, the pride and terror of the wood.Struck with the sight, and fixed in deep amaze,575The King th' accomplished oracle surveys,Reveres Apollo's vocal caves, and ownsThe guiding godhead, and his future sonsO'er all his bosom secret transports reign,And a glad horror[103]shoots through ev'ry vein.580To heav'n he lifts his hands, erects his sight,And thus invokes the silent queen of night."Goddess of shades, beneath whose gloomy reignYon spangled arch glows with the starry train:You who the cares of heav'n and earth allay,}585Till nature quickened by th' inspiring ray}Wakes to new vigour with the rising day:}Oh thou who freest me from my doubtful state,Long lost and wildered in the maze of fate!Be present still, oh goddess! in our aid;590Proceed, and firm[104]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 grateful smoke.595Hail, faithful Tripos! hail, ye dark abodesOf awful Phœbus: I confess the gods!"Thus, seized with sacred fear, the monarch prayed;Then to his inner court the guests conveyed;Where yet thin fumes from dying sparks arise,}600And 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.[105]His train obey, while all the courts around605With noisy care and various tumult sound.Embroidered purple clothes the golden beds;This slave the floor, and that the table spreads;A third dispels the darkness of the night,And fills depending lamps with beams of light.610Here loaves in canisters are piled on high,And there in flames the slaughtered victims fry.[106]Sublime in regal state Adrastus shone,Stretched on rich carpets on his iv'ry throne;A lofty couch receives each princely guest;615Around, at awful distance, wait the rest.And now the king, his royal feast to grace,Acestis calls, the guardian[107]of his race,Who first their youth in arts of virtue trained,And their ripe years in modest grace maintained;620Then softly whispered in her faithful ear,And bade his daughters at the rites appear.When from the close apartments of the night,The royal nymphs approach divinely bright;Such was Diana's, such Minerva's face;625Nor shine their beauties with superior grace,But that in these a milder charm endears,And less of terror in their looks appears.As on the heroes first they cast their eyes,O'er their fair cheeks the glowing blushes rise,630Their downcast looks a decent shame confessed,Then on their father's rev'rend features rest.The banquet done, the monarch gives the signTo fill the goblet high with sparkling wine,Which Danaus used in sacred rites of old,635With sculpture graced, and rough with rising gold.Here to the clouds victorious Perseus flies,}Medusa seems to move her languid eyes,}And, ev'n in gold, turns paler as she dies.[108]}There from the chace Jove's tow'ring eagle bears,640On golden wings, the Phrygian to the stars:[109]Still as he rises in th' ethereal height,His native mountains lessen to his sight;While all his sad companions upward gaze,Fixed on the glorious scene in wild amaze;645And the swift hounds, affrighted as he flies,Run to the shade, and bark against the skies.This golden bowl with gen'rous juice was crowned,The first libations sprinkled on the ground,By turns on each celestial pow'r they call;650With Phœbus' name resounds the vaulted hall.The courtly train, the strangers, and the rest,Crowned with chaste laurel, and with garlands dressed,While with rich gums the fuming altars blaze,Salute the god in num'rous hymns of praise.655Then thus the king: "Perhaps, my noble guests,These honoured altars, and these annual feastsTo bright Apollo's awful name designed,Unknown, with wonder may perplex your mind.Great was the cause; our old solemnities660From no blind zeal, or fond tradition rise;But saved from death, our Argives yearly payThese grateful honours to the god of day."When by a thousand darts the Python slainWith orbs unrolled lay cov'ring all the plain,[110]665(Transfixed as o'er Castalia's streams he hung,And sucked new poisons with his triple tongue)[111]To Argos' realms the victor god resorts,And enters old Crotopus' humble courts.This rural prince one only daughter blest,670That all the charms of blooming youth possessed;Fair was her face, and spotless was her mind,Where filial love with virgin sweetness joined.Happy! and happy still she might have proved,Were she less beautiful, or less beloved!675But Phœbus loved, and on the flow'ry sideOf Nemea's stream, the yielding fair enjoyed:Now, ere ten moons their orb with light adorn,Th' illustrious offspring of the god was born;The nymph, her father's anger to evade,680Retires from Argos to the sylvan shade;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?685On flow'ry herbs in some green covert laid,His bed the ground, his canopy the shade,[112]He mixes with the bleating lambs his cries,}While the rude swain his rural music tries}To call soft slumbers on his infant eyes.}690Yet 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,695Fed 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;700Then 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,[113]705Begot by furies in the depths of hell.[114]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,710When night with sable wings o'erspreads the ground,Devours young babes before their parents' eyes,And feeds and thrives on public miseries.[115]"But gen'rous rage the bold Chorœbus warms,Chorœbus, famed for virtue, as for arms;715Some 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;}720Whose panting vitals, warm with life, she draws,And in their hearts embrues her cruel claws.The youths surround her with extended spears;But brave Chorœbus in the front appears,Deep in her breast he plunged his shining sword,725And hell's dire monster back to hell restored.Th' Inachians[116]view the slain with vast surprize,Her twisting volumes and her rolling eyes,Her spotted breast, and gaping womb embruedWith livid poison, and our children's blood.730The crowd in stupid wonder fixed appear,Pale ev'n 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,735With 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 Phœbus bent his deadly bow,}740And hissing flew the feathered fates below:}A night of sultry clouds involved aroundThe tow'rs, the fields, and the devoted ground:And now a thousand lives together fled,}Death with his scythe cut off the fatal thread,[117]}745And a whole province in his triumph led.}"But Phœbus, 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.750"Blest be thy dust, and let eternal fameAttend thy manes, and preserve thy name,Undaunted hero![118]who divinely brave,In such a cause disdained thy life to save;But viewed the shrine with a superior look,755And 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, Phœbus, find a suppliant here.760Thy 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,765Such numbers fell by pestilential air!But if th' abandoned race of human kindFrom gods above no more compassion find;If such inclemency in heav'n can dwell,}Yet why must unoffending Argos feel}770The 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 fun'ral flames reflect a grateful light.775Discharge 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:780Unwelcome life relenting Phœbus 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 wond'ring god th' unwilling[119]youth retired.785Thence we these altars in his temple raise,And offer annual honours, feasts, and praise;These solemn feasts propitious Phœbus please;These honours, still renewed, his ancient wrath appease.""But say, illustrious guest," adjoined the king,790"What name you bear, from what high race you spring?The noble Tydeus stands confessed, and knownOur neighbour prince, and heir of Calydon.Relate your fortunes, while the friendly nightAnd silent hours to various talk invite."795The Theban bends on earth his gloomy eyes,Confused, and sadly thus at length replies:"Before these altars how shall I proclaim,O gen'rous prince! my nation, or my name,Or through what ancient veins our blood has rolled?800Let 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."805To whom the king (who felt his gen'rous breastTouched with concern for his unhappy guest)Replies: "Ah! why forbears the son to nameHis wretched father, known too well by fame?Fame, that delights around the world to stray,810Scorns not to take our Argos in her way.Ev'n those who dwell where suns at distance roll,In northern wilds, and freeze beneath the pole;And those who tread the burning Lybian lands,The faithless Syrtes and the moving sands;815Who view the western sea's extremest bounds,Or drink of Ganges in their eastern grounds;All these the woes of Œdipus have known,Your fates, your furies, and your haunted town.If on the sons the parents' crimes descend,820What 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,825And shine more faintly at approaching day;Now pour the wine; and in your tuneful laysOnce more resound the great Apollo's praise.""O father Phœbus![120]whether Lycia's coast[121]And snowy mountain, thy bright presence boast;830Whether to sweet Castalia[122]thou repair,And bathe in silver dews thy yellow hair;Or pleased to find fair Delos float no more,Delight in Cynthus,[123]and the shady shore;Or choose thy seat in Ilion's proud abodes,835The shining structures raised by lab'ring gods;[124]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,840'Tis thine the seeds of future war to know,[125]The change of sceptres, and impending woe,When direful meteors spread, through glowing air,Long trails of light, and shake their blazing hair.Thy rage the Phrygian felt, who durst aspire845T' excel the music of thy heav'nly lyre;[126]Thy shafts avenged lewd Tityus' guilty flame,Th' immortal victim of thy mother's fame;[127]Thy hand slew Python, and the dame who lostHer num'rous offspring for a fatal boast.[128]850In Phlegyas' doom thy just revenge appears,Condemned to furies and eternal fears;He views his food, but dreads, with lifted eye,The mould'ring rock that trembles from on high.[129]"Propitious hear our prayer, O pow'r divine!855And on thy hospitable Argos shine;Whether the style of Titan[130]please thee more,Whose purple rays th' Achæmenes adore;Or great Osiris,[131]who first taught the swainIn Pharian fields to sow the golden grain;860Or 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."[132]