And Tiber his majestic forehead rears;
Whence Anio flows, and Hypanis profound
Breaks through the opposing rocks with raging sound:
Where Po first issues from his dark abodes,
And, awful in his cradle, rules the floods:
Two golden horns on his large front he wears,
And his grim face a bull’s resemblance bears:
With rapid course he seeks the sacred main,
And fattens, as he runs, the fruitful plain.
Now, to the court arrived, the admiring son
Beholds the vaulted roofs of pory stone,
Now to his mother goddess tells his grief,
Which she with pity hears, and promises relief.
The officious nymphs attending in a ring,
With waters drawn from their perpetual spring,
From earthly dregs his body purify,
And rub his temples, with fine towels, dry;
Then load the tables with a liberal feast,
And honour with full bowls their friendly guest.
The sacred altars are involved in smoke;
And the bright choir their kindred gods invoke.
Two bowls the mother fills with Lydian wine;
Then thus: “Let these be poured with rites divine,
To the great authors of our watery line—
To father Ocean, this; and this (she said)
Be to the nymphs his sacred sisters paid,
Who rule the watery plains, and hold the woodland shade.”
She sprinkled thrice, with wine, the Vestal fire,
Thrice to the vaulted roofs the flames aspire.
Raised with so blest an omen, she begun,
With words like these, to cheer her drooping son;
“In the Carpathian bottom, makes abode
The shepherd of the seas, a prophet, and a god.
High o’er the main in watery pomp he rides,
His azure car and finny coursers guides—
Proteus his name.—To his Pallenian port
I see from far the weary god resort.
Him, not alone, we river gods adore,
But aged Nereus hearkens to his lore.
With sure foresight, and with unerring doom,
He sees what is, and was, and is to come.
This Neptune gave him, when he gave to keep
His scaly flocks, that graze the watery deep.
Implore his aid; for Proteus only knows
The secret cause, and cure, of all thy woes.
But first the wily wizard must be caught:
For, unconstrained, he nothing tells for naught;
Nor is with prayers or bribes, or flattery bought.
Surprise him first, and with hard fetters bind;
Then all his frauds will vanish into wind.
I will myself conduct thee on thy way;
When next the southing sun inflames the day,
When the dry herbage thirsts for dews in vain,
And sheep, in shades, avoid the parching plain;
Then will I lead thee to his secret seat,
When, weary with his toil, and scorched with heat,
The wayward sire frequents his cool retreat.
His eyes with heavy slumber overcast—
With force invade his limbs, and bind him fast.
Thus surely bound, yet be not over bold:
The slippery god will try to loose his hold,
And various forms assume, to cheat thy sight,
And with vain images of beasts affright;
With foamy tusks he seems a bristly boar,
Or imitate the lion’s angry roar:
Break out in crackling flames to shun thy snare,
Or hiss a dragon, or a tiger stare:
Or, with a wile thy caution to betray,
In fleeting streams attempts to slide away.
But thou, the more he varies forms, beware
To strain his fetters with a stricter care,
Till, tiring all his arts, he turns again
To his true shape, in which he first was seen.”
This said, with nectar she her son anoints,
Infusing vigour through his mortal joints;
Down from his head the liquid odours ran:
He breathed of heaven, and looked above a man.
Within a mountain’s hollow womb there lies
A large recess, concealed from human eyes,
Where heaps of billows, driven by wind and tide,
In form of war, their watery ranks divide,
And there, like sentries set, without the mouth abide;
A station safe for ships, when tempests roar,
A silent harbour, and a covered shore.
Secure within resides the various god,
And draws a rock upon his dark abode.
Hither with silent steps, secure from sight,
The goddess guides her son, and turns him from the light:
Herself, involved in clouds, precipitates her flight.
’Twas noon; the sultry Dog-star from the sky
Scorched Indian swains; the rivelled grass was dry;
The sun with flaming arrows pierced the flood,
And, darting to the bottom, baked the mud;
When weary Proteus, from the briny waves,
Retired for shelter to his wonted caves.
His finny flocks about their shepherd play,
And, rolling round him, spirt the bitter sea.
Unweildily they wallow first in ooze,
Then in the shady covert seek repose.
Himself, their herdsman, on the middle mount,
Takes of his mustered flocks a just account.
So, seated on a rock, a shepherd’s groom
Surveys his evening flocks returning home,
When lowing calves and bleating lambs from far,
Provoke the prowling wolf to nightly war.
The occasion offers, and the youth complies:
For scarce the weary god had closed his eyes,
When, rushing on with shouts, he binds in chains
The drowsy prophet, and his limbs constrains.
He, not unmindful of his usual art,
First in dissembled fire attempts to part:
Then roaring beasts, and running streams, he tries,
And wearies all his miracles of lies:
But, having shifted every form to ’scape,
Convinced of conquest, he resumed his shape,
And, thus, at length, in human accent spoke:
“Audacious youth! what madness could provoke
A mortal man to invade a sleeping god?
What business brought thee to my dark abode?”
To this the audacious youth: “Thou knowest full well
My name and business, god; nor need I tell.
No man can Proteus cheat: but, Proteus, leave
Thy fraudful arts, and do not thou deceive.
Following the gods’ command, I come to implore
Thy help, my perished people to restore.”
The seer, who could not yet his wrath assuage,
Rolled his green eyes, that sparkled with his rage,
And gnashed his teeth, and cried, “No vulgar god
Pursues thy crimes, nor with a common rod.
Thy great misdeeds have met a due reward;
And Orpheus’ dying prayers at length are heard.
For crimes not his, the lover lost his life,
And at thy hands requires his murdered wife:
Nor (if the Fates assist not) canst thou ’scape
The just revenge of that intended rape.
To shun thy lawless lust, the dying bride,
Unwary, took along the river’s side,
Nor at her heels perceived the deadly snake,
That kept the bank, in covert of the brake.
But all her fellow-nymphs the mountains tear
With loud laments, and break the yielding air:
The realms of Mars remurmur all around,
And echoes to the Athenian shores rebound.
The unhappy husband, husband now no more,
Did on his tuneful harp his loss deplore,
And sought, his mournful mind with music to
