Their baffled courtship, and their love betray’d.
When Galatea thus bespoke the fair,
(But first she sigh’d,) while Scylla comb’d her hair,
“You, lovely maid, a generous race pursues,
Whom safe you may (as now you do) refuse;
To me, though powerful in a numerous train
Of sisters, sprung from gods, who rule the main,
My native seas could scarce a refuge prove,
To shun the fury of the cyclop’s love.”
Tears choked her utterance here; the pitying maid
With marble fingers wiped them off, and said;
“My dearest goddess, let thy Scylla know
(For I am faithful) whence these sorrows flow.”
The maid’s entreaties o’er the nymph prevail,
Who thus to Scylla tells the mournful tale.
Story of Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea
Galatea, a sea nymph, is passionately beloved by the cyclop Polyphemus, whom she treats with disdain, while Acis, a shepherd of Sicily, is the object of her affections—Stung with jealousy, the cyclop crushes his rival with a piece of broken rock—His mistress is inconsolable for his loss; and since she is unable to restore him to life, changes him into a fountain.
“Acis, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn,
From Faunus, and the nymph Symethis, born,
Was both his parents’ pleasure, but to me,
Was all that love could make a lover be.
The gods our minds in mutual bands did join,
I was his only joy, and he was mine.
Now sixteen summers the sweet youth had seen,
And doubtful down began to shade his chin,
When Polyphemus first disturbed our joy,
And loved me fiercely, as I loved the boy.
Ask not which passion in my soul was higher
My last aversion, or my first desire,
Nor this the greater was, nor that the less,
Both were alike, for both were in excess.
Thee, Venus, thee, both heaven and earth obey,
Immense thy power, and boundless is thy sway.
The cyclop, who defied the ethereal throne,
And thought no thunder louder than his own,
The terror of the woods, and wilder far
Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests, are,
The inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts
On mangled members of his butcher’d guests,
Yet felt the force of love, and fierce desire,
And burn’d for me with unrelenting fire
Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care,
Assumed the softness of a lover’s air,
And comb’d, with teeth of rakes, his rugged hair:
Now with a crooked scythe his beard he sleeks,
And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks;
Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try
His courteous bows, and rolls his glaring eye.
His cruelty and thirst for blood are lost;
And ships securely sail along the coast.
“The prophet Telemus (arrived by chance
Where Aetna’s summits to the seas advance,
Who mark’d the tracks of every bird that flew,
And sure presages from their flying drew)
Foretold the cyclop that Ulysses hand
In his broad eye should thrust a flaming brand.
The giant, with a scornful grin, replied,
‘Vain augur, thou hast falsely prophesied;
Already love his flaming brand has toss’d,
Looking on two fair eyes my sight I lost.’
Thus, warn’d in vain, with stalking pace he strode,
And stamp’d the margin of the briny flood
With heavy steps, and weary, sought again
The cool retirement of his gloomy den.
“A promontory, sharpening by degrees,
Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas,
On either side below, the water flows;
This airy walk the giant lover chose.
Here on the midst he sat, his flocks unled,
Their shepherd follow’d, and securely fed;
A pine, so burly, and of length so vast,
That sailing ships required it for a mast,
He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide,
But laid it by, his whistle while he tried;
A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth,
Scarce made a pipe proportion’d to his mouth,
Which, when he gave it wind, the rocks around,
And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound.
I heard the ruffian shepherd rudely blow,
Where in a hollow cave I sat below;
On Acis’ bosom I my head reclined,
And still preserve the poem in my mind.
“ ‘Oh, lovely Galatea! whiter far
Than falling snows and rising lilies are;
More flowery than the meads, as crystal bright;
Erect as alders, and of equal height:
More wanton than a kid, more sleek thy skin
Than orient shells, that on the shores are seen:
Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade;
Pleasing as winter suns, or summer shade:
More grateful to the sight than goodly plains,
And softer to the touch than down of swans;
Or curds new turn’d; and sweeter to the taste
Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste:
More clear than ice, or running streams, that stray
Through garden plots, but, ah! more swift than they.
“ ‘Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke
Than bullocks, unreclaim’d to bear the yoke,
And far more stubborn than the knotted oak:
Like sliding streams, impossible to hold;
Like them fallacious, like their fountains cold;
More warping than the willow, to decline
My warm embrace, more brittle than the vine;
Immoveable and fix’d in thy disdain:
Rough as these rocks, and of a harder grain.
More violent than is the rising flood;
And the praised peacock is not half so proud.
Fierce as the fire, and sharp as thistles are,
And more outrageous than a mother bear:
Deaf as the billows to the vows I make;
And more revengeful than a trodden snake
In swiftness fleeter than the flying hind,
Or driven tempests, or the driving wind.
All other faults with patience I can bear,
But swiftness is the vice I only fear.
“ ‘Yet, if you knew me well, you would not shun
My love, but to my wish’d embraces run:
Would languish in your turn, and court my stay,
And much repent of your unwise delay.
“ ‘My palace in the living rock is made
By nature’s hand: a spacious pleasing shade;
Which neither heat can pierce, nor cold invade.
My garden fill’d with fruits you may behold,
And grapes in clusters, imitating gold;
Some blushing bunches of a purple hue;
And these, and those, are all reserved for you.
Red strawberries, in shades, expecting stand,
Proud to be gather’d by so white a hand.
Autumnal cornels later fruit provide,
And plums, to tempt you, turn their glossy side:
Not those of common kinds, but such alone
As in Phaeacian orchards might have grown:
Nor chestnuts shall be wanting to your food,
Nor garden fruits, nor wildings of the wood;
The laden boughs for you alone shall bear;
And yours shall be the product of the year.
“ ‘The flocks you see are all my own; beside
The rest that woods and winding valleys hide,
And those
