“Forbear,” he cried, “fond maid, this needless fear;
Nor fish am I, nor monster of the main,
But equal with the watery gods I reign;
Nor Proteus, nor Palaemon me excel,
Nor he whose breath inspires the sounding shell.
My birth, ’tis true, I owe to mortal race,
And I myself but late a mortal was:
Ev’n then, in seas, and seas alone, I joy’d,
The seas my hours and all my cares employ’d.
In meshes now the twinkling prey I drew;
Now skilfully the slender line I threw,
And silent sat the moving float to view.
Not far from shore there lies a verdant mead,
With herbage half, and half with water spread:
There nor the horned heifers browsing stray,
Nor shaggy kids, nor wanton lambkins play:
There nor the sounding bees their nectar cull,
Nor rural swains their genial chaplets pull,
Nor flocks, nor herds, nor mowers, haunt the place,
To crop the flowers, or cut the bushy grass:
Thither sure first of living race came I,
And sat, by chance, my drooping nets to dry.
My scaly prize, in order all display’d,
By number on the greensward there I laid
My captives, which or in my nets I took,
Or hung unwary on my wily hook.
Strange to behold! yet what avails a lie?
I saw them bite the grass as I sat by,
Then sudden darting o’er the verdant plain,
They spread their fins, as in their native main;
I paused, with wonder’struck, while all my prey
Left their new master, and regain’d the sea.
Amazed, within my secret self I sought,
What god, what herb, the miracle had wrought.
“But sure no herbs have power like this,” I cried,
And straight I pluck’d some neighbouring herbs and tried.
Scarce had I bit, and proved the wondrous taste,
When strong convulsions shook my troubled breast,
I felt my heart grow fond of something strange,
And my whole nature labouring with a change.
Restless I grew, and ev’ry place forsook,
And still upon the seas I bent my look.
“Farewell for ever! farewell, land!’ I said,
And plunged among the waves my sinking head.
The gentle powers, who that low empire keep,
Received me as a brother of the deep:
To Tethys, and to Ocean old they pray
To purge my mortal earthy parts away.
The watery parents to their suit agreed,
And thrice nine times a secret charm they read,
Then with lustrations purify my limbs,
And bid me bathe beneath a hundred streams:
A hundred streams from various fountains run,
And on my head at once come rushing down.
Thus far each passage I remember well,
And faithfully thus far the tale I tell;
But then oblivion dark on all my senses fell.
Again, at length, my thoughts reviving came,
When I no longer found myself the same;
Then first this sea-green beard I felt to grow,
And these large honours on my spreading brow,
My long descending locks the billows sweep,
And my broad shoulders cleave the yielding deep;
My fishy tail, my arms of azure hue,
And every part divinely changed, I view.
But what avails these useless honours now?
What joys can immortality bestow?
What, though our Nereids all my form approve?
What boots it, while fair Scylla scorns my love?”
Thus far the god; and more he would have said;
When from his presence flew the ruthless maid.
Stung with repulse, in such disdainful sort,
He seeks Titanian Circe’s horrid court.
Book XIV
Transformation of Scylla
The goddess Circe, becoming enamoured of Glaucus, and finding his preference for Scylla, revenges herself on her unhappy rival by a hideous transformation—This sudden metamorphosis so terrifies her, that she throws herself into that part of the sea which separates the coasts of Italy and Sicily, where she is changed into dangerous rocks, which still bear her name.
Now Glaucus, with a lover’s haste, bounds o’er
The swelling waves, and seeks the Latian shore:
Messena, Rhegium, and the barren coast
Of flaming Aetna, to his sight are lost:
At length he gains the Tyrrhene seas, and views
The hills where baneful filters Circe brews;
Monsters in various forms around her press;
And thus the god salutes the sorceress:
“Oh Circe, be indulgent to my grief,
And give a lovesick deity relief.
Too well the mighty power of plants I know,
To those my figure and new fate I owe.
Against Messena, on the Ausonian coast,
I Scylla view’d, and from that hour was lost.
In tenderest sounds I sued; but still the fair
Was deaf to vows, and pitiless to prayer.
If numbers can avail, exert their power;
Or energy of plants, if plants have more.
I ask no cure; let but the virgin pine
With dying pangs, or agonies, like mine.”
No longer Circe could her flame disguise,
But to the suppliant god marine replies:
“When maids are coy, have manlier aims in view;
Leave those that fly, but those that like pursue.
If love can be by kind compliance won,
See, at your feet, the daughter of the sun.”
“Sooner,” said Glaucus, “shall the ash remove
From mountains, and the swelling surges love,
Or humble seaweed to the hills repair,
Ere I think any but my Scylla fair.”
Straight Circe reddens with a guilty shame,
And vows revenge for her rejected flame.
Fierce liking oft a spite as fierce creates;
For love refused, without aversion, hates.
To hurt her hapless rival she proceeds,
And, by the fall of Scylla, Glaucus bleeds.
Some fascinating beverage now she brews,
Composed of deadly drugs, and baneful juice.
At Rhegium she arrives; the ocean braves,
And treads with unwet feet the boiling waves.
Upon the beach a winding bay there lies,
Shelter’d from seas, and shaded from the skies:
This station Scylla chose; a soft retreat
From chilling winds, and raging Cancer’s heat.
The vengeful sorceress visits this recess;
Her charm infuses, and infects the place.
Soon as the nymph wades in, her nether parts
Turn into dogs, then at herself she starts;
A ghastly horror in her eyes appears,
But yet she knows not who it is she fears:
In vain she offers from herself to run,
And drags about her what she strives to shun.
Oppress’d with grief the pitying god appears,
And swells the rising surges with his tears;
From the detested sorceress he flies;
Her art reviles, and her address denies;
While hapless Scylla, changed to rocks, decrees
Destruction to those barks that beat the seas.
Voyage of Aeneas Continued
After being detained at Carthage, Aeneas at length arrives on the coast of Naples.
Here bulged the pride of famed Ulysses’ fleet,
But good Aeneas ’scaped the fate he met.
As to the Latian shore
