And if you would on woman’s faith rely,
None can your choice direct so well as I.
Though old, so much Pomona I adore,
Scarce does the bright Vertumnus love her more.
’Tis your fair self alone his breast inspires
With softest wishes, and unsoil’d desires.
Then fly all vulgar followers, and prove
The god of seasons only worth your love:
On my assurance well you may repose;
Vertumnus scarce Vertumnus better knows.
True to his choice, all looser flames he flies;
Nor for new faces fashionably dies.
The charms of youth, and every smiling grace
Bloom in his features, and the god confess.
Besides, he puts on every shape at ease;
But those the most that best Pomona please.
Still to oblige her is her lover’s aim;
Their likings and aversions are the same.
Nor the fair fruit your burden’d branches bear,
Nor all the youthful product of the year,
Could bribe his choice; yourself alone can prove
A fit reward for so refined a love.
Relent, fair nymph, and with a kind, regret,
Think ’tis Vertumnus weeping at your feet.
A tale attend, through Cyprus known, to prove
How Venus once revenged neglected love.
Story of Iphis and Anaxarete
The disguised Vertumnus cautions his mistress from the indulgence of an unfeeling disregard to the sufferings of her lover by the example of Anaxarete, who is converted into a statue as a punishment for her pride—The god then resumes his natural shape, and Pomona renounces her prepossessions in favour of a single life.
“Iphis, of vulgar birth, by chance had view’d
Fair Anaxarete of Teucer’s blood.
Not long had he beheld the royal dame
Ere the bright sparkle kindled into flame.
Oft did he struggle with a just despair,
Unfix’d to ask, unable to forbear.
But love, who flatters still his own disease,
Hopes all things will succeed he knows will please
Where’er the fair one haunts, he hovers there,
And seeks her confidant with sighs, and prayer;
Or letters he conveys, that seldom prove
Successless messengers in suits of love.
“Now shivering at her gates the wretch appears,
And myrtle garlands on the columns rears,
Wet with a deluge of unbidden tears.
The nymph, more hard than rocks, more deaf than seas,
Derides his prayers, insults his agonies;
Arraigns of insolence the aspiring swain,
And takes a cruel pleasure in his pain.
Resolved at last to finish his despair,
He thus upbraids the inexorable fair:
“ ‘Oh, Anaxarete, at last forget
The license of a passion indiscreet.
Now triumph, since a welcome sacrifice
Your slave prepares to offer to your eyes.
My life, without reluctance, I resign;
That present best can please a pride like thine.
But, oh! forbear to blast a flame so bright,
Doom’d never to expire but with the light.
And you, great powers, do justice to my name;
The hours, you take from life, restore to fame.’
“Then o’er the posts, once hung with wreaths, he throws
The ready cord, and fits the fatal noose;
For death prepares; and bounding from above,
At once the wretch concludes his life and love.
“Ere long the people gather, and the dead
Is to his mourning mother’s arms convey’d.
First, like some ghastly statue she appears;
Then bathes the breathless corse in seas of tears,
And gives it to the pile; now as the throng
Proceed in sad solemnity along,
To view the passing pomp the cruel fair
Hastes, and beholds her breathless lover there.
Struck with the sight, inanimate she seems;
Set are her eyes, and motionless her limbs;
Her features without fire, her colour gone,
And, like her heart, she hardens into stone.
In Salamis the statue still is seen,
In the famed temple of the Cyprian queen.
Warn’d by this tale, no longer then disdain,
Oh, nymph beloved, to ease a lover’s pain.
So may the frosts in spring your blossoms spare,
And winds their rude autumnal rage forbear.”
The story oft Vertumnus urged in vain,
But then assumed his heavenly form again.
Such looks, and lustre the bright youth adorn,
As when with rays glad Phoebus paints the morn.
The sight so warms the fair admiring maid,
Like snow she melts: so soon can youth persuade.
Consent, on eager wings, succeeds desire;
And both the lovers glow with mutual fire.
Latian Line
Romulus, having restored his grandfather Numitor to the throne of which he had been unjustly dispossessed by his brother Amulius, at length succeeds to the crown.
Now Procas yielding to the fates, his son
Mild Numitor succeeded to the crown.
But false Amulius, with a lawless power,
At length deposed his brother Numitor.
Then Ilia’s valiant issue, with the sword,
Her parent re-enthroned, the rightful lord.
Next Romulus to people Rome contrives;
The joyous time of Pales’ feast arrives;
He gives the word to seize the Sabine wives.
The sires enraged take arms, by Tatius led,
Bold to revenge their violated bed.
A fort there was, not yet unknown to fame,
Call’d the Tarpeian, its commander’s name.
This by the false Tarpeia was betray’d,
But death well recompensed the treacherous maid.
The foe on this new-bought success relies,
And, silent, march, the city to surprise.
Saturnia’s arts with Sabine arms combine;
But Venus countermines the vain design;
Entreats the nymphs that o’er the springs preside,
Which near the fane of hoary Janus glide,
To send their succours; every urn they drain,
To stop the Sabines’ progress, but in vain.
The Naiads now more stratagems essay,
And kindling sulphur to each source convey.
The floods ferment, hot exhalations rise,
Till from the scalding ford the army flies.
Soon Romulus appears in shining arms,
And to the war the Roman legions warms:
The battle rages, and the field is spread
With nothing but the dying and the dead.
Both sides consent to treat without delay,
And their two chiefs at once the sceptre sway.
But Tatius by Lavinian fury slain,
Great Romulus continued long to reign.
Assumption of Romulus
The god Mars translates Romulus to the skies, where hew inrolled in the number of the gods under the name of Qurinus.
Now warrior Mars his burnish’d helm puts on,
And thus addresses heaven’s imperial throne:
“Since the inferior world is now become
One vassal globe, and colony to Rome,
This grace, oh Jove, for Romulus I claim,
Admit him to the skies, from whence he came.
Long hast thou promised an ethereal state
To Mars’s lineage; and thy word is fate.”
The sire, that rules the thunder with a nod,
Declared the fiat, and dismiss’d the god.
Soon as the power armipotent survey’d
The flashing skies, the signal he obey’d;
And leaning on his lance, he mounts his car,
His fiery coursers lashing through the air.
Mount Palatine he gains, and finds
