Boding and awful sounds the ear invade,
And solemn music warbles through the shade;
No victim can atone the impious age,
No sacrifice the wrathful gods assuage;
Dire wars and civil fury threat the state;
And every omen points out Caesar’s fate:
Around each hallow’d shrine, and sacred dome,
Night-howling dogs disturb the peaceful gloom;
Their silent seats the wandering shades forsake,
And fearful tremblings the rock’d city shake.
Yet could not, by these prodigies, be broke
The plotted charm, or stay’d the fatal stroke;
Their swords the assassins in the temple draw:
Their murdering hands nor gods nor temples awe;
This sacred place their bloody weapons stain,
And virtue falls, before the altar slain.
’Twas now fair Cypria, with her woes oppress’d,
In raging anguish smote her heavenly breast;
Wild with distracting fears, the goddess tried
Her hero in the ethereal cloud to hide;
The cloud, which youthful Paris did conceal,
When Menelaus urged the threat’ning steel;
The cloud, which once deceived Tydides’ sight,
And saved Aeneas in the unequal fight.
When Jove: “In vain, fair daughter, you essay
To o’errule destiny’s unconquer’d sway:
Your doubts to banish, enter fate’s abode;
A privilege to heavenly powers allow’d;
There you shall see the records graved, in length,
On iron and solid brass, with mighty strength;
Which heaven and earth’s concussion shall endure,
Maugre all shocks, eternal, and secure:
There, on perennial adamant design’d,
The various fortunes of your race you’ll find:
Well I have mark’d them, and will now relate
To thee the settled laws of future fate.
He, goddess, for whose death the fates you blame,
Has finish’d his determined course with fame:
To thee ’tis given at length, that he shall shine
Among the gods, and grace the worshipp’d shrine:
His son to all his greatness shall be heir,
And worthily succeed to empire’s care:
Ourself will lead his wars, resolved to aid
The brave avenger of his father’s shade:
To him its freedom Mutina shall owe,
And Decius his auspicious conduct know;
His dreadful powers shall shake Pharsalia’s plain,
And drench in gore Phillippi’s fields again:
A mighty leader, in Sicilia’s flood,
Great Pompey’s warlike son, shall be subdued;
Egypt’s soft queen, adorn’d with fatal charms,
Shall mourn her soldiers’ unsuccessful arms:
Too late shall find her swelling hopes were vain,
And know that Rome o’er Memphis still must reign:
What name I Afric, or Nile’s hidden head
For as both oceans roll, his power shall spread:
All the known earth to him shall homage pay,
And the seas own his universal sway:
When cruel war no more disturbs mankind,
To civil studies shall he bend his mind;
With equal justice guardian laws ordain,
And by his great example vice restrain:
Where will his bounty or his goodness end?
To times unborn his generous views extend;
The virtues of his heir our praise engage,
And promise blessings to the coming age:
Late shall he in his kindred orbs be placed,
With Pylian years, and crowded honours graced.
Meantime, your hero’s fleeting spirit bear,
Fresh from his wounds, and change it to a star:
So shall great Julius rites divine assume,
And from the skies eternal smile on Rome.”
This spoke, the goddess to the senate flew;
Where, her fair form conceal’d from mortal view,
Her Caesar’s heavenly part she made her care,
Nor left the recent soul to waste to air;
But bore it upward to its native skies:
Glowing with newborn fires she saw it rise;
Forth springing from her bosom up it flew,
And, kindling as it soar’d, a comet grew:
Above the lunar sphere it took its flight,
And shot behind it a long trail of light.
Reign of Augustus, in Which Ovid Flourished
The superiority of Augustus to his great predecessor is insisted on by the courteous poet.
Thus raised, his glorious offspring Julius view’d.
Beneficently great, and scattering good,
Deeds, that his own surpass’d, with joy beheld,
And his large heart dilates to be excell’d.
What though this prince refuses to receive
The preference, which his juster subjects give;
Fame uncontroll’d, that no restraint obeys,
The homage, shunn’d by modest virtue, pays,
And proves disloyal only in his praise.
Though great his sire, him greater we proclaim:
So Atreus yields to Agamemnon’s fame;
Achilles so superior honours won,
And Peleus must submit to Peleus’ son:
Examples yet more noble to disclose,
So Saturn was eclipsed, when Jove to empire rose:
Jove rules the heavens, the earth Augustus sways;
Each claims a monarch’s, and a father’s praise.
Celestials, who for Rome your cares employ;
Ye gods, who guarded the remains of Troy;
Ye native gods, here born, and fix’d by fate;
Quirinus, founder of the Roman state;
Oh parent Mars, from whom Quirinus sprung;
Chaste Vesta, Caesar’s household gods among
Most sacred held; domestic Phoebus, thou,
To whom with Vesta chaste alike we bow;
Great guardian of the high Tarpeian rock;
And all ye powers, whom poets may invoke;
Oh grant, that day may claim our sorrows late,
When loved Augustus shall submit to fate,
Visit those seats, where gods and heroes dwell,
And leave, in tears, the world he ruled so well!
The Poet Concludes
Ovid concludes with a rapturous anticipation of the renown which will follow the publication of this work.
The work is finish’d, which nor dreads the rage
Of tempests, fire, or war, or wasting age;
Come, soon or late, death’s undetermined day,
This mortal being only can decay;
My nobler part, my fame, shall reach the skies,
And to late times with blooming honours rise:
Whate’er the unbounded Roman power obeys,
All climes and nations shall record thy praise:
If ’tis allow’d to poets to divine.
One half of round eternity is mine.
Endnotes
Colophon
Metamorphoses
was completed in 8 AD by
Ovid.
It was translated from Latin in 1717 by
John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Laurence Eusden, Arthur Maynwaring, Samuel Croxall, Nahum Tate, William Stonestreet, Thomas Vernon, John Gay, Alexander Pope, Stephen Harvey, William Congreve, John Ozell, Temple Stanyan, Alexander Stopford Catcott, Nicholas Rowe, Samuel Garth, and Leonard Welsted.
This ebook was transcribed and produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney,
and is based on digital scans from the
HathiTrust Digital Library.
The cover page is adapted from
The Fall of Phaeton,
a painting completed in 1608 by
Sir Peter Paul
