Bids him plough up the field, and scatter round
The dragon’s teeth o’er all the furrow’d ground;
Then tells the youth how to his wondering eyes
Embattled armies from the field shall rise.
He sows the teeth at Pallas’s command,
And flings the future people from his hand;
The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows,
And now the pointed spears advance in rows;
Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,
Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts;
O’er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,
A growing host, a crop of men and arms.
So through the parting stage a figure rears
Its body up, and limb by limb appears
By just degrees, till all the man arise,
And in his full proportion strikes the eyes.
Cadmus, surprised and startled at the sight
Of his new foes, prepared himself for fight;
When one cried out, “Forbear, fond man, forbear,
To mingle in a blind promiscuous war.”
This said, he struck his brother to the ground,
Himself expiring by another’s wound;
Nor did the third his conquest long survive,
Dying ere scarce he had begun to live.
The dire example ran through all the field,
Till heaps of brothers were by brothers kill’d;
The furrows swam in blood, and only five
Of all the vast increase were left alive.
Echion one, at Pallas’s command
Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand,
And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,
Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners takes.
So founds a city on the promised earth,
And gives his new Boeotian empire birth.
Here Cadmus reign’d; and now one would have guess’d
The royal founder in his exile bless’d:
Long did he live within his new abodes,
Allied by marriage to the deathless gods;
And in a fruitful wife’s embraces old,
A long increase of children’s children told:
But no frail man, however great or high,
Can be concluded bless’d before he die.
Actaeon was the first of all his race,
Who grieved his grandsire in his borrow’d face,
Condemn’d by stern Diana to bemoan
The branching horns and visage not his own;
To shun his once loved dogs, to bound away,
And from their huntsman to become their prey.
And yet consider why the change was wrought,
You’ll find it his misfortune, not his fault;
Or, if a fault, it was the fault of chance:
For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?
Transformation of Actaeon Into a Stag
Actaeon, in pursuing the amusements of the chase, sees Diana and her nymphs bathing near Gargaphia; for which he is changed into a stag by the angry goddess, and is devoured by his own dogs.
In a fair chase a shady mountain stood,
Well stored with game, and mark’d with trails of blood;
Here did the huntsmen, till the heat of day,
Pursue the stag, and load themselves with prey;
When thus Actaeon calling to the rest:
“My friends,” said he, “our sport is at the best,
The sun is high advanced, and downward sheds
His burning beams directly on our heads;
Then by consent abstain from further spoils,
Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils,
And ere to-morrow’s sun begins his race
Take the cool morning to renew the chase.”
They all consent, and in a cheerful train
The jolly huntsmen, laden with the slain,
Return in triumph from the sultry plain.
Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,
Refresh’d with gentle winds, and brown with shade,
The chaste Diana’s private haunt there stood,
Full in the centre of the darksome wood,
A spacious grotto, all around o’ergrown
With hoary moss, and arch’d with pumice-stone.
From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,
And trickling swell into a lake below.
Nature had everywhere so play’d her part,
That everywhere she seem’d to vie with art.
Here the bright goddess, toil’d and chafed with heat,
Was wont to bathe her in the cool retreat.
Here did she now with all her train resort,
Panting with heat, and breathless from the sport;
Her armour-bearer laid her bow aside,
Some loosed her sandals, some her veil untied;
Each busy nymph her proper part undress’d,
While Crocale, more handy than the rest,
Gather’d her flowing hair, and in a noose
Bound it together, while her own hung loose;
Five of the more ignoble sort, by turns,
Fetch up the water, and unlade the urns.
Now all undress’d the shining goddess stood,
When young Actaeon wilder’d in the wood,
To the cool grot by his hard fate betray’d,
The fountains fill’d with naked nymphs survey’d.
The frighted virgins shriek’d at the surprise
(The forest echo’d with their piercing cries),
Then in a huddle round their goddess press’d;
She, proudly eminent above the rest,
With blushes glow’d; such blushes as adorn
The ruddy welkin or the purple morn;
And though the crowding nymphs her body hide,
Half backward shrunk, and view’d him from aside.
Surprised, at first she would have snatch’d her bow,
But sees the circling waters round her flow;
These in the hollow of her hand she took,
And dash’d them in his face, while thus she spoke:
“Tell, if thou canst, the wondrous sight disclosed,
A goddess naked to thy view exposed.”
This said, the man began to disappear
By slow degrees, and ended in a deer.
A rising horn on either brow he wears,
And stretches out his neck, and pricks his ears;
Rough is his skin, with sudden hairs o’ergrown,
His bosom pants with fears before unknown;
Transform’d at length, he flies away in haste,
And wonders why he flies away so fast.
But, as by chance within a neighb’ring brook,
He saw his branching horns and alter’d look,
Wretched Actaeon! in a doleful tone
He tried to speak, but only gave a groan;
And as he wept, within the watery glass
He saw the big round drops, with silent pace,
Run trickling down a savage hairy face.
What should he do? Or seek his old abodes,
Or herd among the deer and skulk in woods?
Here shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails,
And each by turns his aching heart assails.
As he thus ponders, he behind him spies
His op’ning hounds, and now he hears their cries:
A gen’rous pack, or to maintain the chase,
Or snuff the vapour from the scented grass.
He bounded off with fear, and swiftly ran
O’er craggy mountains and the flow’ry plain,
Through brakes and thickets forced his way, and flew
Through many a ring where once he did pursue.
In vain he oft endeavour’d to proclaim
His new misfortune, and to tell his name;
Nor voice, nor words, the brutal tongue supplies,
From shouting men, and horns, and dogs, he flies,
Deafen’d and stunn’d with their promiscuous cries.
When now
