This said, the weeping youth again return’d
To the clear fountain, where again he burn’d.
His tears defaced the surface of the well,
With circle after circle as they fell;
And now the lovely face but half appears,
O’errun with wrinkles and deform’d with tears.
“Ah! whither,” cries Narcissus, “dost thou fly?
Let me still feed the flame by which I die;
Let me still see, though I’m no further bless’d.”
Then rends his garment off and beats his breast;
His naked bosom redden’d with the blow,
In such a blush as purple clusters show,
Ere yet the sun’s autumnal heats refine
Their sprightly juice, and mellow it to wine;
The glowing beauties of his breast he spies,
And with a new redoubled passion dies.
As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run
And trickle into drops before the sun,
So melts the youth, and languishes away,
His beauty withers, and his limbs decay,
And none of those attractive charms remain,
To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.
She saw him in his present misery,
Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see.
She answer’d sadly to the lover’s moan,
Sigh’d back his sighs, and groan’d to every groan.
“Ah youth! beloved in vain,” Narcissus cries;
“Ah youth! beloved in vain,” the nymph replies.
“Farewell,” says he; the parting sound scarce fell
From his faint lips, but she replied, “Farewell.”
Then on the unwholesome earth he gasping lies,
Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.
To the cold shades his fitting ghost retires,
And in the Stygian waves itself admires.
For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn;
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn:
When, looking for his corpse, they only found
A rising stalk with yellow blossoms crown’d.
Story of Pentheus
Pentheus, King of Thebes, refuses to acknowledge the divinity of Bacchus, and forbids his subjects to pay adoration to the new god, who, under the disguise of Acetes, is led in captivity to the presence of the monarch.
This sad event gave blind Tiresias fame,
Through Greece establish’d in a prophet’s name.
The unhallow’d Pentheus only durst deride
The cheated people and their eyeless guide.
To whom the prophet in his fury said,
Shaking the hoary honours of his head,
“ ’Twere well, presumptuous man, ’twere well for thee,
If thou wert eyeless too, and blind like me:
For the time comes, nay, ’tis already here,
When the young god’s solemnities appear,
Which, if thou dost not with just rites adorn,
Thy impious carcass, into pieces torn,
Shall strew the woods, and hang on every thorn.
Then, then remember what I now foretell,
And own the blind Tiresias saw too well.”
Still Pentheus scorns him, and derides his skill;
But time did all the prophet’s threats fulfil.
For now through prostrate Greece young Bacchus rode,
While howling matrons celebrate the god.
All ranks and sexes to his orgies ran,
To mingle in the pomps and fill the train,
When Pentheus thus his wicked rage express’d:
“What madness, Thebans, has your souls possess’d?
Can hollow timbrels, can a drunken shout,
And the lewd clamours of a beastly rout,
Thus quell your courage? Can the weak alarm
Of women’s yells those stubborn souls disarm,
Whom nor the sword nor trumpet e’er could fright,
Nor the loud din and horror of a fight?
And you, our sires, who left your old abodes,
And fix’d in foreign earth your country gods,
Will you without a stroke your city yield,
And poorly quit an undisputed field?
But you, whose youth and vigour should inspire
Heroic warmth, and kindle martial fire,
Whom burnish’d arms and crested helmets grace,
Not flowery garlands and a painted face;
Remember him to whom you stand allied;
The serpent for his well of waters died.
He fought the strong, do you his courage show,
And gain a conquest o’er a feeble foe.
If Thebes must fall, O might the Fates afford
A nobler doom from famine, fire, or sword;
Then might the Thebans perish with renown:
But now a beardless victor sacks the town,
Whom nor the prancing steed, nor ponderous shield,
Nor the hack’d helmet, nor the dusty field,
But the soft joys of luxury and ease,
The purple vests, and flowery garlands, please.
Stand then aside, I’ll make the counterfeit
Renounce his godhead, and confess the cheat.
Acrisius from the Grecian walls repell’d
This boasted power: why then should Pentheus yield?
Go quickly, drag the impostor boy to me,
I’ll try the force of his divinity.”
Thus did the audacious wretch those rites profane;
His friends dissuade the andacious wretch in vain,
In vain his grandsire urged him to give o’er
His impious threats, the wretch but raves the more.
So have I seen a river gently glide
In a smooth course and inoffensive tide,
But if with dams its current we restrain,
It bears down all, and foams along the plain.
But now his servants came, besmear’d with blood,
Sent by their haughty prince to seize the god;
The god they found not in the frantic throng,
But dragg’d a zealous votary along.
Mariners Transformed to Dolphins
Bacchus here personates Acoetes, the pilot of a ship which carried away the infant Bacchus from the Isle of Naxos—The crew were changed into sea monsters, but Acaetes was preserved.
Him Pentheus view’d with fury in his look,
And scarce withheld his hands while thus he spoke:
“Vile slave! whom speedy vengeance shall pursue,
And terrify thy base seditious crew,
Thy country and thy parentage reveal,
And why thou join’st in these mad orgies tell.”
The captive views him with undaunted eyes,
And, arm’d with inward innocence, replies:
“From high Maeonia’s rocky shores I came,
Of poor descent, Acoetes is my name.
My sire was meanly born; no oxen plough’d
His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures low’d;
His whole estate within the waters lay,
With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey;
His art was all his livelihood, which he
Thus with his dying lips bequeathed to me:
‘In streams, my boy, and rivers, take thy chance,
There swims,’ said he, ‘thy whole inheritance.’
Long did I live on this poor legacy,
Till, tired with rocks and my old native sky,
To arts of navigation I inclined,
Observed the turns and changes of the wind,
Learn’d the fit havens, and began to note
The stormy Hyades, the rainy Goat,
The bright Taygete, and the shining Bears,
With all the sailors’ catalogue of stars.
Once, as by chance for Delos I design’d,
My vessel, driven by a strong gust of wind,
Moor’d in a Chian creek; ashore I went,
And all the following night in Chios spent.
When morning rose, I sent my mates to bring
Supplies of water
