While I the motion of the winds explored;
Then summon’d in my crew and went aboard.
Opheltes heard my summons, and with joy
Brought to the shore a soft and lovely boy,
With more than female sweetness in his look,
Whom straggling in the neighb’ring fields he took.
With fumes of wine the little captive glows,
And nods with sleep, and staggers as he goes.
“I view’d him nicely, and began to trace
Each heavenly frature, each immortal grace,
And saw divinity in all his face:
‘I know not who,’ said I, ‘this god should be,
But that he is a god I plainly see.
And thou, whoe’er thou art, excuse the force
These men have used; and O befriend our course!’
‘Pray not for us,’ the nimble Dictys cried,
Dictys, that could the main-topmast bestride,
And down the ropes with active vigour slide.
To the same purpose old Epopeus spoke,
Who overlook’d the oars, and timed the stroke:
The same the pilot, and the same the rest,
Such impious avarice their souls possess’d.
‘Nay, Heaven forbid that I should bear away
Within my vessel so divine a prey,’
Said I; and stood to hinder their intent,
When Lycabas, a wretch for murder sent
From Tuscany, to suffer banishment,
With his clinch’d fist had struck me overboard,
Had not my hands in falling grasp’d a cord.
“His base confederates the fact approve,
When Bacchus (for ’twas he) began to move,
Waked by the noise and clamours which they raised,
And shook his drowsy limbs, and round him gazed:
‘What means this noise?’ he cries, ‘am I betray’d?
Ah! whither, whither must I be convey’d?’
‘Fear not,’ said Proteus, ‘child, but tell us where
You wish to land, and trust our friendly care.’
‘To Naxos then direct your course,’ said he,
‘Naxos a hospitable port shall be
To each of you, a joyful home to me.’
By every god that rules the sea or sky,
The perjured villains promise to comply,
And bid me hasten to unmoor the ship.
With eager joy I launch into the deep;
And, heedless of the fraud, for Naxos stand.
They whisper oft, and beckon with the hand,
And give me signs, all anxious for their prey,
To tack about and steer another way.
‘Then let some other to my post succeed,’
Said I, ‘I’m guiltless of so foul a deed.’
‘What!’ says Ethalion, ‘must the ship’s whole crew
Follow your humour, and depend on you?’
And straight himself he seated at the prore,
And tack’d about and sought another shore.
“The beauteous youth now found himself betray’d,
And from the deck the rising waves survey’d,
And seem’d to weep, and as he wept he said:
‘And do you thus my easy faith beguile?
Thus do ye bear me to my native isle?
Will such a multitude of men employ
Their strength against a weak, defenceless boy?’
“In vain did I the godlike youth deplore,
The more I begg’d, they thwarted me the more.
And now by all the gods in heaven, that hear
This solemn oath, by Bacchus’ self I swear,
The mighty miracle that did ensue,
Although it seems beyond belief, is true.
The vessel, fix’d and rooted in the flood,
Unmoved by all the beating billows, stood.
In vain the mariners would plough the main
With sails unfurl’d, and strike their oars in vain;
Around their oars a twining ivy cleaves,
And climbs the mast, and hides the cords in leaves:
The sails are cover’d with a cheerful green,
And berries in the fruitful canvass seen.
Amid the waves a sudden forest rears
Its verdant head, and a new spring appears.
“The god we now behold with open’d eyes;
A herd of spotted panthers round him lies
In glaring forms, the grapy clusters spread
On his fair brows, and dangle on his head.
And while he frowns and brandishes his spear,
My mates, surprised with madness or with fear,
Leap’d overboard; first perjur’d Madon found
Rough scales and fins his stiff’ning sides surround.
“ ’Ah! what,’ cries one, ‘has thus transform’d thy look?’
Straight his own mouth grew wider as he spoke:
And now himself he views with like surprise.
Still at his oar the industrious Libys plies;
But, as he plies, each busy arm shrinks in,
And by degrees is fashion’d to a fin.
Another, as he catches at a cord,
Misses his arms, and, tumbling overboard,
With his broad fins and forky tail he laves
The rising surge, and flounces in the waves.
Thus all my crew transform’d around the ship,
Or dive below, or on the surface leap,
And spout the waves, and wanton in the deep.
Full nineteen sailors did the ship convey,
A shoal of nineteen dolphins round her play.
I only in my proper shape appear,
Speechless with wonder, and half dead with fear,
Till Bacchus kindly bid me fear no more.
With him I landed on the Chian shore,
And him shall ever gratefully adore.”
“This forging slave,” says Pentheus, “would prevail
O’er our just fury by a far-fetch’d tale:
Go; let him feel the whips, the swords, the fire,
And in the tortures of the rack expire.”
The officious servants hurry him away,
And the poor captive in a dungeon lay.
But, while the whips and tortures are prepared,
The gates fly open, of themselves unbarr’d;
At liberty the unfetter’d captive stands,
And flings the loosen’d shackles from his hands.
Death of Pentheus
Pentheus is punished for his impiety by being torn in pieces by his mother and aunts, while under the influence of Bacchus.
But Pentheus, grown more furious than before,
Resolved to send his messengers no more,
But went himself to the distracted throng,
Where high Cithaeron echo’d with their song.
And as the fiery warhorse paws the ground,
And snorts and trembles at the trumpet’s sound,
Transported thus he heard the frantic rout,
And raved and madden’d at the distant shout.
A spacious circuit on the hill there stood,
Level and wide, and skirted round with wood;
Here the rash Pentheus, with unhallow’d eyes,
The howling dames and mystic orgies spies.
His mother sternly view’d him where he stood,
And kindled into madness as she view’d:
Her leafy javelin at her son she cast,
And cries, “The boar that lays our country waste!
The boar, my sisters! Aim the fatal dart,
And strike the brindled monster to the heart.”
Pentheus astonish’d heard the dismal sound,
And sees the yelling matrons gathering round;
He sees, and weeps at his approaching fate,
And begs for mercy, and repents too late.
“Help! help! my aunt Autonoe,” he cried,
“Remember how your own Actaeon died.”
Deaf to his cries, the frantic matron crops
One stretch’d-out arm, the other Ino lops.
In vain does Pentheus to his mother sue,
And the raw bleeding stumps present
