The depths profound through yielding waves he cleaves,
And to hell’s centre a free passage leaves;
Down sinks his chariot, and his realms of night
The god soon reaches with a rapid flight.
Cyane Dissolves to a Fountain
The nymph Cyane, bewailing the loss of Proserpine, is changed into a fountain.
But still does Cyane the rape bemoan,
And with the goddess’ wrongs laments her own:
For the stolen maid, and for her injured spring,
Time to her trouble no relief can bring;
In her sad heart a heavy load she bears,
Till the dumb sorrow turns her all to tears:
Her mingling waters with that fountain pass,
Of which she late immortal goddess was;
Her varied members to a fluid melt;
A pliant softness in her bones is felt;
Her wavy locks first drop away in dew,
And liquid next her slender fingers grew;
The body’s change soon seizes its extreme;
Her legs dissolve, and feet flow off in stream;
Her arms, her back, her shoulders, and her side,
Her swelling breasts, in little currents glide;
A silver liquor only now remains
Within the channel of her purple veins;
Nothing to fill love’s grasp: her husband chaste
Bathes in that bosom he before embraced.
Boy Transformed to an Eft
Overcome with fatigue, while in pursuit of her daughter, Ceres requests an old woman to supply her with a draught of water—A more generous liquor is hospitably afforded by the matron; and the goddess, while eagerly allaying her thirst, is derided by a boy, who is immediately transformer into an eft.
Thus while through all the earth and all the main,
Her daughter mournful Ceres sought in vain,
Aurora, when with dewy looks she rose,
Nor burnish’d Vesper found her in repose.
At Aetna’s flaming mouth two pitchy pines,
To light her in her search, at length she tines;
Restless, with these, through frosty night she goes,
Nor fears the cutting winds, nor heeds the snows;
And when the morning star the day renews,
From east to west her absent child pursues.
Thirsty at last by long fatigue she grows,
But meets no spring, no riv’let near her flows:
Then looking round, a lowly cottage spies,
Smoking among the trees, and thither hies.
The goddess knocking at the little door,
’Twas open’d by a woman old and poor,
Who, when she begg’d for water, gave her ale
Brew’d long, but well preserved from being stale.
The goddess drank: a chuffy lad was by,
Who saw the liquor with a grudging eye,
And grinning cries, “She’s greedy more than dry.”
Ceres, offended at his foul grimace,
Flung what she had not drunk into his face.
The sprinklings speckle where they hit the skin,
And a long tail does from his body spin;
His arms are turn’d to legs, and, lest his size
Should make him mischievous, and he might rise
Against mankind, diminutives his frame
Less than a lizard, but in shape the same.
Amazed the dame the wondrous sight beheld,
And weeps, and fain would touch her quondam child;
Yet her approach the affrighted vermin shuns,
And fast into the greatest crevice runs:
A name they gave him, which the spots express’d,
That rose like stars, and varied all his1 breast.
What lands, what seas, the goddess wander’d o’er,
Were long to tell; for there remain’d no more;
Searching all round, her fruitless toil she mourns,
And with regret to Sicily returns.
At length, where Cyane now flows she came,
Who could have told her, were she still the same
As when she saw her daughter sink to hell;
But what she knows she wants a tongue to tell;
Yet this plain signal manifestly gave;
The virgin’s girdle floating on a wave,
As late she dropp’d it from her slender waist,
When with her uncle through the deep she pass’d.
Ceres the token by her grief confess’d,
And tore her golden hair, and beat her breast:
She knows not on what land her curse should fall,
But, as ingrate, alike upbraids them all,
Unworthy of her gifts; Trinacria most,
Where the last steps she found of what she lost.
The plough for this the vengeful goddess broke,
And with one death the ox and owner struck.
In vain the fallow fields the peasant tills,
The seed, corrupted ere ’tis sown, she kills;
The fruitful soil, that once such harvests bore,
Now mocks the farmer’s care, and teems no more,
And the rich grain, which fills the furrow’d glade,
Rots in the seed, or shrivels in the blade;
Or too much sun burns up, or too much rain
Drowns, or black blights destroy the blasted plain;
Or greedy birds the new-sown seed devour;
Or darnel, thistles, and a crop impure
Of knotted grass, along the acres stand,
And spread their thriving roots through all the land.
Then from the waves soft Arethusa rears
Her head, and back she flings her dropping hairs.
“O mother of the maid, whom thou so far
Hast sought, of whom thou canst no tidings hear;
O thou,” she cried, “who art to life a friend,
Cease here thy search, and let thy labour end.
Thy faithful Sicily’s a guiltless clime,
And should not suffer for another’s crime;
She neither knew nor could prevent the deed:
Nor think that for my country thus I plead:
My country’s Pisa; I’m an alien here;
Yet these abodes to Elis I prefer;
No clime to me so sweet, no place so dear.
These springs I, Arethusa, now possess,
And this my seat, O gracious goddess, bless.
This island why I love, and why I cross’d
Such spacious seas to reach Ortygia’s coast,
To you I shall impart, when, void of care,
Your heart’s at ease, and you’re more fit to hear;
When on your brow no pressing sorrow sits;
For gay content alone such tales admits.
When through earth’s caverns I a while have roll’d
My waves, I rise, and here again behold
The long-lost stars; and, as I late did glide
Near Styx, Proserpina there I espied:
Fear still with grief might in her face be seen;
She still her loss laments: yet, made a queen,
Beneath those gloomy shades her sceptre sways;
And ev’n the infernal king her will obeys.”
This heard, the goddess like a statue stood,
Stupid with grief, and in that musing mood
Continued long; new cares a while suppress’d
The reigning powers of her immortal breast.
At last to Jove, her daughter’s sire, she flies,
And with her chariot cuts the crystal skies:
She comes in clouds, and with dishevell’d hair,
Standing before his throne, prefers her prayer:
“King of the gods, defend my blood and thine,
And use it
