In the cool rivulet my feet I dipp’d,
Then waded to the knee, and then I stripp’d:
My robe I careless on an osier threw,
That near the place commodiously grew;
Nor long upon the border naked stood,
But plunged with speed into the silver flood:
My arms a thousand ways I moved, and tried
To quicken, if I could, the lazy tide,
Where, while I play’d my swimming gambols o’er,
I heard a murm’ring voice, and frighted sprung to shore.
‘Oh! whither, Arethusa, dost thou fly?’
From the brook’s bottom did Alpheus cry.
Again I heard him, in a hollow tone:
‘Oh! whither, Arethusa, dost thou run?’
Naked I flew, nor could I stay to hide
My limbs; my robe was on the other side:
Alpheus follow’d fast; the inflaming sight
Quicken’d his speed, and made his labour light:
He sees me ready for his eager arms,
And with a greedy glance devours my charms.
As trembling doves from pressing danger fly,
When the fierce hawk comes sousing from the sky,
And as fierce hawks the trembling doves pursue,
From him I fled, and after me he few.
First by Orchomenus I took my flight,
And soon had Psophis and Cyllene in sight;
Behind me then high Maenalus I lost,
And craggy Erimanthus, scaled with frost;
Elis was next: thus far the ground I trod,
With nimble feet, before the distanced god:
But here I lagg’d, unable to sustain
The labour longer, and my flight maintain;
While he, more strong, more patient of the toil,
And fired with hopes of beauty’s speedy spoil,
Gain’d my lost ground, and, by redoubled pace,
Now left between us but a narrow space.
Unwearied I till now o’er hills and plains,
O’er rocks and rivers, ran, and felt no pains;
The sun behind me and the god I kept;
But when I fastest should have run, I stepp’d.
Before my feet his shadow now appear’d;
As what I saw, or rather what I fear’d:
Yet there I could not be deceived by fear,
Who felt his breath pant on my braided hair,
And heard his sounding tread, and knew him to be near.
Tired and despairing, ‘O celestial maid,
I’m caught,’ I cried, ‘without thy heavenly aid;
Help me, Diana, help a nymph forlorn,
Devoted to the woods, who long has worn
Thy livery, and long thy quiver borne.’
The goddess heard; my pious prayer prevail’d;
In muffling clouds my virgin head was veil’d.
The am’rous god, deluded of his hopes,
Searches the gloom, and through the darkness gropes:
Twice where Diana did her servant hide
He came, and twice, ‘O Arethusa!’ cried.
How shaken was my soul, how sunk my heart!
The terror seized on every trembling part.
Thus when the wolf about the mountain prowls
For prey, the lambkin hears his horrid howls:
The tim’rous hare, the pack approaching nigh
Thus hearkens to the hounds, and trembles at the cry;
Nor dares she stir, for fear her scented breath
Direct the dogs, and guide the threaten’d death.
Alpheus in the cloud no traces found
To mark my way, yet stays to guard the ground.
The god so near, a chilly sweat possess’d
My fainting limbs, at every pore express’d;
My strength distill’d in drops, my hair in dew;
My form was changed, and all my substance new:
Each motion was a stream, and my whole frame
Turn’d to a fount, which still preserves my name.
Resolved I should not his embrace escape,
Again the god resumes his fluid shape;
To mix his streams with mine he fondly tries,
But still Diana his attempt denies:
She cleaves the ground; through caverns dark I run
A different current, while he keeps his own;
To dear Ortygia she conducts my way,
And here I first review the welcome day.”
Here Arethusa stopp’d; then Ceres takes
Her golden car, and yokes her fiery snakes;
With a rein, along mid-heaven she flies,
O’er earth and seas, and cuts the yielding skies:
She halls at Athens, dropping like a star,
And to Triptolemus resigns her car.
Parent of seed, she gave him fruitful grain,
And bade him teach to till and plough the plain;
The seed to sow, as well in fallow fields,
As where the soil manured a richer harvest yields.
Transformation of Lyncus
Triptolemus, whom Ceres commissions to teach mankind husbandry, arrives at the court of Lyncus, King of Scythia, who determines to assassinate his guest during sleep—The fatal weapon is already raised, when the monarch is suddenly changed into a lynx.
The youth o’er Europe and o’er Asia drives,
Till at the court of Lyncus he arrives:
The tyrant Scythia’s barb’rous empire sway’d;
And when he saw Triptolemus, he said:
“How camest thou, stranger, to our court, and why?
Thy country, and thy name?” The youth did thus reply:
“Triptolemus my name; my country’s known
O’er all the world, Minerva’s fav’rite town,
Athens, the first of cities in renown:
By land I neither walk’d, nor sail’d by sea,
But hither through the ether made my way;
By me the goddess who the fields befriends,
These gifts, the greatest of all blessings, sends;
The grain she gives if in your soil you sow,
Thence wholesome food in golden crops shall grow.”
Soon as the secret to the king was known,
He grudged the glory of the service done,
And wickedly resolved to make it all his own.
To hide his purpose, he invites his guest,
The friend of Ceres, to a royal feast,
And when sweet sleep his heavy eves had seized.
The tyrant with his steel attempts his breast:
Him straight a lynx’s shape the goddess gives,
And home the youth her sacred dragons drives.
The Pierides Transformed to Magpies
The Muses are unanimously pronounced victorious, and the daughters of Pierus are punished for their presumption by their transformation into magpies.
The chosen muse here ends her sacred lays:
The nymphs, unanimous, decree the bays,
And give the Heliconian goddesses the praise.
Then, far from vain that we should thus prevail.
But much provoked to hear the vanquish’d rail.
Calliope resumes: “Too long we’ve borne
Your daring taunts, and your affronting scorn:
Your challenge justly merited a curse,
And this unmanner’d railing makes it worse:
Since you refuse us calmly to enjoy
Our patience, next our passions we’ll employ,
The dictates of a mind enraged pursue,
And what our just resentment bids us, do.”
The railers laugh, our threats and wrath despise,
And clap their hands, and make a scolding noise:
But in the fact they’re seized: beneath their nails
Feathers they feel, and on their faces scales:
Their horny beaks at once each other scare;
Their arms are plumed, and on their backs they bear
Pied wings, and
