Her circling arms a scene of love inspire,
And ev’ry kiss foments the raging fire.
Fondly he wishes for the father’s place,
To feel, and to return, the warm embrace;
Since not the nearest ties of filial blood
Would damp his flame, and force him to be good.
At length, for both their sakes, the king agrees;
And Philomela, on her bended knees,
Thanks him for what her fancy calls success,
When cruel Fate intends her nothing less.
Now Phoebus, hast’ning to ambrosial rest,
His fiery steeds drove sloping down the west;
The sculptured gold with sparkling wines was fill’d,
And, with rich meats, each cheerful table smiled.
Plenty and mirth the royal banquet close,
Then all retire to sleep and sweet repose.
But the amorous monarch, though withdrawn apart,
Still feels love’s poison rankling in his heart:
Her face divine is stamp’d within his breast,
Fancy imagines, and improves the rest:
And thus, kept waking by intense desire,
He nourishes his own prevailing fire.
Next day the good old king for Tereus sends,
And to his charge the virgin recommends:
His hand with tears the indulgent father press’d,
Then spoke, and thus with tenderness address’d:
“Since the kind instances of pious love
Do all pretence of obstacle remove:
Since Procne’s, and her own, with your request,
O’errule the fears of a paternal breast,
With you, dear son, my daughter I entrust,
And, by the gods, adjure you to be just;
By truth, and ev’ry consanguineal tie,
To watch and guard her with a father’s eye;
And, since the least delay will tedious prove,
In keeping from my sight the child I love,
With speed return her, kindly to assuage
The tedious troubles of my ling’ring age.
And you, my Philomel, let it suffice,
To know your sister’s banish’d from my eyes;
If any sense of duty sways your mind,
Let me from you the shortest absence find.”
He wept; then kiss’d his child; and while he speaks,
The tears fall gently down his aged cheeks.
Next, as a pledge of fealty, he demands,
And, with a solemn charge, conjoins their hands;
Then to his daughter and his grandson sends,
And by their mouth a blessing recommends;
While, in a voice with dire forebodings broke.
Sobbing and faint, the last farewell was spoke.
Now Philomela, scarce received on board,
And in the royal gilded bark secured,
Beheld the dashes of the bending oar,
The ruffled sea, and the receding shore,
When straight (his joy impatient of disguise)
“We’ve gain’d our point,” the rough barbarian cries;
“Now I possess the dear, the blissful hour,
And ev’ry wish subjected to my power.”
As when the bold rapacious bird of Jove,
With crooked talons, stooping from above,
Has snatch’d, and carried to his lofty nest
A captive hare, with cruel gripes oppress’d,
Secure, with fix’d and unrelenting eyes,
He sits, and views the helpless, trembling prize.
Their vessels now had made the intended land.
And all with joy descend upon the strand,
When the false tyrant seized the princely maid,
And to a lodge in distant woods convey’d;
Pale, sinking, and distress’d with jealous fears,
And, asking for her sister, all in tears.
The monster, on his purpose fully bent,
No longer now delay’d his base intent.
Her piercing accents to her sire complain,
And to her absent sister, but in vain;
In vain she importunes, with doleful cries,
Each unattentive godhead of the skies.
She pants and trembles like the bleating prey,
From some close-hunted wolf just snatch’d away,
That still with fearful horror looks around,
And on its flank regards the bleeding wound:
Or, as the tim’rous dove, the danger o’er,
Beholds her shining plumes besmear’d with gore;
And though deliver’d from the falcon’s claw,
Yet shivers, and retains a secret awe.
But when her mind a calm reflection shared,
And all her scatter’d spirits were repaired,
Torn and disorder’d while her tresses hung,
Her livid hands, like one that mourn’d, she wrung,
Then thus, with grief o’erwhelmed her languid eyes:
“Savage, inhuman, cruel wretch!” she cries,
“Whom nor a parent’s strict commands could move,
Though charged and utter’d with the tears of love,
Nor virgin innocence, nor all that’s due
To the strong contract of the nuptial vow;
Virtue, by this, in wild confusion’s laid,
And I compelled to wrong my sister’s bed;
While you, regardless of your marriage oath,
With stains of incest have defiled us both.
Though I deserved some punishment to find,
This was, ye gods! too cruel and unkind.
Yet, villain, to complete your horrid guilt,
Stab here, and let my tainted blood be spilt.
O! happy, had it come before I knew
The cursed embrace of vile perfidious you;
Then, my pale ghost, pure from incestuous love,
Had wander’d spotless through the Elysian grove.
But, if the gods above have power to know,
And judge those actions that are done below,
Unless the dreaded thunders of the sky,
Like me, subdued, and violated lie,
Still my revenge shall take its proper time,
And suit the baseness of your hellish crime;
Myself abandon’d, and devoid of shame,
Through the wide world your actions will proclaim;
Or, though I’m prison’d in this lonely den,
Obscured and buried from the sight of men,
My mournful voice the pitying rocks shall move,
And my complainings echo through the grove.
Hear me, o Heaven! and, if a god be there,
Let him regard me, and accept my prayer.”
Struck with these words, the tyrant’s guilty breast
With fear and anger was by turns possess’d;
Now, with remorse his conscience deeply stung,
He drew the falchion that beside him hung,
And first her tender arms behind her bound,
Then dragg’d her by the hair along the ground.
The princess willingly her throat reclined,
And view’d the steel with a contented mind;
But soon her tongue the girding pincers strain,
With anguish, soon she feels the piercing pain:
“O father, father!” she would fain have spoke,
But the sharp torture her intention broke;
In vain she tries, for now the blade has cut
Her tongue sheer off, close to the trembling root;
The mangled part still quiver’d on the ground,
Murmuring with a faint, imperfect sound:
And, as a serpent writhes his wounded train,
Uneasy, panting, and possess’d with pain,
The piece, while life remain’d, still trembled fast,
And to its mistress pointed to the last.
The monarch ventures to his Procne’s sight;
Loaded with guilt, and cloyed with long delight;
There, with feign’d grief, and false dissembled sighs,
Begins a formal narrative of lies;
Her sister’s death he artfully declares,
Then weeps, and raises credit from his tears.
Her vest with flowers of gold embroider’d o’er,
With grief distress’d, the mournful matron tore,
And a beseeming suit of gloomy sable wore.
With cost, an honorary tomb she raised,
And thus the imaginary ghost appeased.
Deluded queen! the
