Still at this puzzling answer, with surprise,
Around the room he sends his curious eyes;
And, as he still inquired, and call’d aloud,
Fierce Philomela, all besmeared with blood,
Her hands with murder stain’d, her spreading hair
Hanging dishevell’d, with a ghastly air
Stepp’d forth, and flung, full in the tyrant’s face,
The head of Itys, gory as it was:
Nor ever long’d so much to use her tongue,
And with a just reproach to vindicate her wrong.
The Thracian monarch from the table flings,
While with his cries the vaulted parlour rings:
His imprecations echo down to hell,
And rouse the snaky furies from their Stygian cell.
One while he labours to disgorge his breast,
And free his stomach from the cursed feast;
Then, weeping o’er his lamentable doom,
He styles himself his son’s sepulchral tomb.
Now, with drawn sabre and impetuous speed,
In close pursuit he drives Pandion’s breed,
Whose nimble feet spring with so swift a force
Across the fields, they seem to wing their course.
And now on real wings themselves they raise,
And steer their airy flight by different ways;
One to the woodland’s shady covert hies,
Around the smoky roof the other flies,
Whose feathers yet the marks of murder stain,
Where, stamp’d upon her breast, the crimson spots remain.
Tereus, through grief, and haste to be revenged,
Shares the like fate, and to a bird is changed:
Fix’d on his head the crested plumes appear,
Long is his beak, and sharpen’d like a spear:
Thus arm’d, his looks his inward mind display,
And, to a lapwing turn’d, he fans his way.
Exceeding trouble for his children’s fate,
Shorten’d Pandion’s days, and changed his date;
Down to the shades below, with sorrow spent,
An earlier, unexpected ghost he went.
Boreas in Love
Boreas is enamoured of the beautiful Orithyia, whom he carries off against her inclination—She afterward becomes the mother of Zethes and Calais, who accompany the Argonautic expedition.
Erechtheus next the Athenian sceptre sway’d
Whose rule the state with joint consent obey’d;
So mix’d his justice with his valour flow’d,
His reign one scene of princely goodness show’d.
Four hopeful youths, as many females bright,
Sprung from his loins, and sooth’d him with delight.
Two of these sisters, of a lovelier air,
Excell’d the rest, though all the rest were fair.
Procris to Cephalus in wedlock tied,
Bless’d the young sylvan with a blooming bride:
For Orithyia Boreas suffer’d pain;
For the coy maid sued long, but sued in vain;
Tereus, his neighbour, and his Thracian blood,
Against the match a main objection stood,
Which made his vows, and all his suppliant love,
Empty as air, and ineffectual, prove.
But when he found his soothing flatteries fail,
Nor saw his soft addresses could avail,
Blustering with ire, he quickly has recourse
To rougher arts, and his own native force.
“ ’Tis well,” he said; “such usage is my due,
When thus disguised by foreign ways I sue;
When my stern airs and fierceness I disclaim,
And sigh for love, ridiculously tame;
When soft addresses foolishly I try,
Nor my own stronger remedies apply.
By force and violence I chiefly live,
By them the low’ring stormy tempests drive,
In foaming billows raise the hoary deep,
Writhe knotted oaks, and sandy deserts sweep,
Congeal the falling flakes of fleecy snow,
And bruise with rattling hail the plain below.
I and my brother winds, when join’d above,
Through the waste champaign of the skies we rove,
With such a boisterous full career engage,
That heaven’s whole concave thunders at our rage.
While, struck from nitrous clouds, fierce lightnings play,
Dart through the storm, and gild the gloomy day:
Or when, in subterraneous caverns pent,
My breath against the hollow earth is bent,
The quaking world above, and ghosts below,
My mighty power, by dear experience, know,
Tremble with fear, and dread the fatal blow.
This is the only cure to be applied,
Thus to Erechtheus I should be allied;
And thus the scornful virgin should be woo’d,
Not by entreaty, but by force subdued.”
Boreas, in passion, spoke these huffing things,
And, as he spoke, he shook his dreadful wings,
At which, afar the shivering sea was fann’d,
And the wide surface of the distant land:
His dusty mantle o’er the hills he drew,
And swept the lowly valleys as he flew;
Then, with his yellow wings, embraced the maid,
And, wrapp’d in dusky clouds, far off convey’d.
The sparkling blaze of love’s prevailing fire
Shone brighter as he flew, and flamed the higher
And now the god, possess’d of his delight,
To northern Thrace pursued his airy flight.
Two lovely twins, the effect of this embrace,
Crown their soft labours, and their nuptials grace,
Who, like their mother, beautiful and fair,
Their father’s strength, and feather’d pinions, share:
Yet these at first were wanting, as ’tis said,
And after, as they grew, their shoulders spread.
Zethes and Calais, the pretty twins,
Remain’d unfledg’d, while smooth their beardless chins:
But when, in time, the budding silver down
Shaded their face, and on their cheeks was grown,
Two sprouting wings upon their shoulders sprung,
Like those in birds, that veil the callow young.
Then, as their age advanced, and they began
From greener youth to ripen into man,
With Jason’s Argonauts they cross’d the seas,
Embark’d in quest of the fam’d golden fleece;
There, with the rest, the first frail vessel tried,
And boldly ventured on the swelling tide.
Book VII
Story of Medea and Jason
Jason, at the command of the usurper Pelias, who compasses his destruction, arrives at Colchos, accompanied by the princes of Greece, and resolved to effect the recovery of the golden fleece—Medea, the daughter of the king, is captivated with his beauty, and convinced by his professions of unalterable attachment—By her knowledge of magic, she enables him to overcome all opposition, and sets sail with her lover for Greece, where they arrive in safety.
The Argonauts now stemm’d the foaming tide,
And to Arcadia’s shore their course applied;
Where sightless Phineus spent his age in grief,
But Boreas’ sons engage in his relief,
And those unwelcome guests, the odious race
Of harpies, from the monarch’s table chase.
With Jason, then, they greater toils sustain,
And Phasis’ slimy banks at last they gain.
Here boldly they demand the golden prize
Of Scythia’s king, who sternly thus replies:
“That mighty labours they must first o’ercome,
Or sail their Argo thence unfreighted home.”
Meanwhile Medea, seized with fierce desire,
By reason strives to quench the raging fire;
But strives in vain;—“Some god,” she said, “withstands,
And Reason’s baffled counsel countermands.
What unseen power does this disorder move?
’Tis love—at least ’tis like what
