From hence to Athens she directs her flight,
Where Phineus, so renown’d for doing right,
Where Periphas, and Polyphemon’s niece,
Soaring with sudden plumes, amazed the towns of Greece.
Here Aegeus so engaging she address’d,
That first he treats her like a royal guest,
Then takes the sorc’ress for his wedded wife;
The only blemish of his prudent life.
Meanwhile his son, from actions of renown,
Arrives at court, but to his sire unknown.
Medea, to despatch a dangerous heir,
(She knew him) did a pois’nous draught prepare:
Drawn from a drug, was long reserved in store
For desperate uses, from the Scythian shore;
That from the Echydnaean monster’s jaws
Derived its origin, and this the cause:—
Through a dark cave a craggy passage lies,
To ours ascending from the nether skies,
Through which, by strength of hand, Alcides drew
Chain’d Cerberus, who lagg’d, and restiff grew,
With his blear’d eyes our brighter day to view.
Thrice he repeated his enormous yell,
With which he scares the ghosts and startles hell;
At last outrageous (though compell’d to yield),
He sheds his foam in fury on the field,
Which, with its own, and rankness of the ground,
Produced a weed, by sorcerers renown’d,
The strongest constitution to confound,
Call’d aconite, because it can unlock
All bars, and force its passage through a rock.
The pious father, by her wheedles won,
Presents this deadly potion to his son,
Who with the same assurance takes the cup,
And to the monarch’s health had drunk it up:
But in the very instant he applied
The goblet to his lips, old Aegeus spied
The iv’ry-hilted sword that graced his side.
That certain signal of his son he knew,
And snatch’d the bowl away; the sword he drew;
Resolved, for such a son’s endanger’d life,
To sacrifice the most perfidious wife.
Revenge is swift; but her more active charms
A whirlwind raised, that snatch’d her from his arms;
While conjured clouds their baffled sense surprise,
She vanishes from their deluded eyes,
And through the hurricane triumphant flies.
The gen’rous king, although o’erjoy’d to find
His son was safe, yet, bearing still in mind
The mischief by his treach’rous queen design’d,
The horror of the deed, and then how near
The danger drew, lie stands congeal’d with fear.
But soon that fear into devotion turns;
With grateful incense ev’ry altar burns;
Proud victims, and unconscious of their fate,
Stalk to the temple, there to die in state.
In Athens never had a day been found,
For mirth, like that grand festival renown’d.
Promiscuously the peers and people dine,
Promiscuously their thankful voices join
In songs of wit, sublimed by sprightly wine:
To list’ning spheres their joint applause they raise,
And thus resound their matchless Theseus’ praise:
Great Theseus! thee the Marathonian plain
Admires, and wears with pride the noble stain
Of the dire monster’s blood by valiant Theseus slain:
That now Cromyon’s swains in safety sow
And reap their fertile field, to thee they owe:
By thee the infested Epidaurian coast
Was clear’d, and now can a free commerce boast:
The traveller his journey can pursue,
With pleasure the late dreadful valley view,
And cry, “Here Theseus the grand robber slew:
Cephisus’ flood cries to his rescued shore;
The merciless Procrustes is no more:
In peace, Eleusis, Ceres’ rites renew,
Since Theseus’ sword the fierce Cercyon slew;
By him the torturer Sinis was destroy’d,
Of strength (but strength to barb’rous use employ’d)
That tops of tallest pines to earth could bend,
And thus in pieces wretched captives rend:
Inhuman Scyron now has breathed his last,
And now Alcatho’s roads securely pass’d;
By Theseus slain, and thrown into the deep;
But earth nor sea his scatter’d bones would keep,
Which, after floating long, a rock became,
Still infamous with Scyron’s hated name.
When Fame to count thy acts and years proceeds,
Thy years appear but ciphers to thy deeds.
For thee, brave youth, as for our commonwealth,
We pray, and drink, in yours, the public health:
Your praise the senate and plebeians sing;
With your loved name the court and cottage ring:
You make our shepherds and our sailors glad;
And not a house in this vast city’s sad.”
But mortal bliss will never come sincere:
Pleasure may lead, but grief brings up the rear:
While, for his son’s arrival, rev’lling joy
Aegeus and all his subjects does employ;
While they for only costly feasts prepare,
His neighb’ring monarch, Minos, threatens war:
Weak in land forces, nor by sea more strong,
But powerful in a deep-resented wrong;
For a son’s murder, arm’d with pious rage:
Yet prudently, before he would engage,
To raise auxiliaries resolved to sail,
And with the powerful princes to prevail.
First Anaphe, then proud Astypalaea gains,
By presents that, and this by threats, obtains:
Low Mycone; Cymolus, chalky soil;
Tall Cythnos; Scyros; flat Seriphos’ isle;
Paros, with marble cliffs afar display’d;
Impregnable Sithonia, yet betray’d
To a weak foe, by a gold-admiring maid,
Who, changed into a daw of sable hue,
Still hoards up gold, and hides it from the view.
But as these islands cheerfully combine,
Others refuse to embark in his design.
Now leftward, with an easy, sail, he bore,
And prosperous passage, to Oenopia’s shore;
Oenopia once, but now Aegina call’d,
And with his royal mother’s name install’d
By Aeacus, under whose reign did spring
The Myrmidons, and now their reigning king.
Down to the port, amid the rabble, run
The princes of the blood; with Telamon,
Peleus, the next, and Phocus, the third son.
Then Aeacus, although oppress’d with years,
To ask the cause of their approach appears.
That question does the Gnossian’s grief renew,
And sighs from his afflicted bosom drew;
Yet, after a short solemn respite made,
The river of the hundred cities said:
“Assist our arms, raised for a murder’d son;
In this religious war no risk you’ll run
Revenge the dead; for who refuse to give
Rest to their urns, unworthy are to live.”
“What you request,” thus Aeacus replies,
“Not I, but truth and common faith denies:
Athens and we have long been sworn allies:
Our leagues are fix’d, confed’rate are our powers,
And who declare themselves their foes, are ours.”
Minos rejoins: “Your league shall dearly cost;”
Yet (mindful how much safer ’twas to boast,
Than there to waste his forces and his fame,
Before in field with his grand foe he came)
Parts without blows; nor long had left the shore,
Ere into port another navy bore,
With Cephalus, and all his jolly crew:
The Aeacides their old acquaintance knew.
The princes bid him welcome, and in state
Conduct the hero to their palace gate,
Who, ent’ring, seem’d
