Sprung to the seat, and posted through the air;
Nor stopp’d till she to a bleak mountain came
Of wondrous height, and Caucasus its name.
There in a stony field the fiend she found,
Herbs gnawing, and roots scratching from the ground.
Her elf-lock hair in matted tresses grew,
Sunk were her eyes, and pale her ghastly hue;
Wan were her lips, and foul with clammy glue,
Her throat was furr’d, her entrails seen within
With snaky crawlings through her parchment skin.
Her jutting hips seem’d starting from their place,
And for a stomach’s was a belly’s space.
Her joints protuberant by leanness grown,
Consumption sunk the flesh, and raised the bone.
Her knees’ large orbits bunch’d to monstrous size,
And ankles to undue proportion rise.
This plague the nymph, not daring to draw near,
At distance hail’d, and greeted from afar;
And though she told her charge without delay,
Though her arrival late, and short her stay,
She felt keen famine, or she seem’d to feel,
Invade her blood, and on her vitals steal.
She turn’d, from the infection to remove,
And back to Thessaly the serpents drove.
The fiend obey’d the goddess’s command
(Though their effects in opposition stand),
She cut her way, supported by the wind,
And reach’d the mansion by the nymph assign’d.
’Twas night, when, entering Erisichthon’s room,
Dissolv’d in sleep, and thoughtless of his doom,
She clasp’d his limbs, by impious labour tired,
With battish wings, but her whole self inspired;
Breathed on his throat and chest a tainting blast,
And in his veins infused an endless fast.
The task despatch’d, away the fury flies
From plenteous regions, and from ripening skies;
To her old barren north she wings her speed,
And cottages distress’d with pinching need.
Still slumbers Erisichthon’s senses drown,
And sooth his fancy with their softest down.
He dreams of viands delicate to eat,
And revels on imaginary meat.
Chews with his working mouth, but chews in vain,
And tires his grinding teeth with fruitless pain;
Deludes his throat with visionary fare,
Feasts on the wind, and banquets on the air.
The morning came, the night and slumbers pass’d,
But still the furious pangs of hunger last;
The cank’rous rage still gnaws with griping pains,
Stings in his throat, and in his bowels reigns.
Straight he requires, impatient in demand,
Provisions from the air, the seas, the land.
But though the land, air, seas, provisions grant,
Starves at full tables, and complains of want.
What to a people might in dole be paid,
Or victual cities for a long blockade,
Could not one wolfish appetite assuage;
For glutting nourishment increased its rage.
As rivers pour’d from every distant shore
The sea insatiate drinks, and thirsts for more,
Or as the fire, which all materials burns,
And wasted forests into ashes turns,
Grows more voracious as the more it preys,
Recruits dilate the flame, and spread the blaze,
So impious Erisichthon’s hunger raves,
Receives refreshments, and refreshments craves.
Food raises a desire for food, and meat
Is but a new provocative to eat.
He grows more empty, as the more supplied,
And endless cramming but extends the void.
Transformations of Erisichthon’s Daughter
Metra, the daughter of Erisichthon, uses her powers of transformation for the support of her father, who at last devours his own flesh for want of food.
Now riches hoarded by paternal care
Were sunk, the glutton swallowing up the heir.
Yet the devouring flame no stores abate,
Nor less the hunger grew with his estate.
One daughter left, as left his keen desire,
A daughter worthy of a better sire:
Her too he sold, spent nature to sustain;
She scorn’d a lord with generous disdain,
And flying, spread her hands upon the main.
The god was moved at what the fair had sued,
When she so lately by her master view’d
In her known figure, on a sudden took
A fisher’s habit, and a manly look.
To whom her owner hasted to inquire:
“O thou,” said he, “whose baits hide treacherous wire;
Whose art can manage, and experienced skill
The taper angle, and the bobbing quill,
So may the sea be ruffled with no storm,
But smooth with calms, as you the truth inform;
So your deceit may no shy fishes feel,
Till struck, and fasten’d on the bearded steel.
Did not you standing view upon the strand
A wandering maid? I’m sure I saw her stand,
Her hair disorder’d, and her homely dress
Betray’d her want, and witness’d her distress.”
“Me heedless,” she replied, “whoe’er you are,
Excuse, attentive to another care.
I settled on the deep my steady eye,
Fix’d on my float, and bent on my employ:
And that you may not doubt what I impart,
So may the ocean’s god assist my art,
If on the beach since I my sport pursued,
Or man or woman, but myself, I view’d.”
Back o’er the sands, deluded, he withdrew,
While she for her old form put off her new.
Her sire her shifting power to change perceived,
And various chapmen by her sale deceived.
A fowl with spangled plumes, a brinded steer,
Sometimes a crested mare, or antler’d deer:
Sold for a price, she parted, to maintain
Her starving parent with dishonest gain.
At last all means, as all provisions, fail’d;
For the disease by remedies prevail’d;
His muscles with a furious bite he tore,
Gorged his own tatter’d flesh, and gulf’d his gore.
Wounds were his feast, his life to life a prey,
Supporting nature by its own decay.
“But foreign stories why should I relate?
I too myself can to new forms translate;
Though the variety’s not unconfined,
But fix’d in number, and restrain’d in kind:
For often I this present shape retain,
Oft curl a snake the volumes of my train.
Sometimes my strength into my horns transferr’d,
A bull I march, the captain of the herd.
But while I once those goring weapons wore,
Vast wresting force one from my forehead tore,
Lo, my maim’d brows the injury still own.”
He ceased; his words concluding with a groan.
Book IX
Story of Achelous and Hercules
Achelous relates to Theseus the contest between himself and Hercules for the hand of Dejanira, who becomes the wife of the latter.
Theseus requests the god to tell his woes,
Whence his maim’d brow, and whence his groans arose:
When thus the Calydonian stream replied,
With twining reeds his careless tresses tied:
“Ungrateful is the tale, for who can bear,
When conquer’d, to rehearse the shameful war?
Yet I’ll the melancholy story trace;
So great a conqueror softens the disgrace:
Nor was it still so mean the prize to yield,
As great and glorious to dispute the field.
“Perhaps you’ve heard of Dejanira’s name,
For all the
