The power of utterance; she stood aghast;
She had nor speech, nor tears to give relief:
Excess of wo suppress’d the rising grief.
Lifeless as stone, on earth she fix’d her eyes,
And then look’d up to heaven with wild surprise.
Now she contemplates o’er with sad delight
Her son’s pale visage; then her aching sight
Dwells on his wounds: she varies thus by turns,
Till with collected rage at length she burns,
Wild as the mother lion, when among
The haunts of prey she seeks her ravish’d young.
Swift flies the ravisher; she marks his trace,
And by the print directs her anxious chase.
So Hecuba with mingled grief and rage
Pursues the king, regardless of her age.
She greets the murderer, with dissembled joy
Of secret treasure hoarded for her boy.
The specious tale the unwary king betray’d.
Fired with the hopes of prey, “Give quick,” he said,
With soft enticing speech, “the promised store:
Whate’er you give, you give to Polydore.
Your son, by the immortal gods I swear,
Shall this with all your former bounty share.”
She stands attentive to his soothing lies,
And darts avenging horror from her eyes;
Then full resentment fires her boiling blood:
She springs upon him, mid the captive crowd:
(Her thirst of vengeance want of strength supplies:)
Fastens her forky fingers in his eyes;
Tears out the rooted balls; her rage pursues,
And in the hollow orbs her hand imbrues.
The Thracians, fired at this inhuman scene,
With darts and stones assail the frantic queen.
She snarls and growls, nor in a human tone;
Then bites impatient at the bounding stone;
Extends her jaws, as she her voice would raise
To keen invectives in her wonted phrase;
But barks, and thence the yelping brute betrays.
Still a sad monument the place remains,
And from this monstrous change its name obtains:
Where she, in long remembrance of her ills,
With plaintive howlings the wide desert fills.
Greeks, Trojans, friends and foes, and gods above,
Her numerous wrongs to just compassion move.
Ev’n Juno’s self forgets her ancient hate,
And owns she had deserved a milder fate.
Funeral of Memnon
Memnon, the son of Aurora, is killed by Achilles at the siege of Troy—In honour of his memory, and in compliance with the prayers of his mother, Jupiter causes birds, called Memnonides, to spring from his ashes, who divide into two parties, and contend with mutual acrimony.
Yet bright Aurora, partial as she was
To Troy, and those that loved the Trojan cause,
Nor Troy nor Hecuba can now bemoan,
But weeps a sad misfortune, more her own.
Her offspring Memnon, by Achilles slain,
She saw extended on the Phrygian plain:
She saw, and straight the purple beams, that grace
The rosy morning, vanish’d from her face;
A deadly pale her wonted bloom invades,
And veils the lowering skies with mournful shades.
But when his limbs upon the pile were laid,
The last kind duty that by friends is paid,
His mother to the skies directs her flight,
Nor could sustain to view the doleful sight:
But frantic, with her loose neglected hair,
Hastens to Jove, and falls a suppliant there.
“Oh king of heaven, oh father of the skies,”
The weeping goddess passionately cries;
“Though I the meanest of immortals am,
And fewest temples celebrate my fame,
Yet still a goddess, I presume to come
Within the verge of your ethereal dome;
Yet still may plead some merit, if my light
“With purple dawn controls the powers of night;
If from a female hand that virtue springs,
Which to the gods and men such pleasure brings.
Yet I nor honours seek, nor rites divine,
Nor for more altars or more fanes repine;
Oh that such trifles were the only cause
From whence Aurora’s mind its anguish draws!
For Memnon lost, my dearest only child,
With weightier grief my heavy heart is fill’d;
My warrior son! that lived but half his time,
Nipp’d in the bud, and blasted in his prime;
Who for his uncle early took the field,
And by Achilles’ fatal spear was kill’d.
To whom but Jove should I for succour come?
For Jove alone could fix his cruel doom.
Oh sovereign of the gods, accept my prayer,
Grant my request, and soothe a mother’s care;
On the deceased some solemn boon bestow,
To expiate the loss, and ease my wo.”
Jove, with a nod, complied with her desire;
Around the body flamed the funeral fire;
The pile decreased, that lately seem’d so high,
And sheets of smoke roll’d upward to the sky:
As humid vapours from a marshy bog
Rise by degrees, condensing into fog,
That intercept the sun’s enlivening ray,
And with a cloud infect the cheerful day;
The sooty ashes wafted by the air,
Whirl round, and thicken in a body there;
Then take a form, which their own heat and fire,
With active life and energy inspire.
Its lightness makes it seem to fly, and soon
It skims on real wings, that are its own;
A real bird, it beats the breezy wind,
Mix’d with a thousand sisters of the kind,
That, from the same formation newly sprung,
Upborne aloft on plumy pinions hung.
Thrice round the pile advanced the circling throng;
Thrice, with their wings, a whizzing consort rung.
In the fourth flight their squadron they divide,
Rank’d in two different troops, on either side:
Then two and two, inspired with martial rage,
From either troop in equal pairs engage.
Each combatant with beak and pounces press’d,
In wrathful ire, his adversary’s breast;
Each falls a victim, to preserve the fame
Of that great hero whence their being came.
From him their courage and their name they take;
And, as they lived, they die for Memnon’s sake.
Punctual to time, with each revolving year,
In fresh array the champion birds appear;
Again, prepared with vengeful minds, they come
To bleed, in honour of the soldier’s tomb.
Therefore in others it appear’d not strange
To grieve for Hecuba’s unhappy change:
But poor Aurora had enough to do
With her own loss, to mind another’s wo;
Who still in tears her tender nature shows,
Besprinkling all the world with pearly dews.
Voyage of Aeneas
Aeneas, with his father Anchises, is hospitably entertained at Delos, by Anius the priest of Apollo—After visiting the island of Phaeacia, the hero at length arrives at the dangerous rocks of Scylla.
Troy thus destroy’d, ’twas still denied by fate,
The hopes of Troy should perish with the state.
His sire, the son of Cytherea bore,
And household gods from burning Ilium’s shore.
The pious prince (a double duty paid)
Each sacred burden through the flames convey’d.
With young Ascanius, and this only prize,
Of heaps of wealth,
