And, like the Sun, whose all-delighting ray
To those mild regions gives his purest day,
Diffuse thy bounties, let me instant fly;
In three short moons the generous task I’ll try,
Then swift returning, I’ll conduct my fair
Where realms submissive wait her fostering care.
And will my prince, my Capac, borne away
Through those dark wilds in quest of empire stray,
Where tigers fierce command the shuddering wood,
And men like tigers thirst for human blood?
Think’st thou no dangerous deed the course attends,
Alone, unaided by thy sire and friends?
Even chains and death may meet my hero there,
Nor his last groan could reach Oella’s ear.
But no! nor death nor chains shall Capac prove
Unknown to her, while she has power to rove.
Close by thy side, where’er thy wanderings stray,
My equal steps shall measure all the way;
With borrow’d soul each chance of fate I’ll dare,
Thy toils to lessen and thy dangers share.
Quick shall my ready hand two garments weave,
Whose sunny whiteness shall the tribes deceive;
Thus clad, their homage shall secure our sway
And hail us children of the god of day.
The lovely counsel pleased. The smiling chief
Approved her courage and dispell’d her grief;
Then to their homely bower in haste they move,
Begin their labors and prepare to rove.
Soon grow the robes beneath her forming care
And the fond parents wed the wondrous pair;
But whelm’d in grief beheld the following dawn,
Their joys all vanisht and their children gone.
Nine days they marcht; the tenth effulgent morn
Saw their white forms that sacred isle adorn.
The work begins; they preach to every band
The well-form’d fiction and their faith demand;
With various miracles their powers display,
To prove their lineage and confirm their sway.
They train to different arts the hand of toil,
To whirl the spindle and to spade the soil,
The Sun’s bright march with pious finger trace
And his pale sister with her changing face;
Show how their bounties clothe the labor’d plain,
The green maize shooting from its golden grain,
How the white cotton tree’s expanding lobes
File into threads, and swell to fleecy robes;
While the tamed llama aids the wondrous plan
And lends his garment to the loins of man.
The astonisht tribes believe, with glad surprise,
The gods descended from the favoring skies,
Adore their persons robed in shining white,
Receive their laws and leave each horrid rite,
Build with assisting hands the golden throne
And hail and bless the sceptre20 of the Sun.
Book III
Actions of the Inca Capac—A general invasion of his dominions threatened by the mountain savages—Rocha, the Inca’s son, sent with a few companions to offer terms of peace—His embassy—His adventure with the worshippers of the volcano—With those of the storm on the Andes—Falls in with the savage armies—Character and speech of Zamor, their chief—Capture of Rocha and his companions—Sacrifice of the latter—Death song of Azonto—War dance—March of the savage armies down the mountains to Peru—Incan army meets them—Battle joins—Peruvians terrified by an eclipse of the sun, and routed—They fly to Cusco—Grief of Oella, supposing the darkness to be occasioned by the death of Rocha—Sun appears—Peruvians from the city wall discover Rocha on an altar in the savage camp—They march in haste out of the city and engage the savages—Exploits of Capac—Death of Zamor—Recovery of Rocha and submission of the enemy.
Now twenty years these children of the skies
Beheld their gradual growing empire rise.
They ruled with rigid but with generous care,
Diffused their arts and sooth’d the rage of war,
Bade yon tall temple21 grace their favorite isle,
The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile,
Those broad foundations bend their arches high
And rear imperial Cusco to the sky;
Wealth, wisdom, force consolidate the reign
From the rude Andes to the western main.
But frequent inroads from the savage bands
Lead fire and slaughter o’er the labor’d lands;
They sack the temples, the gay fields deface
And vow destruction to the Incan race.
The king, undaunted in defensive war,
Repels their hordes and speeds their flight afar.
Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood
And rouse fresh tribes for future fields of blood.
Where yon blue ridges hang their cliffs on high
And suns infulminate the stormful sky,
The nations, temper’d to the turbid air,
Breathe deadly strife and sigh for battle’s blare;
’Tis here they meditate, with one vast blow,
To crush the race that rules the plains below.
Capac with caution views the dark design,
Learns from all points what hostile myriads join,
And seeks in time by proffer’d leagues to gain
A bloodless victory, and enlarge his reign.
His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
Resigns his charge22 within the temple wall;
In whom began, with reverend forms of awe,
The functions grave of priesthood and of law.
In early youth, ere yet the ripening sun
Had three short lustres o’er his childhood run,
The prince had learnt, beneath his father’s hand,
The well-framed code that sway’d the sacred land;
With rites mysterious served the Power divine,
Prepared the altar and adorn’d the shrine,
Responsive hail’d with still returning praise
Each circling season that the god displays,
Sooth’d with funereal hymns the parting dead,
At nuptial feasts the joyful chorus led;
While evening incense and the morning song
Rose from his hand or trembled on his tongue.
Thus form’d for empire ere he gain’d the sway,
To rule with reverence and with power obey,
Reflect the glories of the parent Sun
And shine the Capac of his future throne
Employ’d his docile years; till now from far
The rumor’d leagues proclaim approaching war;
Matured for active scenes he quits the shrine,
To aid in council or in arms to shine.
Amid the chieftains that the court compose,
In modest mien the stripling pontiff rose,
With reverence bow’d, conspicuous o’er the rest,
Approach’d the throne and thus the sire addrest:
Great king of nations, heaven-descended sage,
Thy second heir has reacht the destined age
To take these priestly robes; to his pure hand
I yield them pure and wait thy kind command.
Should foes invade, permit this arm to share
The toils, the triumphs, every chance of war;
For this dread conflict all our force demands,
In one wide field to whelm the brutal bands,
Pour to the mountain gods their wonted food
And save thy realms from future leagues of blood.
Yet oh, may sovereign mercy first ordain
Propounded compact to the savage train.
I’ll go with terms of peace to spread thy sway
And teach the blessings of the god of
