For this, my brother of the watery reign
Releas'd th' impetuous sluices of the main :
But flames consum'd, and billows rag'd in vain.
Two races now, ally'd to Jove, offend:
To punish these, see Jove himself descend.
The Theban Kings their line from Cadmus trace,
From godlike Perseus those of Argive race,
Unhappy Cadmus' fate who does not know,
And the long series of succeeding woe?
How oft the Furies, from the deeps of night,
Arose, and mix'd with men in mortal fight:
Th' exulting mother, stain'd with filial blood;
The savage hunter, and the haunted wood?
The direful banquet why should I proclaim,
And crimes that grieve the trembling gods to name?
Ere I recount the sins of these prophane,
The Sun would sink into the western main,
And rising gild the radiant east again.
Have we not seen (the blood of Laius shed)
The murdering son ascend his parent's bed,
Through violated nature force his way,
And stain the sacred womb where once he lay?
Yet now in darkness and despair he groans,
And for the crimes of guilty fate attones;
His sons with scorn their eyeless father view,
Insult his wounds, and make them bleed anew,
Thy curse, oh Oedipus, just Heaven alarms,
And sets th' avenging Thunderer in arms.
I from the root thy guilty race will tear,
And give the nations to the waste of war.
Adrastus soon, with gods averse, shall join
In dire alliance with the Theban line:
Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed;
The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed:
Fix'd is their doom; this all-remembering breast
Yet harbours vengeance for the tyrant's feast."

He said; and thus the queen of Heaven return'd (With sudden grief her labouring bosom burn'd):

Nil actum est: neque tu valida quod cuspide late
Ire per illicitum pelago, germane, dedisti.
Nunc geminas punire domos, quis sanguinis autor
Ipse ego, descendo. Perseos alter in Argos'
Scinditur, Aonias fluit hic ab origine Thebas.
Mens cunctis impôsta manet. Quis funera Cadmi
Nesciat? et toties excitam a sedibus imis
Fumenidum bellasse acieni? mala gaudia matrum,
Erroresque feros nemorum, et reticenda deorum
Crimina? vix lucis spatio, vix noctis abactæ
Enumerare queam mores, gentemque profanam,
Scandere quinetiam thalamos hic impius hæres
Patris, et immeritæ gremium incestare parentis
Appetiit, proprios monstro revolutus in ortus.
Ille tamen Superis æterna piacula solvit,
Projecitque diem: nec jam amplius æthere nostro
Vescitur: at nati (facinus sine more!) cadenteş
Calcavere oculos. jam jam rata vota tulisti,
Dire senex; meruere tuæ, meruere tenebræ
Ultorem sperare Jovem. nova sontibus arma
Injiciam regnis, totumque a stirpe revellam
Exitiale genus. belli mihi semina sunto
Adrastus socer, et superis adjuncta sinistris
Connubia. Hanc etiam pœnis incessere gentem
Decretum; neque enim arcano de pectore fallax
Tantalus, et sævæ periit injuria mensæ.

Sic pater omnipotens. Ast illi saucia dictis,
Flammato versans inopinum corde dolorem,
Talia Juno refert: Mene, ô justissime divûm,
Me bello certare jubes? scis semper ut arces

"Must I, whose cares Phoroneus' towers defend,
Must I, oh Jove, in bloody wars contend?
Thou know'st those regions my protection claim,
Glorious in arms, in riches, and in fame :
Though there the fair Ægyptian heifer fed,
And there deluded Argus slept, and bled;
Though there the brazen tower was storm'd of old,
When Jove descended in almighty gold.
Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes,
Those bashful crimes disguis'd in borrow'd shapes;
But Thebes, where, shining in celestial charms,
Thou cam'st triumphant to a mortal's arms,
When all my glories o'er her limbs were spread,
And blazing lightnings danc'd around her bed;
Curs'd Thebes the vengeance it deserves may

prove

Ah, why should Argos feel the rage of Jove?
Yet, since thou wilt thy sister queen control,
Since still the lust of discord fires thy soul,
Go, raise my Samos, let Mycene fall,
And level with the dust the Spartan wall;
No more let mortals Juno's power invoke,
Her fanes no more with eastern incense smoke,
Nor victims sink beneath the sacred stroke;
But to your Isis all my rights transfer,
Let altars blaze and temples smoke for her;
For her, through Egypt's fruitful clime renown'd,
Let weeping Nilus hear the timbrel sound.
But if thou must reform the stubborn times,
Avenging on the sons the father's crimes,
And from the long records of distant age
Derive incitements to renew thy rage;
Say, from what period then has Jove design'd
To date his vengeance; to what bounds confin'd
Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides
His wandering stream, and through the briny tides
Unmix'd to his Sicilian river glides,

Cyclopum, magnique Phoroncos inclyta fama
Sceptra viris, opibusque juvem; licet improbus illic
Custodem Phariæ, somno letoque juvencæ
Extinguas, septis et turribus aureus intres.
Mentitis ignosco toris: illam odimus urbem,
Quam vultu confessus adis: ubi conscia magni
Signa tori, tonitrus agis, et mea fulmina torques,
Facta luant Thebe: cur hostes eligis Argos?
Quin age, si tanta est thalami discordia sancti,
Et Samon, et veteres armis exscinde Mycenas.
Verte solo Sparten. cur usquam sanguine festo.
Conjugis ara tuæ, cumulo cur thuris Eoi
Læta calet? melius votis Mareotica fumat
Coptos, et ærisoni lugentia flumina Nili.
Quod si prisca luunt autorum crimina gentes,
Subvenitque tuis sera hæc sententia curis ;
Percensere ævi senium, quo tempore tandem
Terrarum furias abolere, et secula retro
Emendare sat est? jamdudum ab sedibus illis
Incipe, fluctivaga qua præterlabitur unda
Sicanos longe relegens Alpheus amores.
Arcades hic tua (nec pudor est) delubra nefastis
Imposuere locis: illic Mavortius axis
Oenomai, Geticoque pecus stabulare sub Æmo
Dignius: abruptis etiamnum inhumata procorum
Relliquiis trunca ora rigent. tamen hic tibi templi
Gratus honos. placet Ida nocens, mentitaque
Creta tuos. me Tantaleis consistere tectis, [manes
Quæ tandem invidia est? belli deflecte tumultus,
Et geueris miseresce tui. sunt impia late
Regna tibi, melius generos passura nocentes

Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,
Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;
Who raise thy temples where the chariot stood
of fierce Oenomäus, defil'd with blood;
Where once his steeds their savage banquet found,
And human bones yet whiten all the ground.
Say, can those honours please? and canst thou
love

Presumptuous Crete, that boasts the tomb of
Jove!

And shall not Tantalus's kingdom share
Thy wife and sister's tutelary care?
Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,
Nor doom to war a race deriv'd from thee;
On impious realms and barbarous kings impose
Thy plagues, and curse them with such sons as
those."

Thus, in reproach and prayer, the queen express'd

The rage and grief contending in her breast;
Unmov'd remain'd the ruler of the sky,

And from his throne return'd this stern reply:
“'Twas thus I deem'd thy haughty soul would bear
The dire, though just, revenge which I prepare
Against a nation, thy peculiar care:
No less Dione might for Thebes contend,
Nor Bacchus less his native town defend;
Yet these in silence see the Fates fulfil
Their work, and reverence our superior will,
For, by the black infernal Styx I sware,
(That dreadful oath which binds the Thunderer)
'Tis fix'd; th' irrevocable doom of Jove;
No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
Haste then, Cyllenius, through the liquid air;
Go mount the winds, and to the shades repair;
Bid Hell's black monarch my commands obey,
And give up Laius to the realms of day,
Whose ghost, yet shivering on Cocytus' sand,
Expects its passage to the farther strand:
Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear
These pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear;
That from his exil'd brother, swell'd with pride
Of foreign forces, and his Argive bride,
Almighty Jove commands him to detain
The promis'd empire, and alternate reign:
Be this the cause of more than mortal hate:
The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into fate."

Finierat miscens precibus convicia Juno,

At non ille gravis, dictis, quanquam aspera, motus Reddidit hæc: Equidem haud rebar te mente secunda

Laturam, quodcunque tuos (licet æquis) in Argos
Consulerem, neque me (detur si copia) fallit
Multa super Thebis Bacchum, ausuramque Dionem
Dicere, sed nostri reverentia ponderis obstat,
Horrendos etenim latices, Stygia æquora fratris
Obtestor, mansurum et non revocabile verum,
Nil fore qui dictis flectar. quare impiger ales
Portantes præcedi Notos Cyllenia proles:
Aëra per liquidum, regnisque illapsus opacis
Dic patruo, superas senior se tollat ad auras
Laïus extinctum nati quem vulnere, nondum
Ulterior Lethes accepit ripa profundi

Lege Erebi: ferat hæc diro mea jussa nepoti ;
Germanum exilio fretum, Argolicisque tumentem
Hospitiis, quod sponte cupit, procul impius aula
Arceat, alternum regni inficiatus honorem:
Hinc causæ irarum: certo reliqua ordine ducam.

The god obeys, and to his feet applies
Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies.
His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread,
And veil'd the starry glories of his head.
He seiz'd the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye;
That drives the dead to dark Tartarian coasts,
Or back to life compels the wandering ghosts.
Thus, through the parting clouds, the son of May
Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way;
Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight,
Now springs aloft, and towers th' etherial height;
Then wheeling down the steep of Heaven he flies,
And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.
Meantime the banish'd Polynices roves
(His Thebes abandon'd) through th' Aonian groves,
While future realms his wandering thoughts delight,
His daily vision, and his dream by night;
Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye,
From whence he sees his absent brother fly,
With transport views the airy rule his own
And swells on an imaginary throne.
Fain would he cast a tedious age away,
And live out all in one triumphant day.
He chides the lazy progress of the Sun,
And bids the year with swifter motion runs
With anxious hopes his craving mind is tost,
And all his joys in length of wishes lost.

The hero then resolves his course to bend
Where ancient Danaus' fruitful fields extend
And fam'd Mycene's lofty towers ascend,
(Where late the Sun did Atreus' crimes detest,
And disappear'd in horrour of the feast.)
And now, by Chance, by Fate, or Furies led,
From Bacchus' consecrated caves he fled,
Where the shrill cries of frantic matrons sound,
And Penthens' blood enrich'd the rising ground
Then see Citharon towering o'er the plain,
And thence declining gently to the main.

Paret Atlantiades dictis genitoris, et inde Summa pedum propere plantaribus illigat alis Obnubitque comas, et temperat astra galero. Tum dextræ virgam inseruit, qua pellere dulces Aut suadere iterum somnos, qua nigra subire Tartara, et exangues animare assueverat umbra Desiluit; tenuique exceptus inhorruit aura. Nec mora, sublimes raptim per inane volatus Carpit, et ingenti designat nubila gyro,

:

Interea patriis olim vagus exul ab oris Oedipodionides furto deserta pererrat Aoniæ. jam jamque animis male debita regna Concipit, et longan signis cunctantibus annum Stare gemit. tenet una dies noctesque recursans Cura virum, si quando humilem decedere regno Germanum, et semet Thebis, opibusque potitum, Cerneret hac ævum cupiat pro luce pacisci. Nunc queritur ceu tarda fugæ dispendia: sed mox Attollit flatus ducis, et sedisse superbum Dejecto se fratre putat. spes anxia mentem Extrahit, et longo consumit gaudia voto. Tunc sedet Inachias urbes, Danaëiaque arva, Et caligantes abrupto sole Mycenas, Ferre iter impavidum. seu prævia ducit Erynnis, Seu fors illa viæ, sive hac immota vocabat Atropos. Ogygiis ululata furoribus antra Deserit, et pingues Bacchæo sanguine colles, Inde plagam, qua molle sedens in plana Citharon Porrigitur, lassumque inclinat ad æquora montem,

By both his parents of descent divine,
Great Jove and Phoebus grac'd his noble line:
Heaven had not crown'd his wishes with a son,
But two fair daughters heir'd his state and throne.
To him Apollo (wondrous to relate!

But who can pierce into the depths of Fate ?)
Had sung-" Expect thy sons on Argos' shore,
A yellow lion, and a bristly boar."
This long revolv'd in his paternal breast,
Sate heavy on his heart, and broke his rest;
This, great Amphiarus, lay hid from thee,
Though skill'd in fate, and dark futurity.
The father's care and prophet's art were vain,
For thus did the predicting god ordain.

Lo hapless Tydeus, whose ill-fated hand
Had slain his brother, leaves his native land,
And, seiz'd with horrour, in the shades of night,
Through the thick deserts headlong urg'd his flight:
Now by the fury of the tempest driven,

He seeks a shelter from th' inclement heaven,
Till, led by Fate, the Theban's steps he treads,
And to fair Argos' open court succeeds.

When thus the chiefs from different lands resort
T Adrastus' realms, and hospitable court;
The king surveys his guests with curious eyes,
And views their arms and habit with surprise.
A lion's yellow skin the Theban wears,
Horrid his mane, and rough with curling hairs;
Such once employ'd Alcides' youthful toils,
Ere yet adorn'd with Nemea's dreadful spoils.
A boar's stiff hide, of Calydonian breed,
Oenides' manly shoulders overspread :
Oblique his tusks, erect his bristles stood;
Alive, the pride and terrour of the wood.

Struck with the sight, and fix'd in deep amaze, Th' king th' accomplish'd oracle surveys, Reveres Apollo's vocal caves, and owns The guiding godhead, and his future sons. O'er all his bosom secret transports reign, And a glad horrour shoots through every vein.

Cui Phoebus generos (monstrum exitiabile dictu! Mox adaperta fides) ævo ducente canebat Setigerumque suem, et fulvum adventare leonem. Hæc volvens, non, ipse pater, non, docte futuri Amphiaraë, vides; etenim vetat autor Apollo. Tantum in corde sedens ægrescit cura parentis.

Ecce autem antiquam fato Calydona relinquens Olenius Tydeus (fraterni sanguinis illum Conscius horror agit) eadem sub nocte sopora Lustra terit, similesque notos dequestus et imbres, Infusam tergo glaciem, et liquentia nimbis Ora, comasque gerens, subit uno tegmine, cujus Fusus humo gelida, partem prior hospes habebat.Hic primum lustrare oculis cultusque virorum Telaque magna vacat; tergo videt hujus inanem Impexis utrinque jubis horrere leonem, Illius in speciem, quem per Teumesia Tempe Amphitryoniades fractum juvenilibus armis Ante Cleonæi vestitur prælia nonstri. Terribiles contra setis, ac dente recurvo Tydea per latos humeros ambire laborant Exuvia, Calydonis honos. stupet omine tanto Defixus senior, divina oracula Phœbi Agoscens, monitusque datos vocalibus antris. Obtuta gelida ora permit, lætusque per artus Horror it. sensit manifesto numine ductos Affore, quos nexis ambagibus augue Apollo Portendi generos, vultu fallente ferarum,

To Heaven he lifts his hands, erects his sight, And thus invokes the silent queen of night:

"Goddess of shades, beneath whose gloomy reign
Yon spangled arch glows with the starry train;
You, who the cares of Heaven and Earth allay,
Till Nature, quicken'd by th' inspiring ray,
Wakes to new vigour with the rising day;
O thou, who freest me from my doubtful state,
Long lost and wilder'd in the maze of Fate!
Be present still: oh goddess! in our aid:
Proceed, and firm those omens thou hast made.
We to thy name our annual rites will pay,
And on thy altars sacrifices lay;

The sable flock shall fall beneath the stroke,
And fill thy temples with a grateful smoke.
Hail, faithful Tripos! hail, ye dark abodes
Of awful Phoebus: I confess the gods!"

Thus, seiz'd with sacred fear, the monarch
pray'd;

Then to his inner court the guests convey'd:
Where yet thin fumes from dying sparks arise,
And dust yet white upon each altar lies,
The relics of a former sacrifice.

The king once more the solemn rites requires,
And bids renew the feasts, and wake the fires.
His train obey, while all the courts around
With noisy care and various tumult sound.
Embroider'd purple clothes the golden beds;
This slave the floor, and that the table spreads;'
A third dispels the darkness of the night,
And fills depending lamps with beams of light;
Here loaves in canisters are pil'd on high,
And there in flames the slaughter'd victims fly.
Sublime in regal state Adrastus shòne,
Stretch'd on rich carpets on his ivory throne;
A lofty couch receives each princely guest;
Around at awful distance wait the rest.

Ediderat. tunc sic tendens ad sidera palmas:
Nox,, quæ terrarum cœlique amplexa labores
Ignea multivago transmittis sidera lapsu,
Indulgens reparare animum, dum proximus ægris
Infundat Titan agiles animanribus ortus,
Tu mihi perplexis quæsitam erroribus ultro
Advehis alma fidem, veterisque exordia fati
Detegis. assistas operi, tuaque omnia firmes !
Semper honoratam dimensis orbibus anni
Te domus ista colet: nigri tibi, Diva, litabunt
Electa cervice greges, lustraliaque exta
Lacte nova perfusus edet Vulcanius ignis.
Salve, prisca fides tripodum, obscurique recessus
Deprendi, Fortuna, deos. sic fatus; et ambos
Innectens manibus, tecta ulterioris ad aulæ
Progreditur. canis etiamnum altaribus ignes,
Sopitum cinerem, et tepidi libamina sacri
Servabant; adolere focos, epulasque recentes
Instaurare jubet. dictis parere ministri
Certatim accelerant. vario strepit icta tumultu
Regia: pars ostro tenues, auroque sonantes
Emunire toros, altosque inferre tapetas;
Pars teretes levare manu, ac disponere mensas:
Ast alii tenebras et opacam vincere noctem
Aggressi tendunt auratis vincula lychnis.
His labor inserto torrere exanguia ferro
Viscera cæsarum pecudum; his, cumulare canis
Perdomitam saxo Cererem. Irtatur Adrastus
Obsequio fervere domum. jaunque ipse superbis
Fulgebat stratis, solioque effultus eburno.
Parte alia juvenes siccati vulnera lymphis
Discumbunt: sinul ora notis fœdata tuentur,

[tris