Nor doom to war a race derived from thee;
On impious realms and barbarous kings impose
Thy plagues, and curse them with such sons as
those." 1

Thus, in reproach and prayer, the Queen ex

400

pressed The rage and grief contending in her breast; Unmoved remained the ruler of the sky, And from his throne returned this stern reply: "'Twas thus I deemed 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

406

Their work, and reverence our superior will. 410 For by the black infernal Styx I swear,

(That dreadful oath which binds the Thunderer)

'Tis fixed; the irrevocable doom of Jove;
No force can bend me, no persuasion move. 414
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 exiled brother, swelled with
pride

Of foreign forces, and his Argive bride,
Almighty Jove commands him to detain
The promised empire, and alternate reign:

1 Eteocles and Polynices.-P.

420

425

Be this the cause of more than mortal hate : The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into fate."

The god obeys, and to his feet applies

Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies.
His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread, 431
And veiled the starry glories of his head.
He seized the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye; 434
That drives the dead to dark Tartarean 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

And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.

Meantime the banished Polynices roves (His Thebes abandoned) through the Aonian

groves,

While future realms his wandering thoughts

delight,

445

450

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 run.
With anxious hopes his craving mind is tossed
And all his joys in length of wishes lost.

456

461

The hero then resolves his course to bend Where ancient Danaus' fruitful fields extend, And famed Mycene's lofty towers ascend, (Where late the sun did Atreus' crimes detest, And disappeared in horror 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 Pentheus' blood enriched the rising

ground.

465 Then sees Citharon towering o'er the plain, And thence declining gently to the main. Next to the bounds of Nisus' realms repairs, Where treacherous Scylla cut the purple hairs: The hanging cliffs of Scyron's rock explores, 470 And hears the murmurs of the different shores: Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas, And stately Corinth's pleasing site surveys.

'Twas now the time when Phoebus yields to night,

And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light, 475
Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drew
Her airy chariot hung with pearly dew;

All birds and beasts lie hushed; sleep steals away
The wild desires of men, and toils of day,
And brings, descending through the silent air,
A sweet forgetfulness of human care. 481
Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay,
Promise the skies the bright return of day;
No faint reflections of the distant light
Streak with long gleams the scattering shades

of night;

485 From the damp earth impervious vapours rise, Increase the darkness, and involve the skies. At once the rushing winds with roaring sound Burst from the Eolian caves, and rend the ground,

With equal rage their airy quarrel try,

490

And win by turns the kingdom of the sky :
But with a thicker night black Auster shrouds
The heavens, and drives on heaps the rolling

clouds,

From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours, Which the cold North congeals to haily showers. From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud, 496 And broken lightnings flash from every cloud. Now smokes with showers the misty mountainground,

And floated fields lie undistinguished round. The Inachian streams with headlong fury run, And Erasinus rolls a deluge on:

501

The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds, And spreads its ancient poisons o'er the grounds: Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play, Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams

away:

505 Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn, Are whirled in air, and on the winds are borne: The storm the dark Lycæan groves displayed, And first to light exposed the sacred shade. The intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky, 510 Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly, And views astonished, from the hills afar, The floods descending, and the watery war, That, driven by storms, and pouring o'er the plain,

514

Swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main. Through the brown horrors of the night he fled, Nor knows, amazed, what doubtful path to tread;

His brother's image to his mind appears, Inflames his heart with rage, and wings his feet with fears.

So fares a sailor on the stormy main,

520

When clouds conceal Boötes' golden wain,
When not a star its friendly lustre keeps,
Nor trembling Cynthia glimmers on the deeps;
He dreads the rocks, and shoals, and seas, and

skies,

While thunder roars, and lightning round him flies.

525

Thus strove the chief, on every side distressed, Thus still his courage with his toils increased ; With his broad shield opposed, he forced his

way

Through thickest woods, and roused the beasts

of prey;

Till he beheld, where from Larissa's height 530
The shelving walls reflect a glancing light:
Thither with haste the Theban hero flies;
On this side Lerna's poisonous water lies,
On that Prosymna's grove and temple rise:
He passed the gates which then unguarded lay,
And to the regal palace bent his way;
536
On the cold marble, spent with toil, he lies,
And waits till pleasing slumbers seal his eyes.
Adrastus here his happy people sways,
Blessed with calm peace in his declining days;
By both his parents of descent divine, 541
Great Jove and Phoebus graced his noble line:
Heaven had not crowned his wishes with a son,
But two fair daughters heired his state and

throne.

545

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 revolved in his paternal breast,
Sate heavy on his heart, and broke his rest; 550
This, great Amphiaraus, lay hid from thee,
Though skilled in fate, and dark futurity.