Insult his wounds, and make them bleed anew.
Thy curse, oh Edipus, just Heaven alarms,
And sets the 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;

340

Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed; The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed; 345 Fixed is their doom: this all-remembering breast

Yet harbours vengeance for the tyrant's feast." He said; and thus the Queen of heaven returned;

(With sudden grief her labouring bosom burned):

"Must I, whose cares Phoroneus' towers de

fend,

Must I, oh Jove, in bloody wars contend?

350

Thou know'st those regions my protection

claim,

Glorious in arms, in riches, and in fame;
Though there the fair Egyptian heifer fed,
And there deluded Argus slept, and bled; 355
Though there the brazen tower was stormed of
old,

When Jove descended in almighty gold:
Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes,
Those bashful crimes disguised in borrowed
shapes;

But Thebes, where shining in celestial charms
Thou cam'st triumphant to a mortal's arms, 361
When all my glories o'er her limbs were spread,
And blazing lightnings danced around her bed;
Cursed Thebes the vengeance it deserves, may
prove :

Ah why should Argos feel the rage of Jove? 365

370

Yet since thou wilt thy sister-queen control,
Since still the lust of discord fires thy soul,
Go, raze 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 rites transfer,
Let altars blaze, and temples smoke for her;
For her, through Egypt's fruitful clime re-
nowned,

375

Let weeping Nilus hear the timbrel sound.
But if thou must reform the stubborn times,
Avenging on the sons the fathers' crimes,
And from the long records of distant age
Derive incitements to renew thy rage;
Say, from what period then has Jove designed
To date his vengeance; to what bounds con-
fined?

380

Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides His wandering stream, and through the briny

tides

Unmixed to his Sicilian river glides.

385

Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,
Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;
Who raise thy temples where the chariot stood
Of fierce nomaus, defiled with blood;
Where once his steeds their savage banquet

found,

390

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 kingdoms share
Thy wife and sister's tutelary care?
Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,

395

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

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:

406

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. 410 For by the black infernal Styx I swear, (That dreadful oath which binds the Thunderer)

a

'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;
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

434

Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way; Now smoothly steers through air his equal

flight,

Now springs aloft, and towers the ethereal

height;

440

Then wheeling down the steep of heaven he

flies,

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
485

of night;

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,