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If on the sons the parent's crimes descend, 820 What prince from those his lineage can defend?

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Be this thy comfort, that 'tis thine to efface
With virtuous acts thy ancestor's disgrace,
And be thyself the honour of thy race.
But see! the stars begin to steal away,
And shine more faintly at approaching day;
Now pour the wine; and in your tuneful lays
Once more resound the great Apollo's praise.'

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"Oh father Phoebus! whether Lycia's coast, And snowy mountains, thy bright presence boast;

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Whether to sweet Castalia thou repair,
And bathe in silver dews thy yellow hair;
Or pleased to find fair Delos float no more,
Delight in Cynthus, and the shady shore;
Or choose thy seat in Ilion's proud abodes, 835
The shining structures raised by labouring gods:
By thee the bow and mortal shafts are borne;
Eternal charms thy blooming youth adorn:
Skilled in the laws of secret fate above,
And the dark counsels of almighty Jove,
"Tis thine the seeds of future war to know,
The change of sceptres, and impending woe;
When direful meteors spread through glowing

air

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Long trails of light, and shake their blazing hair.

Thy rage the Phrygian felt, who durst aspire To excel the music of thy heavenly lyre; 846 Thy shafts avenged lewd Tityus' guilty flame, The immortal victim of thy mother's fame; Thy hand slew Python, and the dame who lost Her numerous offspring for a fatal boast. 850 In Phlegyas' doom thy just revenge appears, Condemned to furies and eternal fears;

He views his food, but dreads, with lifted eye, The mouldering rock that trembles from on high.

Propitious hear our prayer, O Power divine! And on thy hospitable Argos shine, 856 Whether the style of Titan please thee more, Whose purple rays the Achæmenes adore ; Or great Osiris, who first taught the swain In Pharian fields to sow the golden grain; 860 Or Mitra, to whose beams the Persian bows, And pays, in hollow rocks, his awful vows; Mitra, whose head the blaze of light adorns, Who grasps the struggling heifer's lunar horns."

THE FABLE OF DRYOPE.

FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.1

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HE said, and for her lost Galanthis

sighs,

When the fair consort of her son

replies:

Since you a servant's ravished form bemoan,
And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own;
Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate
A nearer woe, a sister's stranger fate.
No nymph of all Echalia could compare
For beauteous form with Dryope the fair,

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1 Upon occasion of the death of Hercules, his mother Alcmena recounts her misfortunes to Iole, who answers with a relation of those of her own family, in particular the transformation of her sister Dryope, which is the subject of the ensuing fable. -P.

Her tender mother's only hope and pride, (Myself the offspring of a second bride). This nymph, compressed by him who rules the

day,

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Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey, Andræmon loved; and blessed in all those

charms

That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms.

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A lake there was, with shelving banks around, Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crowned.

These shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought,

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And to the Naiads flowery garlands brought;
Her smiling babe (a pleasing charge) she pressed
Within her arms, and nourished at her breast.
Not distant far, a watery lotos grows;
The spring was new, and all the verdant boughs,
Adorned with blossoms, promised fruits that vie
In glowing colours with the Tyrian dye:
Of these she cropped to please her infant son,
And I myself the same rash act had done : 26
But lo! I saw (as near her side I stood)
The violated blossoms drop with blood;
Upon the tree I cast a frightful look;
The trembling tree with sudden horror shook.
Lotis the nymph (if rural tales be true)
As from Priapus' lawless lust she flew,
Forsook her form; and fixing here became
A flowery plant, which still preserves her name.
This change unknown, astonished at the

sight,

31

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My trembling sister strove to urge her flight:
And first the pardon of the nymphs implored,
And those offended sylvan powers adored;
But when she backward would have fled, she
found

Her stiffening feet were rooted in the ground : In vain to free her fastened feet she strove, 41 And as she struggles only moves above:

She feels the encroaching bark around her

grow

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By quick degrees, and cover all below : Surprised at this, her trembling hand she heaves To rend her hair; her hand is filled with leaves: Where late was hair, the shooting leaves are

seen

To rise, and shade her with a sudden green.
The child Amphissus, to her bosom pressed,
Perceived a colder and a harder breast,

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And found the springs, that ne'er till then denied

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Their milky moisture, on a sudden dried.
I saw, unhappy! what I now relate,
And stood the helpless witness of thy fate,
Embraced thy boughs, thy rising bark delayed,
There wished to grow, and mingle shade with
shade.

Behold Andræmon and the unhappy sire
Appear, and for their Dryope inquire;
A springing tree for Dryope they find,
And print warm kisses on the panting rind; 60
Prostrate, with tears their kindred plant bedew,
And close embrace as to the roots they grew.
The face was all that now remained of thee,
No more a woman, nor yet quite a tree;
Thy branches hung with humid pearls appear,
From every leaf distils a trickling tear,
And straight a voice, while yet a voice remains,
Thus through the trembling boughs in sighs
complains:

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"If to the wretched any faith be given, I swear by all the unpitying powers of heaven, No wilful crime this heavy vengeance bred; 71

prey.

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In mutual innocence our lives we led :
If this be false, let these new greens decay,
Let sounding axes lop my limbs away,
And crackling flames on all my honours
But from my branching arms this infant bear,
Let some kind nurse supply a mother's care:
And to this mother let him oft be led,
Sport in her shades, and in her shades be fed;
Teach him, when first his infant voice shall

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frame Imperfect words, and lisp his mother's name, To hail this tree; and say, with weeping eyes, Within this plant my hapless parent lies: And when in youth he seeks the shady woods, Oh, let him fly the crystal lakes and floods, 85 Nor touch the fatal flowers; but, warned by

me,

Believe a goddess shrined in every tree.
My sire, my sister, and my spouse, farewell!
If in your breasts or love or pity dwell,
Protect your plant, nor let my branches feel 90
The browsing cattle or the piercing steel.
Farewell! and since I cannot bend to join
My lips to yours, advance at least to mine.
My son, thy mother's parting kiss receive,
While yet thy mother has a kiss to give.
I can no more; the creeping rind invades
My closing lips, and hides my head in shades:
Remove your hands, the bark shall soon suffice
Without their aid to seal these dying eyes."

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She ceased at once to speak, and ceased to

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be; And all the nymph was lost within the tree: Yet latent life through her new branches reigned,

And long the plant a human heat retained.

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