Ev'n fortune rules no more!-O servile land,
Where exiled tyrants still by turns command!
Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove!
Is this the eternal doom decreed above?
On thy own offspring hast thou fixed this fate,
From the first birth of our unhappy state; 246
When banished Cadmus, wandering o'er the
main,
For lost Europa searched the world in vain,
And fated in Boeotian fields to found
A rising empire on a foreign ground,
First raised our walls on that ill-omened plain,
Where earth-born brothers were by brothers
slain?
What lofty looks the unrivalled monarch bears!
How all the tyrant in his face appears!
What sullen fury clouds his scornful brow! 255
Gods! how his eyes with threatening ardour
glow!
Can this imperious lord forget to reign,
Quit all his state, descend, and serve again?
Yet, who, before, more popularly bowed?
Who more propitious to the suppliant crowd?
Patient of right, familiar in the throne?
What wonder then? he was not then alone.
O wretched we, a vile, submissive train,
Fortune's tame fools, and slaves in every reign!
As when two winds with rival force contend,
This way and that, the wavering sails they
While freezing Boreas and black Eurus blow,
Now here, now there, the reeling vessel throw :
Thus on each side, alas! our tottering state
Feels all the fury of resistless fate,
And doubtful still, and still distracted stands,
While that prince threatens, and while this
commands."
And now the almighty Father of the gods
Convenes a council in the blest abodes.
Far in the bright recesses of the skies,
High o'er the rolling heavens, a mansion lies,
Whence, far below, the gods at once survey
The realms of rising and declining day,
And all the extended space of earth, and air,
and sea.
Full in the midst, and on a starry throne, 280
The Majesty of heaven superior shone;
Serene he looked, and gave an awful nod,
And all the trembling spheres confessed the
god.
At Jove's assent, the deities around
In solemn state the consistory crowned.
Next a long order of inferior powers
Ascend from hills, and plains, and shady
bowers;
Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow;
And those that give the wandering winds to
Here all their rage, and ev'n their murmurs
And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace.
A shining synod of majestic gods
Gilds with new lustre the divine abodes;
Heaven seems improved with a superior ray,
And the bright arch reflects a double day. 295
The monarch then his solemn silence broke,
The still creation listened while he spoke,
Each sacred accent bears eternal weight,
And each irrevocable word is fate :
"How long shall man the wrath of Heaven defy, And force unwilling vengeance from the sky! Oh race confederate into crimes, that prove Triumphant o'er the eluded rage of Jove!
This wearied arm can scarce the bolt sustain,
And unregarded thunder rolls in vain :
The o'erlaboured Cyclops from his task retires,
The Eolian force exhausted of its fires.
For this, I suffered Phoebus' steeds to stray,
And the mad ruler to misguide the day.
When the wide earth to heaps of ashes turned,
And heaven itself the wandering chariot
For this, my brother of the watery reign Released the impetuous sluices of the main : But flames consumed, and billows raged in vain.
Two races now, allied to Jove, offend;
To punish these, see Jove himself descend.
The Theban kings their line from Cadmus
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 mixed with men in mortal fight:
The exulting mother, stained 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 profane,
The sun would sink into the western main,
And rising gild the radiant east again.
Have we not seen (the blood of Laius shed) 330
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 atones.
His sons with scorn their eyeless father view,
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;
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
Must I, oh Jove, in bloody wars contend?
Thou know'st those regions my protection
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
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, 370
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,
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-
Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides His wandering stream, and through the briny
Unmixed to his Sicilian river glides.
Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,
Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;
Who raise thy temples where the chariot stood
Of fierce Enomaus, defiled 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
Presumptuous Crete, that boasts the tomb of
And shall not Tantalus's kingdoms share
Thy wife and sister's tutelary care?
Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,
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