He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,1
And stand secure amidst a falling world.
Such were the godlike arts that led
Bright Pollux to the blest abodes;
Such did for great Alcides plead,
And gained a place among the gods;
Where now Augustus, mixed with heroes, lies,
And to his lips the nectar bowl applies:
His ruddy lips the purple tincture show,
And with immortal strains divinely glow.
By arts like these did young Lyæus rise:
His tigers drew him to the skies,
Wild from the desert and unbroke:
In vain they foamed, in vain they stared,
In vain their eyes with fury glared;
He tamed 'em to the lash, and bent 'em to the yoke.
Such were the paths that Rome's great founder trod,
When in a whirlwind snatched on high,
He shook off dull mortality,
And lost the monarch in the god.
Bright Juno then her awful silence broke,
And thus the assembled deities bespoke.
Troy, says the goddess, perjured Troy has felt
The dire effects of her proud tyrant's guilt;
The towering pile, and soft abodes,
Walled by the hand of servile gods,
Now spreads its ruins all around,
And lies inglorious on the ground.
An umpire, partial and unjust,
And a fewd woman's impious lust,
Lay heavy on her head, and sink her to the dust.
Since false Laomedon's tyrannic sway,
That durst defraud the immortals of their pay,
Her guardian gods renounced their patronage,
Nor would the fierce invading foe repel;
my resentment, and Minerva's rage, The guilty king and the whole people fell.
1 Crack,] plainly used here for the sake of the knew very well that the word was low and vulgar. he adds the epithet "mighty," which yet has only even ridiculous.
rhyme; for the poet To ennoble it a little the effect to make it
And now the long protracted wars are o'er, The soft adulterer shines no more;
No more does Hector's force the Trojans shield,
That drove whole armies back, and singly cleared the field.
My vengeance sated, I at length resign
To Mars his offspring of the Trojan line:
Advanced to godhead let him rise,
And take his station in the skies ;
There entertain his ravished sight
With scenes of glory, fields of light;
Quaff with the gods immortal wine,
And see adoring nations crowd his shrine:
The thin remains of Troy's afflicted host,
In distant realms may seats unenvied find,
And flourish on a foreign coast;
But far be Rome from Troy disjoined,
Removed by seas from the disastrous shore;
May endless billows rise between, and storms uunumbered roar.
Still let the curst, detested place,
Where Priam lies, and Priam's faithless race,
Be covered o'er with weeds, and hid in grass.
There let the wanton flocks unguarded stray;
Or, while the lonely shepherd sings,
Amidst the mighty ruins play,
And frisk upon the tombs of kings.
May tigers there, and all the savage kind,
Sad, solitary haunts and silent deserts find;
In gloomy vaults, and nooks of palaces,
May the unmolested lioness
Her brinded whelps securely lay,
Or, coucht, in dreadful slumbers waste the day.
While Troy in heaps of ruins lies,
Rome and the Roman Capitol shall rise;
The illustrious exiles unconfined
Shall triumph far and near, and rule mankind.
In vain the sea's intruding tide
Europe from Afric shall divide,
And part the severed world in two:
Through Afric's sands their triumphs they shall spread, And the long train of victories pursue
To Nile's yet undiscovered head.
Riches the hardy soldier shall despise,
And look on gold with undesiring eyes,
Nor the disbowelled earth explore
In search of the forbidden ore;
Those glittering ills concealed within the mine,
Shall lie untouched, and innocently shine.
To the last bounds that nature sets,
The piercing colds and sultry heats,
The godlike race shall spread their arms;
Now fill the polar circle with alarms,
Till storms and tempests their pursuits confine;
Now sweat for conquest underneath the line.
This only law the victor shall restrain,
On these conditions shall he reign;
If none his guilty hand employ
To build again a second Troy,
If none the rash design pursue,
Nor tempt the vengeance of the gods anew.
A curse there cleaves to the devoted place,
That shall the new foundations rase:
Greece shall in mutual leagues conspire
To storm the rising town with fire,
And at their armies' head myself will show
What Juno, urged to all her rage, can do.
Thrice should Apollo's self the city raise,
And line it round with walls of brass,
Thrice should my favourite Greeks his works confound,
And hew the shining fabric to the ground;
Thrice should her captive dames to Greece return,
And their dead sons and slaughtered husbands mourn.
But hold, my muse, forbear thy towering flight,
Nor bring the secrets of the gods to light:
In vain would thy presumptuous verse
The immortal rhetoric rehearse ;1
The mighty strains, in lyric numbers bound,
Forget their majesty, and lose their sound.
1 Rehearse,] a word Mr. Addison is very fond of, because it afforded a rhyme for verse; but it disgraces an ode, and should indeed be banished from all poetry.
THE sun's bright palace, on high columns raised,
With burnished gold and flaming jewels blazed;
The folding gates diffused a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refreshed the sight;
Of polished ivory was the covering wrought:
The matter vied not with the sculptor's thought,
For in the portal was displayed on high
(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;
A waving sea the inferior earth embraced,
And gods and goddesses the waters graced.
Ægeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
Triton, and Proteus, (the deceiving god,)
With Doris here were carved, and all her train,
Some loosely swimming in the figured main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,
And some on fishes through the waters glide:
Though various features did the sisters grace,
A sister's likeness was in every face.
On earth a different landscape courts the eyes,
Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise,
And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities.
O'er all, the heaven's refulgent image shines;
On either gate were six engraven signs.
Here Phaeton, still gaining on the ascent,
To his suspected father's palace went,
Till, pressing forward through the bright abode,
He saw at distance the illustrious god:
He saw at distance, or the dazzling light
Had flashed too strongly on his aching sight.
Mr. Addison appears to have been much taken with the native graces of Ovid's poetry. The following translations are highly finished and even laboured (if I may so speak) into an ease, which resembles very much, and almost equals, that of his author.
The god sits high, exalted on a throne Of blazing gems, with purple garments on: The Hours, in order ranged on either hand, And days, and months, and years, and ages, stand. Here Spring appears with flowery chaplets bound; Here Summer in her wheaten garland crowned; Here Autumn the rich trodden grapes besmear And hoary Winter shivers in the rear.
Phoebus beheld the youth from off his throne;
That eye, which looks on all, was fix'd on one.
He saw the boy's confusion in his face,
Surprised at all the wonders of the place;
And cries aloud, "What wants my son? for know
My son thou art, and I must call thee so."
"Light of the world," the trembling youth replies,
"Illustrious parent! since you don't despise
The parent's name, some certain token give,
That I may Clymene's proud boast believe,
Nor longer under false reproaches grieve."
The tender sire was touched with what he said,
And flung the blaze of glories from his head,
And bid the youth advance: "My son," said he,
"Come to thy father's arms! for Clymene
Has told thee true; a parent's name I own,
And deem thee worthy to be called my son.
As a sure proof, make some request, and I,
Whate'er it be, with that request comply;
By Styx I swear, whose waves are hid in night,
And roll impervious to my piercing sight."
The youth transported, asks, without delay,
To guide the Sun's bright chariot for a day.
The god repented of the oath he took,
For anguish thrice his radiant head he shook;
My son," says he, "some other proof require,
Rash was my promise, rash is thy desire.
I'd fain deny this wish which thou hast made,
Or, what I can't deny, would fain dissuade.
Too vast and hazardous the task appears,
Nor suited to thy strength, nor to thy years.
Thy lot is mortal, but thy wishes fly
Beyond the province of mortality:
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