A third is Phantasus, whose actions roll
On meaner thoughts, and things devoid of soul;
Earth, fruits, and flowers, he represents in
dreams,

And solid rocks unmov'd, and running streams: These three to kings and chiefs their scenes display,

The rest before the ignoble commons play:
Of these the chosen Morpheus is despatch'd:
Which done, the lazy monarch, overwatch'd
Down from his propping elbow drops his head,
Dissolv'd in sleep, and shrinks within his bed.
Darkling the demon glides, for flight prepar'd,
So soft that scarce his fanning wings are heard.
To Trachin, swift as thought, the flitting shade
Through air his momentary journey made :
Then lays aside the steerage of his wings,
Forsakes his proper form, assumes the king's;
And pale as death, despoil'd of his array,
Into the queen's apartment takes his way,
And stands before the bed at dawn of day:
Unmov'd his eyes, and wet his beard appears;
And shedding vain, but seeming real tears;
The briny water dropping from his hairs;
Then staring on her, with a ghastly look
And hollow voice, he thus the Queen bespoke:
Know'st thou not me? Not yet, unhappy
wife?

Or are my features perish'd with my life?
Look once again, and for thy husband lost,
Lo! all that's left of him, thy husband's ghost!
Thy vows for my return were all in vain;
The stormy south o'ertook us in the main;
And never shalt thou see thy loving lord again.
Bear witness, heaven, I call'd on thee in death,
And while I call'd, a billow stopp'd my breath:
Think not that flying fame reports my fate;
I present, I appear, and my own wreck relate.
Rise, wretched widow, rise, nor undeplor'd
Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford:
But rise, prepar'd, in black, to mourn thy pe-
rish'd lord.

Thus said the player god; and, adding art Of voice and gesture, so perform'd his part, She thought (so like her love the shade appears) That Ceyx spake the words, and Ceyx shed

the tears.

She groan'd, her inward soul with grief opprest,
She sigh'd, she wept; and sleeping beat her
breast:
[bare,
Then stretch'd her arms to embrace his body
Her clasping arms enclose but empty air:
At this not yet awake, she cried, Oh stay,
One is our fate, and common is our way!
So dreadful was the dream, so loud she spoke,
That starting sudden up, the slumber broke
Then cast her eyes around, in hope to view
Her vanish'd lord, and find the vision true :

For now the maids, who waited her commands,
Ran in with lighted tapers in their hands.
Tir'd with the search, not finding what she
seeks,
[cheeks;

With cruel blows she pounds her blubber'd
Then from her beaten breast the linen tare,
And cut the golden caul that bound her hair:
Her nurse demands the cause; with louder cries
She prosecutes her griefs, and thus replies:
No more Alcyone, she suffer'd death
With her lov'd lord, when Ceyx lost his breath:
No flattery, no false comfort, give me none,
My shipwreck'd Ceyx is for ever gone;
I saw, I saw him manifest in view,
His voice, his figure, and his gestures knew:
His lustre lost, and every living grace,
Yet I retain'd the features of his face;
Though with pale cheeks, wet beard, and drop-
ping hair,

from the place:

None but my Ceyx could appear so fair :
I would have strain'd him with a strict embrace,
But through my arms he slipp'd, and vanish'd
[spoke,
There, e'en just there, he stood; and as she
Where last the spectre was, she cast her look:
Fain would she hope,and gaz'd upon the ground,
If any printed footsteps might be found.

Then sigh'd, and said: This I too well fore-
knew,

And my prophetic fear presag'd too true:
'T was what I begg'd, when with a bleeding
heart

I took my leave, and suffer'd thee to part,
Or I to go along, or thou to stay,
Never, ah never to divide our way!
Happier for me, that all our hours assign'd
Together we had liv'd; e'en not in death dis-
join'd!

So had my Ceyx still been living here,
Or with my Ceyx I had perish'd there:
Now I die absent, in the vast profound;
And me without myself the seas have drown'd:
The storms were not so cruel; should I strive
To lengthen life, and such a grief survive
But neither will I strive, nor wretched thee
In death forsake, but keep thee company.
If not one common sepulchre contains
Our bodies, or one urn our last remains,
Yet Ceyx and Alcyone shall join,
Their names remember'd in one common line.
No farther voice her mighty grief affords,
For sighs come rushing in betwixt her words,
And stopp'd her tongue; but what her tongue de-
nied,

Soft tears and groans, and dumb complaints
supplied.
[way,

'T was morning; to the port she takes her And stands upon the margin of the sea;

That place, that very spot of ground she sought,
Or thither by her destiny was brought,
Where last he stood: and while she sadly said,
'T was here he left me, lingering here delay'd
His parting kiss; and there his anchors weigh'd;
Thus speaking, while her thoughts past actions
trace,

And call to mind, admonish'd by the place,
Sharp at her utmost ken she cast her eyes,
And somewhat floating from afar descries
It seem'd a corpse adrift, to distant sight,
But at a distance who could judge aright
It wafted nearer yet, and then she knew
That what before she but surmis'd, was true:
A corpse it was, but whose it was, unknown,
Yet mov'd, howe'er, she made the case her own:
Took the bad omen of a shipwreck'd mar,
As for a stranger wept, and thus began:

Poor wretch, on stormy seas to lose thy life,
Unhappy thou, but more thy widow'd wife!
At this she paus'd; for now the flowing tide
Had brought the body nearer to the side:
The more she looks, the more her fears in-

crease

At nearer sight; and she 's herself the less:
Now driven ashore, and at her feet it lies,
She knows too much, in knowing whom she

sees:

Her husband's corpse; at this she loudly shrieks;
'Tis he, 't is he, she cries, and tears her cheeks,
Her hair, her vest, and stooping to the sands,
About his neck she cast her trembling hands.
And is it thus, O dearer than my life,
Thus, thus return'st thou to thy longing wife!
She said, and to the neighb'ring mole she strode,
(Rais'd there to break the incursions of the

flood ;)

Headlong from hence to plunge herself she springs,

But shoots along supported on her wings;
A bird new made about the banks she plies,
Not far from shore: and short excursions tries;
Nor seeks in air her humble flight to raise,
Content to skim the surface of the seas;
Her bill, though slender, sends a creaking noise,
And imitates a lamentable voice:
Now lighting where the bloodless body lies,
She with a funeral note renews her cries.
At all her stretch her little wings she spread,
And with her feather'd arms embrac'd the dead:
Then flickering to his pallid lips, she strove
To print a kiss, the last essay of love:
Whether the vital touch reviv'd the dead,
Or that the moving waters rais'd his head
To meet the kiss, the vulgar doubt alone;
For sure a present miracle was shown.
The gods their shapes to winter-birds translate,
But both obnoxious to their former fate.

Their conjugal affection still is tied,
And still the mournful race is multiplied;
They bill, they tread; Alcyone compress'd
Seven days sits brooding on her floating nest:
A wint'ry queen: her sire at length is kind,
Calms every storm, and hushes every wind:
Prepares his empire for his daughter's ease,
And for his hatching nephews smooths the seas.

ESACUS TRANSFORMED INTO A CORMORANT.

FROM THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

THESE Some old man sees wanton in the air,
And praises the unhappy constant pair.
Then to his friend the long-neck'd cormorant
shows,

The former tale reviving others' woes:
That sable bird, he cries, which cuts the flood
With slender legs, was once of royal blood;
His ancestors from mighty Tros proceed,
The brave Laomedon, and Ganymede,
(Whose beauty tempted Jove to steal the boy)
And Priam, hapless prince! who fell with Troy:
Himself was Hector's brother, and had fate
But given this hopeful youth a longer date,
Perhaps had rivall'd warlike Hector's worth,
Though on the mother's side of meaner birth;
Fair Alyxothoë, a country maid,

Bare Esacus by stealth in Ida's shade.
He fled the noisy town, and pompous court,
Lov'd the lone hills, and simple rural sport,
And seldom to the city would resort.
Yet he no rustic clownishness profess'd,
Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast:
The youth had long the nymph Hesperia woo'd,
Oft through the thicket, or the mead pursu'd:
Her haply on her father's bank he spied,
While fearless she her silver tresses dried;
Away she fled: not stags with half such speed,
Before the prowling wolf, scud o'er the mead ;
Not ducks, when they the safer flood forsake,
Pursu'd by hawks, so swift regain the lake.
As fast he follow'd in the hot career;
Desire the lover wing'd, the virgin fear.
A snake unseen now pierc'd her heedless foot;
Quick through the veins the venom'd juices

shoot;

She fell, and 'scap'd by death his fierce pursuit.
Her lifeless body, frighted, he embrac'd,
And cried, Not this I dreaded, but thy haste:
O had my love been less, or less thy fear!
The victory thus bought is far too dear.

Esacus, the son of Priam, loving a country life, forsakes the court: living obscurely, he falls in love with a nymph; who, flying from him, was killed by a serpent; for grief of this, he would have drowned himself; but, by the pity of the gods, is turned into a Corinorant. Priam, not hearing of Esacus, believes him to be dead, and raises a tomb to preserve his memory. By this transition, which is one of the finest of all Ovid, the poet narurally falls into the story of the Trojan war, which is summed up, in the present book, but so very briefly, in many places, that Ovid seems more short than Virgil, contrary to his usual style. Yet the House of Fame, which is here described, is one of the most beautiful pieces in the whole Metamorphoses. The fight of Achilles and Cygnus, and the fray betwixt the Lapithæ and Centaurs, yield to no other part of this poet: and particularly the loves and death of Cyllarus and Hylonome, the male and female Centaur, are wonderfully moving.

PRIAM, to whom the story was unknown,
As dead, deplor'd his metamorphos'd son:
A cenotaph his name and title kept,
And Hector round the tomb, with all his bro-

thers, wept.

This pious office Paris did not share,
Absent alone, and author of the war,
Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians
drew

To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue

A thousand ships were mann'd to sail the sea: Nor had their just resentments found delay, Had not the winds and waves oppos'd their

way.

At Aulis, with united powers, they meet; But there, cross winds or calms detain'd the fleet.

Now, while they raise an altar on the shore, And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore ; A boding sign the priests and people see: A snake of size immense ascends a tree, And in the leafy summit spied a nest, Which, o'er her callow young, a sparrow press'd.

Eight were the birds unfledg'd; their mother flew,

And hover'd round her care; but still in view: Till the fierce reptile first devour'd the brood; Then seiz'd the fluttering dam, and drank her blood.

This dire ostent the fearful people view; Calchas alone, by Phœbus taught, foreknew What heaven decreed: and with a smiling glance,

Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance. O Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours, But long delays shall first afflict our powers: Nine years of labour the nine birds portend; The tenth shall in the town's destruction end.

The serpent, who his maw obscene had fill'd, The branches in his curl'd embraces held : But as in spires he stood, he turn'd to stone : The stony snake retain'd the figure still his own.

Yet not for this the wind-bound navy weigh'd; Slack were their sails; and Neptune disobey'd. Some thought him loath the town should be destroy'd,

Whose building had his hands divine employ❜d: Not so the seer; who knew, and known foreshow'd,

The virgin Phoebe with a virgin's blood
Must first be reconcil'd; the common cause
Prevail'd; and pity yielding to the laws
Fair Iphigenia, the devoted maid,
Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes ar-
ray'd;

All mourn her fate; but no relief appear'd:
The royal victim bound, the knife already

rear'd:

Confining on all three; with triple bound; Whence all things, though remote, are view'd, around,

And thither bring their undulating sound.
The palace of loud Fame; her seat of power;
Plac'd on the summit of a lofty tower.
A thousand winding entries, long and wide,
Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide.
A thousand crannies in the walls are made;
Nor gate nor bars exclude the busy trade.
'T is built of brass, the better to diffuse
The spreading sounds, and multiply the news;
Where echoes in repeated echoes play:
A mart for ever full, and open night and day.
Nor silence is within, nor voice express,
But a deaf noise of sounds that never cease;
Confus'd, and chiding, like the hollow roar
Of tides, receding from the insulted shore:
Or like the broken thunder, heard from far,
When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.
The courts are fill'd with a tumultuous din
Of crowds, or issuing forth, or ent'ring in:
A thoroughfare of news: where some devise
Things never heard; some mingle truth with lies:
The troubled air with empty sounds they beat
Intent to hear, and eager to repeat.
Error sits brooding there; with added train
Of vain Credulity, and Joys as vain:
Suspicion, with Sedition join'd, are near;
And rumours rais'd, and murmurs mix'd, and
panic fear

Fame sits aloft; and sees the subject ground,
And seas about, and skies above; inquiring all
around.
[known

The goddess gives the alarm; and soon is The Grecian fleet, descending on the town. Fix'd on defence, the Trojans are not slow To guard their shore from an expected foe. They meet in fight: by Hector's fatal hand Protesilaus falls, and bites the strand, [won, Which with expense of blood the Grecians And prov'd the strength unknown of Priam's And to their cost the Trojan leaders felt [son. The Grecian heroes, and what deaths they dealt.

From these first onsets, the Sigman shore Was strew'd with carcasses, and stain'd with gore:

Neptunian Cygnus troops of Greeks had slain;
Achilles in his car had scour'd the plain,
And clear'd the Trojan ranks: where'er he
fought,

Cygnus, or Hector, through the fields he sought:
Cygnus he found; on him his force essay'd:
For Hector was to the tenth year delay'd.
His white-manu'd steeds, that bow'd beneath

the yoke,

He cheer'd to courage, with a gentle stroke;

Then urg'd his fiery chariot on the foe:
And rising shook this lance, in act to throw
But first he cried, O youth, be proud to bear
Thy death, ennobled by Pelides' spear.
The lance pursu'd the voice without delay;
Nor did the whizzing weapon miss the way,
But pierc'd his cuirass, with such fury sent;
And sign'd his bosom with a purple dint.
At this the seed of Neptune; Goddess-born
For ornament, not use, these arms are worn
This helm. and heavy buckler, I can spare,
As only decorations of the war:

So Mars is arm'd for glory, not for need.
'Tis somewhat more from Neptune to proceed,
Than from a daughter of the sea to spring
Thy sire is mortal; mine is ocean's king.
Secure of death, I should contemn thy dart,
Though naked, and impassable depart:
He said, and threw the trembling weapon
pass'd
[plac'd,
Through nine bull-hides, each under other
On his broad shield, and stuck within the last.
Achilles wrench'd it out; and sent again
The hostile gift: the hostile gift was vain.
He tried a third, a tough well chosen spear;
The inviolable body stood sincere,
Though Cygnus then did no defence provide,
But scornful offer'd his unshielded side

Not otherwise the impatient hero far'd,
Than as a bull. encompass'd with a guard,
Amid the circus roars: provok'd from far
By sight of scarlet, and a sanguine war:
They quit their ground; his bended horns elude
In vain pursuing, and in vain pursu’d.

Before to farther fight he would advance,
He stood considering, and survey'd his lance.
Doubts if he wielded not a wooden spear
Without a point: he look'd, the point was there.
This is my hand, and this my lance, he said,
By which so many thousand foes are dead.
O whither is their usual virtue fled!
I had it once; and the Lyrnessian wall,
And Tenedos, confess'd it in their fall.
Thy streams, Caïcus, roll'd a crimson flood;
And Thebes ran red with her own natives'
blood.

Twice Telephus employ'd their piercing steel,
To wound him first, and afterward to heal.
The vigour of this arm was never vain :
And that my wonted prowess I retain,
Witness these heaps of slaughter on the plain.
He said, and, doubtful of his former deeds,
To some new trial of his force proceeds.
He chose Menætes from among the rest;
At him he lanc'd his spear, and pierc'd his

breast:

On the hard earth the Lycian knock'd his head, And lay supine; and forth the spirit fled.

Then thus the hero: Neither can I blame The hand, or javelin; both are still the same. The same I will employ against this foe; And wish but with the same success to throw. So spoke the chief; and while he spoke he threw;

The weapon with unerring fury flew ;

At his left shoulder aimed: nor entrance found; But back, as from a rock, with swift rebound Harmless return'd: a bloody mark appear'd, Which with false joy the flatter'd hero cheer'd. Wound there was none; the blood that was in view,

The lance before from slain Menates drew.

Headlong he leaps from off his lofty car, And in close fight on foot renews the war. Raging with high disdain, repeats his blows; Nor shield nor armour can their force oppose : Huge cantlets of his buckler strew the ground, And no defence in his bar'd arms is found. But on his flesh no wound nor blood is seen; The sword itself is blunted on the skin.

This vain attempt the chief no longer bears;
But round his hollow temples and his ears
His buckler beats: the son of Neptune, stunn'd
With these repeated buffets, quits his grouud;
A sickly sweat succeeds, and shades of night;
Inverted nature swims before his sight:
The insulting victor presses on the more,
And treads the steps the vanquish'd trod before,
Nor rest, nor respite gives. A stone there lay
Behind his trembling foe, and stopp'd his way:
Achilles took the advantage which he found,
O'erturn'd, and push'd him backward on the
ground.

His buckler held him under, while he press'd,
With both his knees above, his panting breast:
Unlac'd his helm: about his chin the twist
He tied; and soon the strangled soul dismiss'd.

With eager haste he went to strip the dead;
The vanquish'd body from his arms was fled.
His sea-god sire, to immortalize his fame,
Had turn'd it to the bird that bears his name.
A truce succeeds the labours of this day,
And arms suspended with a long delay.
While Trojan walls are kept with watch and
ward;
[guard.

The Greeks before their trenches mount the
The feast approach'd; when to the blue-ey'd maid
His vows for Cygnus slain the victor paid,
And a white heifer on her altar laid.
The reeking entrails on the fire they threw;
And to the gods the grateful odour flew :
Heaven had its part in sacrifice: the rest
Was broil'd and roasted for the future feast.
The chief invited guests were set around:
And, hunger first assuag'd, the bowls were
crown'd,

Which in deep draughts their cares and labours drown'd.

The mellow harp did not their ears employ:
And mute was all the warlike symphony.
Discourse, the food of souls, was their delight,
And pleasing chat prolong'd the summer's night.
The subject, deeds of arms; and valour shown,
Or on the Trojan side, or on their own.
Of dangers undertaken, fame achiev'd,
They talk'd by turns; the talk by turns re-
liev'd.

What things but these could fierce Achilles tell,
Or what could fierce Achilles hear so well?
The last great act perform'd of Cygnus slain,
Did most the martial audience entertain:
Wondering to find a body, free by fate
From steel, and which could e'en that steel re-
Amaz'd, their admiration they renew; [bate:
And scarce Pelides could believe it true.

has

Then Nestor thus; What once this age In fated Cygnus, and in him alone, [known, These eyes have seen in Cæneus long before, Whose body not a thousand swords could bore. Caeneus, in courage, and in strength, excell'd, And still his Othrys with his fame is fill'd: But what did most his martial deeds adorn, (Though since he chang'd his sex) a woman born.

A novelty so strange, and full of fate, His listening audience ask'd him to relate. Achilles thus commends their common suit, O father, first for prudence in repute, Tell, with that eloquence, so much thy own, What thou hast heard, or what of Cæneus known:

What was he, whence his change of sex begun, What trophies, join'd in wars with thee, he won ?

Who conquer'd him, and in what fatal strife The youth, without a wound, could lose his life?

Neleides then; Though tardy age, and time, Have shrunk my sinews, and decay'd my prime; Though much I have forgotten of my store, Yet not exhausted, I remember more. Of all that arms achiev'd, or peace design'd, That action still is fresher in my mind Than aught beside. If reverend age can give To faith a sanction, in my third I live.

'T was in my second century I survey'd Young Canis, then a fair Thessalian maid: Canis the bright was born to high command; A princess, and a native of thy land, Divine Achilles: every tongue proclaim'd Her beauty, and her eyes all hearts inflam'd. Peleus, thy sire, perhaps had sought her bed, Among the rest; but he had either led Thy mother then, or was by promise tied; But she to him, and all, alike her love jenied.