Whether the stile of Titan please thee more,
Whose purple rays th' Achæmenes adore;
Or great Ofiris, who first taught the fwain
In Pharian fields to fow the golden grain; 860
Or Mitra, to whose beams the Perfian bows,
And pays, in hollow rocks, his awful vows;
Mitra, whose head the blaze of light adorns,
Who grafps the struggling heifer's lunar horns.

DRYOPE

DIXIT

IN

ARBORE M.

IXIT: et, admonitu veteris commota
miniftrae,

Ingemuit; quam fic nurus eft adfata dolentem:
Te tamen, o genitrix, alienae fanguine veftro
Rapta movet facies. quid fi tibi mira fororis
Fata meae referam? quamquam lacrymaeque do-
lorque

10

Impediunt, prohibentque loqui. fuit unica matri (Me pater ex alia genuit) notiffima forma Oechalidum Dryope: quam virginitate carentem, Vimque Dei paffam, Delphos Delonque tenentis,

NOTES.

DRYOPE.] Upon occafion of the death of Hercules, his Mother Alcmena recounts her misfortunes to Iole, who an

3

THE

FABLE

OF

DRYOPE.

S

HE faid, and for her loft Galanthis fighs, when the fair Confort of her fon replies. Since you a fervant's ravifh'd form bemoan, And kindly figh for forrows not your own, Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate A nearer woe, a fifter's stranger fate. No nymph of all Oechalia could compare For beauteous form with Dryope the fair, Her tender mother's only hope and pride, (Myself the offspring of a second bride.) This Nymph comprefs'd by him who rules the day, Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey,

10

5

NOTES.

fwers with a relation of those of her own family, in particu lar the Transformation of her fifter Dryope, which is the subject of the ensuing Fable. P.