While future realms his wand'ring thoughts delight, 445
His daily vision and his dream by night;
Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye,
From whence he fees his absent brother fly,
With transport views the airy rule his own,
And fwells on an imaginary throne.
Fain would he cast a tedious age away,
And live out all in one triumphant day.
He chides the lazy progress of the fun,
And bids the year with swifter motion run.
With anxious hopes his craving mind is toft,
And all his joys in length of wishes lost.
The hero then resolves his course to bend
Where ancient Danaus' fruitful fields extend,
And fam'd Mycene's lofty tow'rs afcend,
(Where late the fun did Atreus' crimes deteft,
And disappear'd in horror of the feaft.)
Aonia. Jam jamque animis male debita regna
Concipit, & longum fignis cunctantibus annum
Stare gemit. Tenet una dies noctesque recurfans
Cura virum, fi quando humilem decedere regno
Germanum, & femet Thebis, opibusque potitum
Cerneret, hac avum cupiat pro luce pacifci.
Nunc queritur ceu tarda fugæ difpendia: fed mox
Attollit flatus ducis, & fediffe fuperbum
Dejecto se fratre putat, spes anxia mentem
Extrahit, & longo confumit gaudia voto.
Tunc fedet Inachias urbes, Daneiaque regna,
Et caligantes abrupto fole Mycenas,
And now by chance, by fate, or furies led,
From Bacchus' confecrated caves he fled,
Where the shrill cries of frantic matrons found,
And Pentheus' blood enrich'd the rifing ground. 465
Then sees Cytharon tow'ring o'er the plain,
And thence declining gently to the main.
Next to the bounds of Nifus' realm repairs,
Where treach'rous Scylla cut the purple hairs:
The hanging cliffs of Scyron's rock explores,
And hears the murmurs of the diff'rent shores:
Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas,
And stately Corinth's pleasing site surveys.
'Twas now the time when Phœbus yields to night,
And rifing Cynthia sheds her filver light,
Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drew
Her airy chariot hung with pearly dew;
Ferre iter impavidum. Seu prævia ducit Erynnis,
Seu fors illa via, five hac immota vocabat
Atropos: Ogygiis ululata furoribus antra
Deferit, & pingues Bacchæo fanguine colles.
Inde plagam, qua molle fedens in plana Citharon
Porrigitur, lapfumque inclinat ad æquora montem
Præterit. hinc arête scopuloso in limite pendens,
Infames Scyrone petras, Scyllæaque rura
Purpureo regnata seni, mitemque Corinthon
Linquit, & in mediis audit duo littora campis.
Jamque per emeriti furgens confinia Phœbi
Titanis, late mundo fubvecta filenti
Rorifera gelidum tenuaverat aëra biga.
All birds and beasts lie hush'd; sleep steals away
The wild defires of men, and toils of day,
And brings, defcending thro' the filent air,
A fweet forgetfulness of human care.
Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay,
Promise the skies the bright return of day;
No faint reflections of the distant light
Streak with long gleams the scatt'ring shades of night; From the damp earth impervious vapours rise, Encrease the darkness and involve the skies.
At once the rushing winds with roaring found
Burst from th' Æolian caves, and rend the ground,
With equal rage their airy quarrel try,
And win by turns the kingdom of the sky,:
But with a thicker night black Aufter shrouds
The heav'ns, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds,
Jam pecudes volucresque tacent; jam fomnus avaris
Inferpit curis, pronusque per aëra nutat
Grata laboratæ referens oblivia vita.
Sed nec punicco rediturum nubila cælo
Promifere jubar, nec rarefcentibns umbris
Longa repercuffo nituere crepuscula Phœbo.
Denfior à terris, & nulla pervia flammæ
Subtexit nox atra polos. Jam clauftra rigentis
Eolia percussa fonant, venturaque rauco
Ore minatur byems, venti tranfverfa frementes
Confligunt, axemque emoto cardine vellunt,
Dam cælum fibi quisque rapit. fed plurimus Aufter
Inglomerat noctem, & tenebrosa volumina torquet,
From whose dark womb a ratling tempest pours,
Which the cold north congeals to haily show'rs.
From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud,
And broken lightnings flash from ev'ry cloud.
Now fmoaks with show'rs the misty mountain-ground,
And floated fields lie undistinguish'd round:
Th' Inachian streams with headlong fury run,
And Erafinus rolls a deluge on :
The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds,
And spreads its ancient poisons o'er the grounds:
Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play,
Rush thro' the mounds, and bear the damms away: 505
Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn,
Are whirl'd in air, and on the winds are born;
The storm the dark Lycaan groves display'd,
And first to light expos'd the acred shade.
Defunditque imbres, ficco quos afper hiatu
Perfolidat Boreas. Nec non abrupta tremifcunt
Fulgura, & attritus fubita face rumpitur æther.
Jam Nemea, jam Tanareis contermina lucis
Arcadiæ capita alta madent: ruit agmine facto 500
Inachus, & gelidas furgens Erafinus ad Arctos.
Pulverulenta prius, calcandaque flumina nullæ
Aggeribus tenuere moræ, ftagnoque refusa eft
Funditus, & veteri spumavit Lerna veneno.
Frangitur omne nemus: rapiunt antiqua procelle
Brachia fylvarum, nullisque afpecta per avum
Solibus umbrofi patuere æstiva Lycai.
Th' intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky,
Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly,
And views astonish'd from the hills afar,
The floods descending and the wat'ry war,
That driv'n by storms, and pouring o'er the plain,
Swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main. 515
'Thro' the brown horrors of the night he fled,
Nor knows, amaz'd, what doubtful path to tread,
His brother's image to his mind appears,
Inflames his heart with rage, and wings his feet with fears.
So fares a failor on the stormy main, When clouds conceal Bootes' golden wain, When not a star its friendly lustre keeps, Nor trembling Cynthia glimmers on the deeps; He dreads the rocks, and shoals, and seas, and skies, While thunder roars, and light'ning round him flies. 525
İlle tamen modo faxa jugis fugientia ruptis
Miratur, modo nubigenas è montibus amnes
Aure pavens, passimque infano turbine raptas
Paftorum pecorumque domos. Non fegnius amens, 515
Incertusque via, per nigra filentia, vastum
Haurit iter: pulfat metus undique, & undique frater.
Ac velut hyberno deprenfus navita ponto,
Cui neque temo piger, neque amico fidere monftrat
Luna vias, medio cæli pelagique tumultu
Stat rationis inops: jam jamque aut faxa malignis
Expectat fubmersa vadis, aut vertice acuto
Spumantes fcopulos erectæ incurrere prora:
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