Replies, "Or leave me to myself alone,
You rude, uncivil nymph, or I'll be gone.
"Fair stranger then," says she, "it shall be so;"
And, for she fear'd his threats, she feign'd to go;
But hid within a covert's neighb'ring green,
She kept him still in sight, herself unseen.
The boy now fancies all the danger o'er,
And innocently sports about the shore,
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and shivers, as he dips.
The coolness pleas'd him, and with eager haste
His airy garments on the banks be cast;
His godlike features, and his heav'nly hue,
And all his beauties were expos'd to view.
His naked limbs the nymph with rapture spies,
While hotter passions in her bosom rise,
Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.
She longs, she burns to clasp him in her arms,
And looks, and sighs, and kindles at his charms.
Now all undress'd upon the banks he stood,
And clapt his sides, and leap'd into the flood,
His lovely limbs the silver waves divide,
His limbs appear more lovely through the tide;
As lilies shut within a crystal case,

Receive a glossy lustre from the glass.

"He's mine, he's all my own," the Naiad cries, And flings off all, and after him she flies.

And now she fastens on him as he swims,

And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs.
The more the boy resisted, and was coy,

The more she clipp'd, and kiss'd the struggling boy.
So when the wriggling snake is snatch'd on high
In eagle's claws, and hisses in the sky,
Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,
And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings.
The restless boy still obstinately strove
To free himself, and still refus'd her love.
Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs entwin'd,

"And why, coy youth," she cries, "why thus unkind!
Oh may the gods thus keep us ever join'd!
Oh may we never, never part again!"

So pray'd the nymph, nor did she pray in vain:
For now she finds him, as his limbs she press'd,
Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast;
Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in one:

Last in one face are both their faces join'd,
As when the stock and grafted twig combin'd
Shoot up the same and wear a common rind:
Both bodies in a single body mix,

A single body with a double sex.

The boy, thus lost in woman, now survey'd
The river's guilty stream, and thus he pray'd.
(He pray'd, but wonder'd at his softer tone,
Surpris'd to hear a voice but half his own)
You parent gods, whose heav'nly names I bear,
Hear your Hermaphrodite, and grant my pray'r;
Oh grant, that whomsoe'er these streams contain,
If man he enter'd, he may rise again

Supple, unsinew'd, and but half a man!

The heav'nly parents answer'd, from on high,
Their two-shap'd son, the double votary;
Then gave a secret virtue to the flood,
And ting'd its source to make his wishes good.

NOTES

ON SOME OF THE

FOREGOING STORIES

IN

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

THE

ON THE STORY OF PHAETON, PAGE 112.

HE story of Phaëton is told with a greater air of majesty and grandeur than any other in all Ovid. It is, indeed, the most important subject he treats of, except the deluge; and I cannot but believe that this is the conflagration he hints at in the first book.

Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus

Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli
Ardeat, et mundi moles operosa laboret;

(though the learned apply those verses to the future burning of the world) for it fully answers that description, if the

Cali miserere tui, circumspice utrumque,
Fumat uterque polus-

Fumat uterque polus. -comes up to correptaque regia cali-Besides, it is Ovid's custom to prepare the reader for a following story, by giving some intimations of it in a foregoing one, which was more particularly necessary to be done before he led us into so strange a story as this he is now upon.

P. 112. 1. 7.-For in the portal, &c.] We have here the picture of the universe drawn in little.

Balanarumque prementem

Egeona suis immania terga lacertis.

Ægeon makes a diverting figure in it.

-Facies non omnibus una,

Nec diversa tamen: qualem decet esse sororum.

The thought is very pretty, of giving. Doris and her daughters such a difference in their looks, as is natural to different persons, and yet such a likeness as showed their affinity.

Terra viros, urbesque gerit, sylvasque, ferasque,
Fluminaque, et nymphas, et cætera numina ruris.

The less important figures are well huddled together in the promiscuous description at the end, which very well represents what the painters call a group.

-Circum caput omne micantes

Deposuit radios; propiusque accedere jussit.

P. 113. 1. 23.-And flung the blaze, &c.] It gives us a great image of Phoebus, that the youth was forced to look on him at a distance, and not able to approach him till he had laid aside the circle of rays that cast such a glory about his head. And, indeed, we may every where observe in Ovid, that he never fails of a due loftiness in his ideas, though he wants it in his words. And this I think infinitely better, than to have sublime expressions and mean thoughts, which is generally the true character of Claudian and Statius. But this is not considered by them who run down Ovid, in the gross, for a low middle way of writing. What can be more simple and unadorned than his description of Enceladus in the sixth book?

Nititur ille quidem, pugnatque resurgere sæpe,
Dextra sed Ausonio manus est subjecta Peloro,
Lava, Pachyne, tibi, Lilibæo crura premuntur,
Degravat Etna caput, sub qua resupinus arenas
Ejectat, flammamque fero vomit ore Typhæus.