Metamorphoses

Book the Second-3

Possest at length of what his heart desir'd,

Back to his Heav'ns, th' exulting God retir'd.

The lovely huntress, rising from the grass,

With down-cast eyes, and with a blushing face,

By shame confounded, and by fear dismay'd,

Flew from the covert of the guilty shade,

And almost, in the tumult of her mind,

Left her forgotten bow and shafts behind.

But now Diana, with a sprightly train

Of quiver'd virgins, bounding o'er the plain,

Call'd to the nymph; the nymph began to fear

A second fraud, a Jove disguis'd in her;

But, when she saw the sister nymphs, suppress'd

Her rising fears, and mingled with the rest.

How in the look does conscious guilt appear!

Slowly she mov'd, and loiter'd in the rear;

Nor lightly tripp'd, nor by the Goddess ran,

As once she us'd, the foremost of the train.

Her looks were flush'd, and sullen was her mien,

That sure the virgin Goddess (had she been

Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen.

'Tis said the nymphs saw all, and guess'd aright:

And now the moon had nine times lost her light,

When Dian, fainting in the mid-day beams,

Found a cool covert, and refreshing streams

That in soft murmurs through the forest flow'd,

And a smooth bed of shining gravel show'd.

A covert so obscure, and streams so clear,

The Goddess prais'd: "And now no spies are near

Let's strip, my gentle maids, and wash," she cries.

Pleas'd with the motion, every maid complies;

Only the blushing huntress stood confus'd,

And form'd delays, and her delays excus'd;

In vain excus'd: her fellows round her press'd,

And the reluctant nymph by force undress'd,

The n***d huntress all her shame reveal'd,

In vain her hands the pregnant womb conceal'd;

"Begone!" the Goddess cries with stern disdain,

"Begone! nor dare the hallow'd stream to stain":

She fled, for ever banish'd from the train.

This Juno heard, who long had watch'd her time

To punish the detested rival's crime;

The time was come; for, to enrage her more,

A lovely boy the teeming rival bore.

The Goddess cast a furious look, and cry'd,

"It is enough! I'm fully satisfy'd!

This boy shall stand a living mark, to prove

My husband's baseness and the strumpet's love:

But vengeance shall awake: those guilty charms

That drew the Thunderer from Juno's arms,

No longer shall their wonted force retain,

Nor please the God, nor make the mortal vain."

This said, her hand within her hair she wound,

Swung her to Earth, and drag'd her on the ground:

The prostrate wretch lifts up her arms in pray'r;

Her arms grow shaggy, and deform'd with hair,

Her nails are sharpen'd into pointed claws,

Her hands bear half her weight, and turn to paws;

Her lips, that once cou'd tempt a God, begin

To grow distorted in an ugly grin.

And, lest the supplicating brute might reach

The ears of Jove, she was depriv'd of speech:

Her surly voice thro' a hoarse passage came

In savage sounds: her mind was still the same,

The furry monster fix'd her eyes above,

And heav'd her new unwieldy paws to Jove,

And beg'd his aid with inward groans; and tho'

She could not call him false, she thought him so.

How did she fear to lodge in woods alone,

And haunt the fields and meadows, once her own!

How often wou'd the deep-mouth'd dogs pursue,

Whilst from her hounds the frighted huntress flew!

How did she fear her fellow-brutes, and shun

The shaggy bear, tho' now her self was one!

How from the sight of rugged wolves retire,

Although the grim Lycaon was her sire!

But now her son had fifteen summers told,

Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold;

When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,

He chanc'd to rouze his mother where she lay.

She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,

And fondly gaz'd: the boy was in a fright,

And aim'd a pointed arrow at her breast,

And would have slain his mother in the beast;

But Jove forbad, and snatch'd 'em through the air

In whirlwinds up to Heav'n, and fix'd 'em there!

Where the new constellations nightly rise,

And add a lustre to the northern skies.

When Juno saw the rival in her height,

Spangled with stars, and circled round with light,

She sought old Ocean in his deep abodes,

And Tethys, both rever'd among the Gods.

They ask what brings her there: "Ne'er ask," says she,

"What brings me here, Heav'n is no place for me.

You'll see, when night has cover'd all things o'er,

Jove's starry bastard and triumphant whore

Usurp the Heav'ns; you'll see 'em proudly rowle

And who shall now on Juno's altars wait,

When those she hates grow greater by her hate?

I on the nymph a brutal form impress'd,

Jove to a goddess has transform'd the beast;

This, this was all my weak revenge could do:

But let the God his chaste amours pursue,

And, as he acted after Io's r**e,

Restore th' adultress to her former shape;

Then may he cast his Juno off, and lead

The great Lycaon's offspring to his bed.

But you, ye venerable Pow'rs, be kind,

And, if my wrongs a due resentment find,

Receive not in your waves their setting beams,

Nor let the glaring strumpet taint your streams."

The Goddess ended, and her wish was giv'n.

Back she return'd in triumph up to Heav'n;

Her gawdy peacocks drew her through the skies.

Their tails were spotted with a thousand eyes;

The eyes of Argus on their tails were rang'd,

At the same time the raven's colour chang'd.

The Story of Coronis, and Birth of Aesculapius

The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,

White as the whitest dove's unsully'd breast,

Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,

Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl;

His tongue, his prating tongue had chang'd him quite

To sooty blackness, from the purest white.

The story of his change shall here be told;

In Thessaly there liv'd a nymph of old,

Coronis nam'd; a peerless maid she shin'd,

Confest the fairest of the fairer kind.

Apollo lov'd her, 'till her guilt he knew,

While true she was, or whilst he thought her true.

But his own bird the raven chanc'd to find

The false one with a secret rival joyn'd.

Coronis begg'd him to suppress the tale,

But could not with repeated pray'rs prevail.

His milk-white pinions to the God he ply'd;

The busy daw flew with him, side by side,

And by a thousand teizing questions drew

Th' important secret from him as they flew.

The daw gave honest counsel, tho' despis'd,

And, tedious in her tattle, thus advis'd:

"Stay, silly bird, th' ill-natur'd task refuse,

Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.

Be warn'd by my example: you discern

What now I am, and what I was shall learn.

My foolish honesty was all my crime;

Then hear my story. Once upon a time,

The two-shap'd Ericthonius had his birth

(Without a mother) from the teeming Earth;

Minerva nurs'd him, and the infant laid

Within a chest, of twining osiers made.

The daughters of king Cecrops undertook

To guard the chest, commanded not to look

On what was hid within. I stood to see

The charge obey'd, perch'd on a neighb'ring tree.

The sisters Pandrosos and Herse keep

The strict command; Aglauros needs would peep,

And saw the monstrous infant, in a fright,

And call'd her sisters to the hideous sight:

A boy's soft shape did to the waste prevail,

But the boy ended in a dragon's tail.

I told the stern Minerva all that pass'd;

But for my pains, discarded and disgrac'd,

The frowning Goddess drove me from her sight,

And for her fav'rite chose the bird of night.

Be then no tell-tale; for I think my wrong

Enough to teach a bird to hold her tongue.

But you, perhaps, may think I was remov'd,

As never by the heav'nly maid belov'd:

But I was lov'd; ask Pallas if I lye;

Tho' Pallas hate me now, she won't deny:

For I, whom in a feather'd shape you view,

Was once a maid (by Heav'n the story's true)

A blooming maid, and a king's daughter too.

A crowd of lovers own'd my beauty's charms;

My beauty was the cause of all my harms;

Neptune, as on his shores I wont to rove,

Observ'd me in my walks, and fell in love.

He made his courtship, he confess'd his pain,

And offer'd force, when all his arts were vain;

Swift he pursu'd: I ran along the strand,

'Till, spent and weary'd on the sinking sand,

I shriek'd aloud, with cries I fill'd the air

To Gods and men; nor God nor man was there:

A virgin Goddess heard a virgin's pray'r.

For, as my arms I lifted to the skies,

I saw black feathers from my fingers rise;

I strove to fling my garment on the ground;

My garment turn'd to plumes, and girt me round:

My hands to beat my n***d bosom try;

Nor n***d bosom now nor hands had I:

Lightly I tript, nor weary as before

Sunk in the sand, but skim'd along the shore;

'Till, rising on my wings, I was preferr'd

To be the chaste Minerva's virgin bird:

Preferr'd in vain! I am now in disgrace:

Nyctimene the owl enjoys my place.

On her incestuous life I need not dwell

(In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell),

And of her dire amours you must have heard,

For which she now does penance in a bird,

That conscious of her shame, avoids the light,

And loves the gloomy cov'ring of the night;

The birds, where-e'er she flutters, scare away

The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day."

The raven, urg'd by such impertinence,

Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,

And curst the harmless daw; the daw withdrew:

The raven to her injur'd patron flew,

And found him out, and told the fatal truth

Of false Coronis and the favour'd youth.

The God was wroth, the colour left his look,

The wreath his head, the harp his hand forsook:

His silver bow and feather'd shafts he took,

And lodg'd an arrow in the tender breast,

That had so often to his own been prest.

Down fell the wounded nymph, and sadly groan'd,

And pull'd his arrow reeking from the wound;

And weltring in her blood, thus faintly cry'd,

"Ah cruel God! tho' I have justly dy'd,

What has, alas! my unborn infant done,

That he should fall, and two expire in one?"

This said, in agonies she fetch'd her breath.

The God dissolves in pity at her death;

He hates the bird that made her falshood known,

And hates himself for what himself had done;

The feather'd shaft, that sent her to the Fates,

And his own hand, that sent the shaft, he hates.

Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain,

And tries the compass of his art in vain.

Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,

The pile made ready, and the kindling fire.

With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept,

And, if a God could weep, the God had wept.

Her corps he kiss'd, and heav'nly incense brought,

And solemniz'd the death himself had wrought.

But lest his offspring should her fate partake,

Spight of th' immortal mixture in his make,

He ript her womb, and set the child at large,

And gave him to the centaur Chiron's charge:

Then in his fury black'd the raven o'er,

And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.

Ocyrrhoe transform'd into a Mare

Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,

Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.

His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore

The nymph Charicle to the centaur bore,

With hair dishevel'd on her shoulders, came

To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name;

She knew her father's arts, and could rehearse

The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.

Once, as the sacred infant she survey'd,

The God was kindled in the raving maid,

And thus she utter'd her prophetick tale:

"Hail, great physician of the world, all-hail;

Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come

Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the tomb;

Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfin'd!

Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.

Thy daring art shall animate the dead,

And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:

Then shalt thou dye, but from the dark abode

Rise up victorious, and be twice a God.

And thou, my sire, not destin'd by thy birth

To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,

How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to dye,

And quit thy claim to immortality;

When thou shalt feel, enrag'd with inward pains,

The Hydra's venom rankling in thy veins?

The Gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,

And give thee over to the pow'r of Fate."