Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow,
And those that give the wand'ring winds to blow:
Here all their rage, and ev'n their murmurs cease,
And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace.
A shining synod of majestic Gods
Gilds with new lustre the divine abodes;
Heav'n seems improv'd with a superior ray,
And the bright arch reflects a double day.
The Monarch then his solemn silence broke,
The still creation listen'd while he spoke,
Each sacred accent bears eternal weight,
And each irrevocable word is Fate.
How long shall man the wrath of heav'n defy,
And force unwilling vengeance from the sky!
Oh race confed'rate into crimes, that prove
Triumphant o'er th' eluded rage of Jove!
This weary'd arm can scarce the bolt sustain,
And unregarded thunder rolls in vain:
Th' o'erlabour'd Cyclop from his task retires;
Th' Æolian forge exhausted of its fires.
For this, I suffer'd Phoebus' steeds to stray,
And the mad ruler to misguide the day.
When the wide earth to heaps of ashes turn'd
And heav'n itself the wand'ring chariot burn'd.
For this, my brother of the wat'ry reign
Releas'd th' impetuous sluices of the main:
But flames consum'd, and billows rag'd in vain.
Two races now, ally'd to Jove, offend;
To punish these, see Jove himself descend.
The Theban Kings their line from Cadmus trace,
From godlike Perseus those of Argive race.
Unhappy Cadmus' fate who does not know?
And the long series of succeeding woe:
How oft the Furies, from the deeps of night,
Arose, and mix'd with men in mortal fight:
Th' exulting mother, stain'd with filial blood;
The savage hunter and the haunted wood:
The direful banquet why should I proclaim,
And crimes that grieve the trembling Gods to name?
Ere I recount the sins of these profane,
The sun would sink into the western main,
I from the root thy guilty race will tear,
And give the nations to the waste of war.
Adrastus soon, with Gods averse, shall join,
In dire alliance with the Theban line;
Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed;
The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed;
Fix'd is their doom; this all-rememb'ring breast
Yet harbours vengeance for the tyrant's feast.
He said; and thus the Queen of heav'n return'd;
(With sudden Grief her lab'ring bosom burn'd);
"Must I, whose cares Phoroneus' tow'rs defend,
Must I, oh Jove, in bloody wars contend?
Thou know'st those regions my protection claim,
Glorious in arms, in riches, and in fame:
Tho' there the fair Ægyptian heifer fed,
And there deluded Argus slept, and bled;
Tho' there the brazen tow'r was storm'd of old,
When Jove descended in almighty gold,
Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes,
Those bashful crimes disguis'd in borrow'd shapes;
But Thebes, where shining in celestial charms
Thou cam'st triumphant to a mortal's arms,
When all my glories o'er her limbs were spread,
And blazing light'nings danc'd around her bed;
Curs'd Thebes the vengeance it deserves, may prove
Ah why should Argos feel the rage of Jove?
Yet since thou wilt thy sister-queen control,
Since still the lust of discord fires thy soul,
Go, rase my Samos, let Mycenæ fall,
And level with the dust the Spartan wall;
No more let mortals Juno's pow'r invoke,
Her fanes no more with eastern incense smoke,
Nor victims sink beneath the sacred stroke;
But to your Isis all my rites transfer,
Let altars blaze and temples smoke for her;
For her, thro' Egypt's fruitful clime renown'd,
Let weeping Nilus hear the timbrel sound.
But if thou must reform the stubborn times,
Avenging on the sons the fathers' crimes,
And from the long records of distant age
Derive incitements to renew thy rage;
Say, from what period then has Jove design'd
To date his vengeance, to what bounds confin'd?
Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides
His wand'ring stream, and thro' the briny tides
Unmix'd to his Sicilian river glides.
Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,
Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;
Who raise thy temples where the chariot stood
Of fierce Oenomäus, defil'd with blood;
1 Not 'father's,' as in Warburton and subsequent editions; 'auctorum crimina' in the original.]
Where once his steeds their savage banquet found,
And human bones yet whiten all the ground.
Say, can those honours please: and cans't thou love
Presumptuous Crete that boasts the tomb of Jove?
And shall not Tantalus's kingdoms share
Thy wife and sister's tutelary care?
Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,
Nor doom to war a race deriv'd from thee;
On impious realms and barb'rous Kings impose
Thy plagues, and curse 'em with such Sons as those1."
Thus, in reproach and pray'r, the Queen express'd
"Twas thus I deem'd thy haughty soul would bear
The dire, tho' just, revenge which I prepare
Against a nation, thy peculiar care:
No less Dione might for Thebes contend,
Nor Bacchus less his native town defend,
Yet these in silence see the fates fulfil
Their work, and rev'rence our superior will.
For by the black infernal Styx I swear,
(That dreadful oath which binds the Thunderer)
'Tis fix'd; th' irrevocable doom of Jove;
No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
Haste then, Cyllenius, thro' the liquid air;
Go mount the winds, and to the shades repair;
Bid hell's black monarch my commands obey,
And give up Laius to the realms of day,
Whose ghost yet shiv'ring on Cocytus' sand,
Expects its passage to the further strand:
Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear
These pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear;
That, from his exil'd brother, swell'd with pride
Of foreign forces, and his Argive bride,
Almighty Jove commands him to detain
The promis'd empire, and alternate reign:
Be this the cause of more than mortal hate:
The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into Fate."
The God obeys, and to his feet applies
Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies;
His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread,
And veil'd the starry glories of his head!
He seiz'd the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye;
That drives the dead to dark Tartarean coasts,
Or back to life compels the wand'ring ghosts.
Thus, thro' the parting clouds, the son of May
Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way;
Now smoothly steers thro' air his equal flight,
Now springs aloft, and tow'rs th' ethereal height;
1 Eteocles and Polynices. P.
Then wheeling down the steep of heav'n he flies,
And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.
Meantime the banish'd Polynices roves
(His Thebes abandon'd) thro' th' Aonian groves,
While future realms his wand'ring thoughts delight,
His daily vision and his dream by night;
Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye,
From whence he sees his absent brother fly,
With transport views the airy rule his own,
And swells 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 sun,
And bids the year with swifter motion run.
With anxious hopes his craving mind is tost,
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 Mycena's lofty tow'rs ascend,
(Where late the sun did Atreus' crimes detest,
And disappear'd in horror of the feast).
And now by chance, by fate, or furies led,
From Bacchus' consecrated caves he fled,
Where the shrill cries of frantic matrons sound,
And Pentheus' blood enrich'd the rising ground.
Then sees Citharon tow'ring o'er the plain,
And thence declining gently to the main.
Next to the bounds of Nisus' realm repairs,
Where treach'rous Scylla cuts the purple hairs1:
The hanging cliffs of Scyron's rock explores 2,
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 Phoebus yields to night
And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light,
Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drew,
Her airy chariot hung with pearly dew;
All birds and beasts lie hush'd; sleep steals away
The wild desires of men, and toils of day,
And brings, descending thro' the silent air,
A sweet 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; 485
From the damp earth impervious vapours rise,
Increase the darkness and involve the skies.
At once the rushing winds with roaring sound
Burst from th' Æolian caves, and rend the ground,
[Megara. See Ov. Metam. VIII. vv. 6 ff.] 2 [Pope evidently confounds the island of Scyros in the Egean with the rocks between
Megaris and Attica infested by the robber
Sciron whom Theseus slew. See Ov. Metam.
VII. V. 444.]
With equal rage their airy quarrel try,
And win by turns the kingdom of the sky:
But with a thicker night black Auster shrouds
The heav'ns, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds,
From whose dark womb a rattling 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 smokes with show'rs the misty mountain-ground
And floated fields lie undistinguish'd round.
Th' Inachian streams with headlong fury run,
And Erasinus 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 dams away;
Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn,
Are whirl'd in air, and on the winds are borne,
The storm the dark Lycæan groves display'd,
And first to light expos'd the sacred shade.
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.
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 sailor on the stormy main,
When clouds conceal Boötes' 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 lightning round him flies.
Thus strove the chief, on ev'ry side distress'd,
Thus still his courage, with his toils increas'd;
With his broad shield oppos'd, he forc'd his way
Thro' thickest woods, and rous'd the beasts of prey.
Till he beheld, where from Larissa's height
The shelving walls reflect a glancing light:
Thither with haste the Theban hero flies;
On this side Lerna's pois'nous water lies,
On that Prosymna's grove and temple rise:
He pass'd the gates which then unguarded lay,
And to the regal palace bent his way;
On the cold marble, spent with toil, he lies,
And waits till pleasing slumbers seal his eyes.
Adrastus here his happy people sways,
Blest with calm peace in his declining days,
By both his parents of descent divine,
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