Marriage of Peleus and ThetisPine-trees gendered whilome upon soaring Peliac summitSwam (as the tale is told) through liquid surges of NeptuneFar as the Phasis-flood and frontier-land Aeetean;Whenas the youths elect, of Argive vigour the oak-heart,Longing the Golden Fleece of the Colchis-region to harry,Dared in a poop swift-paced to span salt seas and their shallows,Sweeping the deep blue seas with sweeps a-carven of fir-wood.She, that governing Goddess of citadels crowning the cities,Builded herself their car fast-flitting with lightest of breezes,Weaving plants of the pine conjoined in curve of the kelson;Foremost of all to imbue rude Amphitrite with ship-lore.Soon as her beak had burst through wind-rackt spaces of ocean,While the oar-tortured wave with spumy whiteness was blanching,Surged from the deep abyss and hoar-capped billows the facesSeaborn, Nereids eyeing the prodigy wonder-smitten.There too mortal orbs through softened spendours regardedOcean-nymphs who exposed bodies denuded of raimentBare to the breast upthrust from hoar froth capping the sea-depths.Then Thetis Peleus fired (men say) a-sudden with love,Then Thetis nowise spurned to mate and marry with mortal,Then Thetis' Sire himself her yoke with Peleus sanctioned.Oh, in those happier days now fondly yearned-for, you heroesBorn; (all hail!) of the gods begotten, and excellent issueBred by your mothers, all hail! and placid deal me your favour.Oft with the sound of me, in strains and spells I'll invoke you;You too by wedding-torch so happily, highly augmented,Peleus, Thessaly's ward, in whose favor Jupiter himself,The Father of the gods, resigned his passions.You Thetis, fairest of maids Nereian, vouchsafed to marry?You did Tethys empower to woo and wed with her grandchild;Nor less Oceanus, with water compassing th' Earth-globe?But when ended the term, and wisht-for light of the day-tideUprose, flocks to the house in concourse mighty, convened,Thessaly all, with glad assembly the Palace fulfilling:Presents afore they bring, and joy in faces declare they.Cieros abides a desert: they quit Phthiotican Tempe,Homesteads of Crannon-town, eke bulwarkt walls Larissa;Meeting at Pharsalus, and roof Pharsalian seeking.None will the fields now till; soft wax all necks the oxen,Never the humble vine is purged by curve of the rake-tooth,Never a pruner's hook thins out the shade of the tree-tufts,Never a bull up-plows broad glebe with bend of the coulter,Over whose point unuse displays the squalor of rust-stain.But in the homestead's heart, where'er that opulent palaceHides a retreat, all shines with splendour of gold and of silver.Ivory blanches the seats, bright gleam the flagons a-table,All of the mansion joys in royal riches and grandeur.But for the Diva's use bestrewn is the genial bedstead,Hidden in midmost stead, and its polisht framework of IndianTusk underlies its cloth empurpled by juice of the dye-shell.This be a figured cloth with forms of manhood primevalShowing by marvel-art the gifts and graces of heroes.Here upon Dia's strand wave-resonant, ever-regardingTheseus borne from sight outside by fleet of the fleetest,Stands Ariadne with heart full-filled with furies unbated,Nor can her sense as yet believe she 'spies the espied,When like one that awakes new roused from slumber deceptive,Sees she her hapless self lone left on loneliest sandbank:While as the mindless youth with oars disturbeth the shallows,Casts to the windy storms what vows he vainly had vowed.Him through the sedges afar the sad-eyed maiden of Minos,Likest a Bacchant-girl stone-carven, (O her sorrow!)'Spies, a-tossing the while on sorest billows of love-care.Now no more on her blood-hued hair fine fillets retains she,No more now light veil conceals her bosom erst hidden,Now no more smooth zone contains her milky-hued paplets: