Alcithoe, daughter of King Minyas,consents not to the orgies of the God;denies that Bacchus is the son of Jove,and her two sisters join her in that crime.'Twas festal-day when matrons and their maids,keeping it sacred, had forbade all toil.—And having draped their bosoms with wild skins,they loosed their long hair for the sacred wreaths,and took the leafy thyrsus in their hands;—for so the priest commanded them. Austerethe wrath of Bacchus if his power be scorned.Mothers and youthful brides obeyed the priest;and putting by their wickers and their webs,dropt their unfinished toils to offer upfrankincense to the God; invoking himwith many names:—“O Bacchus! O Twice-born!O Fire-begot! Thou only child Twice-mothered!God of all those who plant the luscious grape!O Liber!” All these names and many more,for ages known—throughout the lands of Greece.“Thy youth is not consumed by wasting time;and lo, thou art an ever-youthful boy,most beautiful of all the Gods of Heaven,smooth as a virgin when thy horns are hid.—The distant east to tawny India's clime,where rolls remotest Ganges to the sea,was conquered by thy might.—O Most-revered!Thou didst destroy the doubting Pentheus,and hurled the sailors' bodies in the deep,and smote Lycurgus, wielder of the ax.“And thou dost guide thy lynxes, double-yoked,with showy harness.—Satyrs follow thee;and Bacchanals, and old Silenus, drunk,unsteady on his staff; jolting so roughon his small back-bent ass; and all the wayresounds a youthful clamour; and the screamsof women! and the noise of tambourines!And the hollow cymbals! and the boxwood flutes,—fitted with measured holes.—Thou art imploredby all Ismenian women to appearpeaceful and mild; and they perform thy rites.”Only the daughters of King Minyasare carding wool within their fastened doors,or twisting with their thumbs the fleecy yarn,or working at the web. So they corruptthe sacred festival with needless toil,keeping their hand-maids busy at the work.And one of them, while drawing out the threadwith nimble thumb, anon began to speak;“While others loiter and frequent these ritesfantastic, we the wards of Pallas, muchto be preferred, by speaking novel thoughtsmay lighten labour. Let us each in turn,relate to an attentive audience,a novel tale; and so the hours may glide.”it pleased her sisters, and they ordered herto tell the story that she loved the most.So, as she counted in her well-stored mindthe many tales she knew, first doubted shewhether to tell the tale of Derceto,—that Babylonian, who, aver the tribesof Palestine, in limpid ponds yet lives,—her body changed, and scales upon her limbs;or how her daughter, having taken wings,passed her declining years in whitened towers.Or should she tell of Nais, who with herbs,too potent, into fishes had transformedthe bodies of her lovers, till she metherself the same sad fate; or of that treewhich sometime bore white fruit, but now is changedand darkened by the blood that stained its roots.—Pleased with the novelty of this, at onceshe tells the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe;—and swiftly as she told it unto them,the fleecy wool was twisted into threads. When Pyramus and Thisbe, who were knownthe one most handsome of all youthful men,the other loveliest of all eastern girls,—lived in adjoining houses, near the wallsthat Queen Semiramis had built of brickaround her famous city, they grew fond,and loved each other—meeting often there—and as the days went by their love increased.They wished to join in marriage, but that joytheir fathers had forbidden them to hope;and yet the passion that with equal strengthinflamed their minds no parents could forbid.No relatives had guessed their secret love,for all their converse was by nods and signs;and as a smoldering fire may gather heat,the more 'tis smothered, so their love increased.Now, it so happened, a partition builtbetween their houses, many years ago,was made defective with a little chink;a small defect observed by none, althoughfor ages there; but what is hid from love?Our lovers found the secret opening,and used its passage to convey the soundsof gentle, murmured words, whose tuneful notepassed oft in safety through that hidden way.There, many a time, they stood on either side,thisbe on one and Pyramus the other,and when their warm breath touched from lip to lip,their sighs were such as this: “Thou envious wallwhy art thou standing in the way of thosewho die for love? What harm could happen theeshouldst thou permit us to enjoy our love?But if we ask too much, let us persuadethat thou wilt open while we kiss but once:for, we are not ungrateful; unto theewe own our debt; here thou hast left a waythat breathed words may enter loving ears.,”so vainly whispered they, and when the nightbegan to darken they exchanged farewells;made presence that they kissed a fond farewellvain kisses that to love might none avail.When dawn removed the glimmering lamps of night,and the bright sun had dried the dewy grassagain they met where they had told their love;and now complaining of their hapless fate,in murmurs gentle, they at last resolved,away to slip upon the quiet night,elude their parents, and, as soon as free,quit the great builded city and their homes.Fearful to wander in the pathless fields,they chose a trysting place, the tomb of Ninus,where safely they might hide unseen, beneaththe shadow of a tall mulberry tree,covered with snow-white fruit, close by a spring.All is arranged according to their hopes:and now the daylight, seeming slowly moved,sinks in the deep waves, and the tardy nightarises from the spot where day declines.Quickly, the clever Thisbe having firstdeceived her parents, opened the closed door.She flitted in the silent night away;and, having veiled her face, reached the great tomb,and sat beneath the tree; love made her bold.There, as she waited, a great lionessapproached the nearby spring to quench her thirst:her frothing jaws incarnadined with bloodof slaughtered oxen. As the moon was bright,Thisbe could see her, and affrighted fledwith trembling footstep to a gloomy cave;and as she ran she slipped and dropped her veil,which fluttered to the ground. She did not dareto save it. Wherefore, when the savage beasthad taken a great draft and slaked her thirst,and thence had turned to seek her forest lair,she found it on her way, and full of rage,tore it and stained it with her bloody jaws:but Thisbe, fortunate, escaped unseen.Now Pyramus had not gone out so soonas Thisbe to the tryst; and, when he sawthe certain traces of that savage beast,imprinted in the yielding dust, his facewent white with fear; but when he found the veilcovered with blood, he cried; “Alas, one nighthas caused the ruin of two lovers! Thouwert most deserving of completed days,but as for me, my heart is guilty! Idestroyed thee! O my love! I bade thee comeout in the dark night to a lonely haunt,and failed to go before. Oh! whatever lurksbeneath this rock, though ravenous lion, tearmy guilty flesh, and with most cruel jawsdevour my cursed entrails! What? Not so;it is a craven's part to wish for death!”So he stopped briefly; and took up the veil;went straightway to the shadow of the tree;and as his tears bedewed the well-known veil,he kissed it oft and sighing said, “Kissesand tears are thine, receive my blood as well.”And he imbrued the steel, girt at his side,deep in his bowels; and plucked it from the wound,a-faint with death. As he fell back to earth,his spurting blood shot upward in the air;so, when decay has rift a leaden pipea hissing jet of water spurts on high.—By that dark tide the berries on the treeassumed a deeper tint, for as the rootssoaked up the blood the pendent mulberrieswere dyed a purple tint.Thisbe returned,though trembling still with fright, for now she thoughther lover must await her at the tree,and she should haste before he feared for her.Longing to tell him of her great escapeshe sadly looked for him with faithful eyes;but when she saw the spot and the changed tree,she doubted could they be the same, for sothe colour of the hanging fruit deceived.While doubt dismayed her, on the ground she sawthe wounded body covered with its blood;—she started backward, and her face grew paleand ashen; and she shuddered like the sea,which trembles when its face is lightly skimmedby the chill breezes;—and she paused a space;—but when she knew it was the one she loved,she struck her tender breast and tore her hair.Then wreathing in her arms his loved form,she bathed the wound with tears, mingling her griefin his unquenched blood; and as she kissedhis death-cold features wailed; “Ah Pyramus,what cruel fate has taken thy life away?Pyramus! Pyramus! awake! awake!It is thy dearest Thisbe calls thee! Liftthy drooping head! Alas,”—At Thisbe's namehe raised his eyes, though languorous in death,and darkness gathered round him as he gazed.And then she saw her veil; and near it layhis ivory sheath—but not the trusty sword and once again she wailed; “Thy own right hand,and thy great passion have destroyed thee!—And I? my hand shall be as bold as thine—my love shall nerve me to the fatal deed—thee, I will follow to eternity—though I be censured for the wretched cause,so surely I shall share thy wretched fate:—alas, whom death could me alone bereave,thou shalt not from my love be reft by death!And, O ye wretched parents, mine and his,let our misfortunes and our pleadings meltyour hearts, that ye no more deny to thosewhom constant love and lasting death unite—entomb us in a single sepulchre.“And, O thou tree of many-branching boughs,spreading dark shadows on the corpse of one,destined to cover twain, take thou our fateupon thy head; mourn our untimely deaths;let thy fruit darken for a memory,an emblem of our blood.” No more she said;and having fixed the point below her breast,she fell on the keen sword, still warm with his red blood.But though her death was out of Nature's lawher prayer was answered, for it moved the Godsand moved their parents. Now the Gods have changedthe ripened fruit which darkens on the branch:and from the funeral pile their parents sealedtheir gathered ashes in a single urn. So ended she; at once Leuconoetook the narrator's thread; and as she spokeher sisters all were silent.“Even the Sunthat rules the world was captive made of Love.My theme shall be a love-song of the Sun.'Tis said the Lord of Day, whose wakeful eyebeholds at once whatever may transpire,witnessed the loves of Mars and Venus. Grievedto know the wrong, he called the son of Juno,Vulcan, and gave full knowledge of the deed,showing how Mars and Venus shamed his love,as they defiled his bed. Vulcan amazed,—the nimble-thoughted Vulcan lost his wits,so that he dropped the work his right hand held.But turning from all else at once he setto file out chains of brass, delicate, fine,from which to fashion nets invisible,filmy of mesh and airy as the threadof insect-web, that from the rafter swings.—Implicit woven that they yielded softthe slightest movement or the gentlest touch,with cunning skill he drew them round the bedwhere they were sure to dally. Presentlyappeared the faithless wife, and on the couchlay down to languish with her paramour.—Meshed in the chains they could not thence arise,nor could they else but lie in strict embrace,—cunningly thus entrapped by Vulcan's wit.—At once the Lemnian cuckold opened widethe folding ivory doors and called the Gods,—to witness. There they lay disgraced and bound.I wot were many of the lighter Godswho wished themselves in like disgraceful bonds.—The Gods were moved to laughter: and the talewas long most noted in the courts of Heaven.The Cytherean Venus brooded onthe Sun's betrayal of her stolen joys,and thought to torture him in passion's pains,and wreak requital for the pain he caused.Son of Hyperion! what avails thy light?What is the profit of thy glowing heat?Lo, thou whose flames have parched innumerous lands,thyself art burning with another flame!And thou whose orb should joy the universeart gazing only on Leucothea's charms.Thy glorious eye on one fair maid is fixed,forgetting all besides. Too early thouart rising from thy bed of orient skies,too late thy setting in the western waves;so taking time to gaze upon thy love,thy frenzy lengthens out the wintry hour!And often thou art darkened in eclipse,dark shadows of this trouble in thy mind,unwonted aspect, casting man perplexedin abject terror. Pale thou art, though notbetwixt thee and the earth the shadowous moonbedims thy devious way. Thy passion givesto grief thy countenance—for her thy heartalone is grieving—Clymene and Rhodos,and Persa, mother of deluding Circe,are all forgotten for thy doting hope;even Clytie, who is yearning for thy love,no more can charm thee; thou art so foredone.Leucothea is the cause of many tears,Leucothea, daughter of Eurynome,most beauteous matron of Arabia's strand,where spicey odours blow. Eurynomein youthful prime excelled her mother's grace,and, save her daughter, all excelled besides.Leucothea's father, Orchamas was kingwhere Achaemenes whilom held the sway;and Orchamas from ancient Belus' deathmight count his reign the seventh in descent.The dark-night pastures of Apollo's steedsare hid below the western skies; when there,and spent with toil, in lieu of nibbling herbsthey take ambrosial food: it gives their limbsrestoring strength and nourishes anew.Now while these coursers eat celestial foodand Night resumes his reign, the god appearsdisguised, unguessed, as old Eurynometo fair Leucothea as she draws the threads,all smoothly twisted from her spindle. Thereshe sits with twice six hand-maids ranged around,and as the god beholds her at the doorhe kisses her, as if a child belovedand he her mother. And he spoke to her:“Let thy twelve hand-maids leave us undisturbed,for I have things of close import to tell,and seemly, from a mother to her child.”,so when they all withdrew the god began,“Lo, I am he who measures the long year;I see all things, and through me the wide worldmay see all things; I am the glowing eyeof the broad universe! Thou art to methe glory of the earth!” Filled with alarm,from her relaxed fingers she let fallthe distaff and the spindle, but, her fearso lovely in her beauty seemed, the Godno longer brooked delay: he changed his formback to his wonted beauty and resumedhis bright celestial. Startled at the sightthe maid recoiled a space; but presentlythe glory of the god inspired her love;and all her timid doubts dissolved away;without complaint she melted in his arms.So ardently the bright Apollo loved,that Clytie, envious of Leucothea's joy,where evil none was known, a scandal made;and having published wide their secret love,leucothea's father also heard the tale.Relentlessly and fierce, his cruel handburied his living daughter in the ground,who, while her arms implored the glowing Sun,complained. “For love of thee my life is lost.”And as she wailed her father sowed her there.Hyperion's Son began with piercing heatto scatter the loose sand, a way to open,that she might look with beauteous features forthtoo late! for smothered by the compact earth,thou canst not lift thy drooping head; alas!A lifeless corse remains.No sadder sightsince Phaethon was blasted by the bolt,down-hurled by Jove, had ever grieved the Godwho daily drives his winged steeds. In vainhe strives with all the magic of his raysto warm her limbs anew. — The deed is done—what vantage gives his might if fate deny?He sprinkles fragrant nectar on her grave,and lifeless corse, and as he wails exclaims,“But naught shall hinder you to reach the skies.”At once the maiden's body, steeped in dewsof nectar, sweet and odourate, dissolvesand adds its fragrant juices to the earth:slowly from this a sprout of Frankincensetakes root in riched soil, and bursting throughthe sandy hillock shows its top.No moreto Clytie comes the author of sweet light,for though her love might make excuse of grief,and grief may plead to pardon jealous words,his heart disdains the schemist of his woe;and she who turned to sour the sweet of love,from that unhallowed moment pined away.Envious and hating all her sister Nymphs,day after day,—and through the lonely nights,all unprotected from the chilly breeze,her hair dishevelled, tangled, unadorned,she sat unmoved upon the bare hard ground.Nine days the Nymph was nourished by the dews,or haply by her own tears' bitter brine;—all other nourishment was naught to her.—She never raised herself from the bare ground,though on the god her gaze was ever fixed;—she turned her features towards him as he moved:they say that afterwhile her limbs took rootand fastened to the around.A pearly whiteoverspread her countenance, that turned as paleand bloodless as the dead; but here and therea blushing tinge resolved in violet tint;and something like the blossom of that namea flower concealed her face. Although a rootnow holds her fast to earth, the Heliotropeturns ever to the Sun, as if to provethat all may change and love through all remain. Thus was the story ended. All were charmedto hear recounted such mysterious deeds.While some were doubting whether such were trueothers affirmed that to the living Godsis nothing to restrain their wondrous works,though surely of the Gods, immortal, noneaccorded Bacchus even thought or place.When all had made an end of argument,they bade Alcithoe take up the word:she, busily working on the pendent web,still shot the shuttle through the warp and said;“The amours of the shepherd Daphnis, knownto many of you, I shall not relate;the shepherd Daphnis of Mount Ida, whowas turned to stone obdurate, for the Nymphwhose love he slighted—so the rivalryof love neglected rouses to revenge:neither shall I relate the story toldof Scython, double-sexed, who first was man,then altered to a woman: so I passthe tale of Celmus turned to adamant,who reared almighty Jove from tender youth:so, likewise the Curetes whom the rainbrought forth to life: Smilax and Crocus, too,transpeciated into little flowers:all these I pass to tell a novel tale,which haply may resolve in pleasant thoughts.Learn how the fountain, Salmacis, becameso infamous; learn how it enervatesand softens the limbs of those who chance to bathe.Although the fountain's properties are known,the cause is yet unknown. The Naiads nursedan infant son of Hermes, surely hisof Aphrodite gotten in the cavesof Ida, for the child resembled boththe god and goddess, and his name was theirs.The years passed by, and when the boy had reachedthe limit of three lustrums, he forsookhis native mountains; for he loved to roamthrough unimagined places, by the banksof undiscovered rivers; and the joyof finding wonders made his labour light.Leaving Mount Ida, where his youth was spent,he reached the land of Lycia, and from thencethe verge of Caria, where a pretty poolof soft translucent water may be seen,so clear the glistening bottom glads the eye:no barren sedge, no fenny reeds annoy,no rushes with their sharpened arrow-points,but all around the edges of that poolthe softest grass engirdles with its green.A Nymph dwells there, unsuited to the chase,unskilled to bend the bow, slothful of foot,the only Naiad in the world unknownto rapid-running Dian. Whensoeverher Naiad sisters pled in winged words,“Take up the javelin, sister Salmacis,take up the painted quiver and uniteyour leisure with the action of the chase;”she only scorned the javelin and the quiver,nor joined her leisure to the active chase.Rather she bathes her smooth and shapely limbs;or combs her tresses with a boxwood comb,Citorian; or looking in the poolconsults the glassed waters of effectsincreasing beauty; or she decks herselfin gauzy raiment, and reposing lollson cushioned leaves, or grass-enverdured beds;or gathers posies from the spangled lawns.Now, haply as she culled the sweetest flowersshe saw the youth, and longing in her heartmade havoc as her greedy eyes beheld.Although her love could scarcely brook delay,she waited to enhance her loveliness,in beauty hoping to allure his love.All richly dight she scanned herself and robes,to know that every charm should fair appear,and she be worthy: wherefore she began:“O godlike youth! if thou art of the skies,thou art no other than the god of Love;if mortal, blest are they who gave thee birth;happy thy brother; happy, fortunatethy sister; happy, fortunate and blestthe nurse that gave her bosom; but the joyssurpassing all, dearest and tenderest,are hers whom thou shalt wed. So, let it beif thou so young have deigned to marry, letmy joys be stolen; if unmarried, joinwith me in wedlock.” So she spoke, and stoodin silence waiting for the youth's reply.He knows nor cares for love—with lovelinessthe mounting blushes tinge his youthful cheeks,as blush-red tint of apples on the tree,ripe in the summer sun, or as the hueof painted ivory, or the round moonred-blushing in her splendour, when the clashof brass resounds in vain. And long the Nymphimplored; almost clung on his neck, as smoothand white as ivory; unceasinglyimploring him to kiss her, though as chasteas kisses to a sister; but the youthoutwearied, thus:“I do beseech you makean end of this; or must I fly the placeand leave you to your tears?” Affrighted thensaid Salmacis, “To you I freely give—good stranger here remain.” Although she madefair presence to retire, she hid herself,that from a shrub-grown covert, on her kneesshe might observe unseen.As any boythat heedless deems his mischief unobserved,now here now there, he rambled on the green;now in the bubbly ripples dipped his feet,now dallied in the clear pool ankle-deep;—the warm-cool feeling of the liquid then,so pleased him, that without delay he doffedhis fleecy garments from his tender limbs.Ah, Salmacis, amazement is thy meed!Thou art consumed to know his naked grace!As the hot glitters of the round bright suncollected, sparkle from the polished plate,thine eyes are glistened with delirious fires.Delay she cannot; panting for his joy,languid for his caressing, crazed, distract,her passion difficult is held in check.—He claps his body with his hollow palmsand lightly vaults into the limped wave,and darting through the water hand over handshines in the liquid element, as thoughshould one enhance a statue's ivorine,or glaze the lily in a lake of glass.And thus the Naiad, “I have gained my suit;his love is mine,—is mine!” Quickly disrobed,she plunged into the yielding wave—seized him,caressed him, clung to him a thousand ways,kissed him, thrust down her hands and touched his breast:reluctant and resisting he endeavoursto make escape, but even as he strugglesshe winds herself about him, as entwinesthe serpent which the royal bird on highholds in his talons; —as it hangs, it coilsin sinuous folds around the eagle's feet;—twisting its coils around his head and wings:or as the ivy clings to sturdy oaks;or as the polypus beneath the waves,by pulling down, with suckers on all sides,tenacious holds its prey. And yet the youth,descendant of great Atlas, not relentsnor gives the Naiad joy. Pressing her suitshe winds her limbs around him and exclaims,“You shall not scape me, struggle as you will,perverse and obstinate! Hear me, ye Gods!Let never time release the youth from me;time never let me from the youth release!” Propitious deities accord her prayers:the mingled bodies of the pair uniteand fashion in a single human form.So one might see two branches underneatha single rind uniting grow as one:so, these two bodies in a firm embraceno more are twain, but with a two-fold formnor man nor woman may be called—Though bothin seeming they are neither one of twain.When that Hermaphroditus felt the change,so wrought upon him by the languid fount,considered that he entered it a man,and now his limbs relaxing in the streamhe is not wholly male, but only half,—he lifted up his hands and thus implored,albeit with no manly voice; “Hear meO father! hear me mother! grant to methis boon; to me whose name is yours, your son;whoso shall enter in this fount a manmust leave its waters only half a man.”Moved by the words of their bi-natured sonboth parents yield assent: they taint the fountwith essences of dual-working powers.Now though the daughters of King Minyashave made an end of telling tales, they makeno end of labour; for they so despisethe deity, and desecrate his feast.While busily engaged, with sudden beatthey hear resounding tambourines; and pipesand crooked horns and tinkling brass renew,unseen, the note; saffron and myrrh dissolvein dulcet odours; and, beyond belief,the woven webs, dependent on the loom,take tints of green, put forth new ivy leaves,or change to grape-vines verdant. There the threadis twisted into tendrils, there the warpis fashioned into many-moving leaves—the purple lends its splendour to the grape.And now the day is past; it is the hourwhen night ambiguous merges into day,which dubious owns nor light nor dun obscure;and suddenly the house begins to shake,and torches oil-dipped seem to flare around,and fires a-glow to shine in every room,and phantoms, feigned of savage beasts, to howl.—Full of affright amid the smoking hallsthe sisters vainly hide, and wheresoeverthey deem security from flaming fires,fearfully flit. And while they seek to hide,a membrane stretches over every limb,and light wings open from their slender arms.In the weird darkness they are unawarewhat measure wrought to change their wonted shape.No plumous vans avail to lift their flight,yet fair they balance on membraneous wing.Whenever they would speak a tiny voice,diminutive, apportioned to their size,in squeaking note complains. Adread the light,their haunts avoid by day the leafy woods,for sombre attics, where secure they resttill forth the dun obscure their wings may stretchat hour of Vesper;—this accords their name.
Throughout the land of Thebes miraculousthe power of Bacchus waxed; and far and wideIno, his aunt, reported the great deedsby this divinity performed. Of allher sisters only she escaped unharmed,when Fate destroyed them, and she knew not grief—only for sorrow of her sisters' woes.—While Ino vaunted of her mother-joys,and of her kingly husband, Athamas,and of the mighty God, her foster-child;Juno, disdaining her in secret, said;“How shall the offspring of a concubinetransform Maeonian mariners, overwhelmthem in the ocean, sacrifice a sonto his deluded mother, who insane,tears out his entrails; how shall he inventwings for three daughters of King Minyas,while Juno unavenged, bewails despite?—Is it the end? the utmost of my power?His deeds instruct the way; true wisdom heedsan enemy's device; by the strange deathof Pentheus, all that madness could performwas well revealed to all; what then deniesa frenzy may unravel Ino's courseto such a fate as wrought her sisters' woe?”A shelving path in shadows of sad yewthrough utter silence to the deep descends,infernal, where the languid Styx exhalesvapours; and there the shadows of the dead,descend, after they leave their sacred urns,and ghostly forms invade: and far and wide,those dreary regions Horror and bleak Coldobtain.The ghosts, arrived, not know the way,—which leadeth to the Stygian city-gates,—not know the melancholy palace wherethe swarthy Pluto stays, though streets and waysa thousand to that city lead, and gatesout-swing from every side: and as the seawith never-seen increase engulfs the streamsunnumbered of the world, that realm enfoldsthe souls of men, nor ever is it filled.Around the shadowy spirits go; bloodlessboneless and bodiless; they throng the placeof judgment, or they haunt the mansion whereabides the Utmost Tyrant, or they tendto various callings, as their whilom way; —appropriate punishment confines to painthe multitude condemned.To this abode,impelled by rage and hate, from habitationcelestial, Juno, of Saturn born, descends,submissive to its dreadful element.No sooner had she entered the sad gates,than groans were uttered by the threshold, pressedby her immortal form, and Cerberusupraising his three-visaged mouths gave ventto triple-barking howls.—She called to herthe sisters, Night-begot, implacable,terrific Furies. They did sit beforethe prison portals, adamant confined,combing black vipers from their horrid hair.When her amid the night-surrounding shadesthey recognized, those Deities uprose.O dread confines! dark seat of wretched vice!Where stretched athwart nine acres, Tityus,must thou endure thine entrails to be torn!O Tantalus, thou canst not touch the wave,and from thy clutch the hanging branches rise!O Sisyphus, thou canst not stay the stone,catching or pushing, it must fall again!O thou Ixion! whirled around, around,thyself must follow to escape thyself!And, O Belides, (plotter of sad deathupon thy cousins) thou art always doomedto dip forever ever-spilling waves!When that the daughter of Saturnus fixeda stern look on those wretches, first her glancearrested on Ixion; but the nexton Sisyphus; and thus the goddess spoke;—“For why should he alone of all his kinsuffer eternal doom, while Athamas,luxurious in a sumptuous palace reigns;and, haughty with his wife, despises me.”So grieved she, and expressed the rage of hatethat such descent inspired, beseeching thus,no longer should the House of Cadmus stand,so that the sister Furies plunge in crimeoverweening Athamas.—Entreating them,she mingled promises with her commands.—When Juno ended speech, Tisiphone,whose locks entangled are not ever smooth,tossed them around, that backward from her facesuch crawling snakes were thrown;—then answered she:“Since what thy will decrees may well be done,why need we to consult with many words?Leave thou this hateful region and conveythyself, contented, to a better realm.”Rejoicing Juno hastens to the clouds—before she enters her celestial home,Iris, the child of Thaumas, purifiesher limbs in sprinkled water. Waiting not,Tisiphone, revengeful, takes a torch;—besmeared with blood, and vested in a robe,dripping with crimson gore, and twisting-snakesengirdled, she departs her dire abode—with twitching Madness, Terror, Fear and Woe:and when she had arrived the destined house,the door-posts shrank from her, the maple doorsturned ashen grey: the Sun amazed fled.Affrighted, Athamas and Ino viewedand fled these prodigies; but suddenlythat baneful Fury stood across the way,blocking the passage— There she stands with armsextended, and alive with twisting vipers.—She shakes her hair; the moving serpents hiss;they cling upon her shoulders, and they glidearound her temples, dart their fangs, and vomitcorruption.—Plucking from the midst two snakes,she hurls them with her pestilential handupon her victims, Athamas and Ino, whom,although the vipers strike upon their breasts,no injury attacks their mortal parts;—only their minds are stricken with wild rage,inciting to mad violence and crime.And with a monstrous composite of foam—once gathered from the mouth of Cerberus,the venom of Echidna, purposelessaberrances, crimes, tears, hatred—the lustof homicide, and the dark vapouringsof foolish brains; a liquid poison, mixed,and mingled with fresh blood, in hollow brass,and boiled, and stirred up with a slip of hemlock—she took of it, and as they trembled, threwthat mad-mixed poison on them; and it scorchedtheir inmost vitals—and she waved her torchrepeatedly, within a circle's rim—and added flame to flame.—Then, confidentof having executed her commands,the Fury hastened to the void expansewhere Pluto reigns, and swiftly put asidethe serpents that were wreathed around her robes.At once, the son of Aeolus, enraged,shouts loudly in his palace; “Ho, my lads!Spread out your nets! a savage lionessand her twin whelps are lurking in the wood;—behold them!” In his madness he believeshis wife a savage beast. He follows her,and quickly from her bosom snatches upher smiling babe, Learchus, holding forthhis tiny arms, and whirls him in the air,times twice and thrice, as whirls the whizzing sling,and dashes him in pieces on the rocks; —cracking his infant bones.The mother, rousedto frenzy (who can tell if grief the cause,or fires of scattered poison?) yells aloud,and with her torn hair tangled, running mad,she carries swiftly in her clutching arms,her little Melicerta! and beginsto shout, “Evoe, Bacche!”—Juno hearsthe shouted name of Bacchus, and she laughs,and taunts her;—“Let thy foster-child award!”There is a crag, out-jutting on the deep,worn hollow at the base by many waves,where not the rain may ripple on that pool;—high up the rugged summit overhangsits ragged brows above the open sea:there, Ino climbs with frenzy-given strength,and fearless, with her burden in her arms,leaps in the waves where whitening foams arise.Venus takes pity on her guiltless child,unfortunate grand-daughter, and beginsto soothe her uncle Neptune with these words;—“O Neptune, ruler of the deep, to whom,next to the Power in Heaven, was given sway,consider my request! Open thy heartto my descendants, which thine eyes behold,tossed on the wild Ionian Sea! I do implore thee,remember they are thy true Deities—are thine as well as mine—for it is knownmy birth was from the white foam of thy sea;—a truth made certain by my Grecian name.”Neptune regards her prayer: he takes from themtheir mortal dross: he clothes in majesty,and hallows their appearance. Even their namesand forms are altered; Melicerta, changed,is now Palaemon called, and Ino, changed,Leucothoe called, are known as Deities.When her Sidonian attendants tracedfresh footprints to the last verge of the rock,and found no further vestige, they declaredher dead, nor had they any doubt of it.They tore their garments and their hair—and wailedthe House of Cadmus— and they cursed at Juno,for the sad fate of the wretched concubine.That goddess could no longer brook their words,and thus made answer, “I will make of youeternal monuments of my revenge!”Her words were instantly confirmed—The onewhose love for Ino was the greatest, cried;“Into the deep; look—look—I seek my queen.”But even as she tried to leap, she stoodfast-rooted to the ever-living rock;another, as she tried to beat her breastwith blows repeated, noticed that her armsgrew stiff and hard; another, as by chance,was petrified with hands stretched over the waves:another could be seen, as suddenlyher fingers hardened, clutching at her hairto tear it from the roots.—And each remainedforever in the posture first assumed.—But others of those women, sprung from Cadmus,were changed to birds, that always with wide wingsskim lightly the dark surface of that sea. Unwitting that his daughter and his sonare Ocean deities, Agenor's son,—depressed by sorrow and unnumbered woes,calamities, and prodigies untold,—the founder fled the city he had built,as though fatalities that gathered roundthat city grieved him deeper than the fateof his own family; and thence, at lastarrived the confines of Illyria;in exile with his wife.—Weighted with woe,bowed down with years, their minds recalled the timewhen first disaster fell upon their House:—relating their misfortunes, Cadmus spoke;“Was that a sacred dragon that my spearimpaled, when on the way from Sidon's gatesI planted in the earth those dragon-teeth,unthought-of seed? If haply 'tis the Gods,(whose rage unerring, gives me to revenge)I only pray that I may lengthen out,as any serpent.” Even as he spoke,he saw and felt himself increase in length.His body coiled into a serpent's form;bright scale's enveloped his indurate skin,and azure macules in speckled pride,enriched his glowing folds; and as he fellsupinely on his breast, his legs were joined,and gradually tapered as a serpent's tail.—Some time his arms remained, which stretching forthwhile tears rolled down his human face, not changedas yet, he said; “Hither, O hapless one!Come hither my unhappy wife, while aughtis left of manhood; touch me, take my hand,unchanged as yet—ah, soon this serpent-formwill cover me!”So did he speak, nor thoughtto make an end; but suddenly his tonguebecame twin-forked. As often as he tried,a hissing sound escaped; the only voicethat Nature left him. —And his wife bewailed,and smote her breast, “Ah, Cadmus, ah!Most helpless one, put off that monster-shape!Your feet, your shoulders and your hands are gone;your manly form, your very colour gone; all—allis changed!—Oh, why not, ye celestial Gods,me likewise, to a serpent-shape transform!”—So ended her complaint. Cadmus caressedher gently with his tongue; and slid to herdear bosom, just as if he knew his wife;and he embraced her, and he touched her neck.All their attendants, who had seen the change,were filled with fear; but when as crested snakesthe twain appeared in brightly glistening mail,their grief was lightened: and the pair, enwreathedin twisting coils, departed from that place,and sought a covert in the nearest grove.—There, then, these gentle serpents never shunmankind, nor wound, nor strike with poisoned fangs;for they are always conscious of the past. The fortune of their grandson, Bacchus, gavegreat comfort to them—as a god adoredin conquered India; by Achaia praisedin stately temples. — But Acrisiusthe son of Abas, of the Cadmean race,remained to banish Bacchus from the wallsof Argos, and to lift up hostile armsagainst that deity, who he deniedwas born to Jove. He would not even grantthat Perseus from the loins of Jupiterwas got of Danae in the showering gold.So mighty is the hidden power of truth,Acrisius soon lamented that affrontto Bacchus, and that ever he refusedto own his grandson; for the one achievedhigh heaven, and the other, (as he borethe viperous monster-head) on sounding wingshovered a conqueror in the fluent air,over sands, Libyan, where the Gorgon-headdropped clots of gore, that, quickening on the ground,became unnumbered serpents; fitting causeto curse with vipers that infested land.Thence wafted by the never-constant windsthrough boundless latitudes, now here now there,as flits a vapour-cloud in dizzy flight,down-looking from the lofty skies on earth,removed far, so compassed he the world.Three times did he behold the frozen Bears,times thrice his gaze was on the Crab's bent arms.Now shifting to the west, now to the east,how often changed his course? Time came, when daydeclining, he began to fear the night,by which he stopped his flight far in the west—the realm of Atlas—where he sought reposetill Lucifer might call Aurora's fires;Aurora chariot of the Day.There dwelthuge Atlas, vaster than the race of man:son of Iapetus, his lordly swayextended over those extreme domains,and over oceans that command their wavesto take the panting coursers of the Sun,and bathe the wearied Chariot of the Day.For him a thousand flocks, a thousand herdsoverwandered pasture fields; and neighbour tribesmight none disturb that land. Aglint with goldbright leaves adorn the trees,—boughs golden-wroughtbear apples of pure gold. And Perseus spoketo Atlas, “O my friend, if thou art movedto hear the story of a noble race,the author of my life is Jupiter;if valiant deeds perhaps are thy delightmine may deserve thy praise.—Behold of theekind treatment I implore—a place of rest.”But Atlas, mindful of an oraclesince by Themis, the Parnassian, told,recalled these words, “O Atlas! mark the daya son of Jupiter shall come to spoil;for when thy trees been stripped of golden fruit,the glory shall be his.”Fearful of this,Atlas had built solid walls aroundhis orchard, and secured a dragon, huge,that kept perpetual guard, and thence expelledall strangers from his land. Wherefore he said,“Begone! The glory of your deeds is allpretense; even Jupiter, will fail your need.”With that he added force and strove to drivethe hesitating Alien from his doors;who pled reprieve or threatened with bold words.Although he dared not rival Atlas' might,Perseus made this reply; “For that my loveyou hold in light esteem, let this be yours.”He said no more, but turning his own face,he showed upon his left Medusa's head,abhorrent features.—Atlas, huge and vast,becomes a mountain—His great beard and hairare forests, and his shoulders and his handsmountainous ridges, and his head the topof a high peak;—his bones are changed to rocks.Augmented on all sides, enormous heightattains his growth; for so ordained it, ye,O mighty Gods! who now the heavens' expanseunnumbered stars, on him command to rest.In their eternal prison, Aeous,grandson of Hippotas, had shut the winds;and Lucifer, reminder of our toil,in splendour rose upon the lofty sky:and Perseus bound his wings upon his feet,on each foot bound he them; his sword he girtand sped wing-footed through the liquid air.Innumerous kingdoms far behind were left,till peoples Ethiopic and the landsof Cepheus were beneath his lofty view.There Ammon, the Unjust, had made decreeAndromeda, the Innocent, should grieveher mother's tongue. They bound her fettered armsfast to the rock. When Perseus her beheldas marble he would deem her, but the breezemoved in her hair, and from her streaming eyesthe warm tears fell. Her beauty so amazedhis heart, unconscious captive of her charms,that almost his swift wings forgot to wave.—Alighted on the ground, he thus began;“O fairest! whom these chains become not so,but worthy are for links that lovers bind,make known to me your country's name and your'sand wherefore bound in chains.” A moment then,as overcome with shame, she made no sound:were not she fettered she would surely hideher blushing head; but what she could performthat did she do—she filled her eyes with tears.So pleaded he that lest refusal seemimplied confession of a crime, she toldher name, her country's name, and how her charmshad been her mother's pride. But as she spokethe mighty ocean roared. Over the wavesa monster fast approached, its head held high,abreast the wide expanse.—The virgin shrieked;—no aid her wretched father gave, nor aidher still more wretched mother; but they weptand mingled lamentations with their tears—clinging distracted to her fettered form.And thus the stranger spoke to them, “Time waitsfor tears, but flies the moment of our need:were I, who am the son of Regal Joveand her whom he embraced in showers of gold,leaving her pregnant in her brazen cell, —I, Perseus, who destroyed the Gorgon, wreathedwith snake-hair, I, who dared on waving wingsto cleave etherial air—were I to askthe maid in marriage, I should be preferredabove all others as your son-in-law.Not satisfied with deeds achieved, I striveto add such merit as the Gods permit;now, therefore, should my velour save her life,be it conditioned that I win her love.”To this her parents gave a glad assent,for who could hesitate? And they entreat,and promise him the kingdom as a dower. As a great ship with steady prow speeds on;forced forwards by the sweating arms of youthit plows the deep; so, breasting the great waves,the monster moved, until to reach the rockno further space remained than might the whirlof Balearic string encompass, throughthe middle skies, with plummet-mold of lead.That instant, spurning with his feet the ground,the youth rose upwards to a cloudy height;and when the shadow of the hero markedthe surface of the sea, the monster soughtvainly to vent his fury on the shade.As the swift bird of Jove, when he beholdsa basking serpent in an open field,exposing to the sun its mottled back,and seizes on its tail; lest it shall turnto strike with venomed fang, he fixes fasthis grasping talons in the scaly neck;so did the winged youth, in rapid flightthrough yielding elements, press downon the great monster's back, and thrust his sword,sheer to the hilt, in its right shoulder—loudits frightful torture sounded over the waves.—So fought the hero-son of Inachus.Wild with the grievous wound, the monster rearshigh in the air, or plunges in the waves;—or wheels around as turns the frightened boarshunning the hounds around him in full cry.The hero on his active wings avoidsthe monster's jaws, and with his crooked swordtortures its back wherever he may pierceits mail of hollow shell, or strikes betwixtthe ribs each side, or wounds its lashing tail,long, tapered as a fish.The monster spoutsforth streams—incarnadined with blood—that spray upon the hero's wings; who drenched,and heavy with the spume, no longer daresto trust existence to his dripping wings;but he discerns a rock, which rises clearabove the water when the sea is calm,but now is covered by the lashing waves.On this he rests; and as his left hand holdsfirm on the upmost ledge, he thrusts his sword,times more than three, unswerving in his aim,sheer through the monster's entrails.—Shouts of praiseresound along the shores, and even the Godsmay hear his glory in their high abodes.Her parents, Cepheus and Cassiope,most joyfully salute their son-in-law;declaring him the saviour of their house.And now, her chains struck off, the lovely causeand guerdon of his toil, walks on the shore.The hero washes his victorious handsin water newly taken from the sea:but lest the sand upon the shore might harmthe viper-covered head, he first prepareda bed of springy leaves, on which he threwweeds of the sea, produced beneath the waves.On them he laid Medusa's awful face,daughter of Phorcys;—and the living weeds,fresh taken from the boundless deep, imbibedthe monster's poison in their spongy pith:they hardened at the touch, and felt in branchand leaf unwonted stiffness. Sea-Nymphs, too,attempted to perform that prodigyon numerous other weeds, with like result:so pleased at their success, they raised new seeds,from plants wide-scattered on the salt expanse.Even from that day the coral has retainedsuch wondrous nature, that exposed to airit hardens.—Thus, a plant beneath the wavesbecomes a stone when taken from the sea.Three altars to three Gods he made of turf.To thee, victorious Virgin, did he buildan altar on the right, to Mercuryan altar on the left, and unto Jovean altar in the midst. He sacrificeda heifer to Minerva, and a calfto Mercury, the Wingfoot, and a bullto thee, O greatest of the Deities.Without a dower he takes Andromeda,the guerdon of his glorious victory,nor hesitates.—Now pacing in the van,both Love and Hymen wave the flaring torch,abundant perfumes lavished in the flames.The houses are bedecked with wreathed flowers;and lyres and flageolets resound, and songs—felicit notes that happy hearts declare.The portals opened, sumptuous halls displaytheir golden splendours, and the noble lordsof Cepheus' court take places at the feast,magnificently served.After the feast,when every heart was warming to the joys of genial Bacchus,then, Lyncidian Perseus asked about the land and its waysabout the customs and the character of its heroes.Straightway one of the dinner-companions made reply,and asked in turn, “ Now, valiant Perseus, praytell the story of the deed, that all may know,and what the arts and power prevailed, when youstruck off the serpent-covered head.”“There is,”continued Perseus of the house of Agenor,“There is a spot beneath cold Atlas, wherein bulwarks of enormous strength, to guardits rocky entrance, dwelt two sisters, bornof Phorcys. These were wont to share in turna single eye between them: this by craftI got possession of, when one essayedto hand it to the other.—I put forthmy hand and took it as it passed between:then, far, remote, through rocky pathless crags,over wild hills that bristled with great woods,I thence arrived to where the Gorgon dwelt.“Along the way, in fields and by the roads,I saw on all sides men and animals—like statues—turned to flinty stone at sightof dread Medusa's visage. Neverthelessreflected on the brazen shield, I boreupon my left, I saw her horrid face.“When she was helpless in the power of sleepand even her serpent-hair was slumber-bound,I struck, and took her head sheer from the neck.—To winged Pegasus the blood gave birth,his brother also, twins of rapid wing.”So did he speak, and truly told besidesthe perils of his journey, arduousand long—He told of seas and lands that farbeneath him he had seen, and of the starsthat he had touched while on his waving wings.And yet, before they were aware, the talewas ended; he was silent. Then rejoineda noble with enquiry why aloneof those three sisters, snakes were interspersedin dread Medusa's locks. And he replied:—“Because, O Stranger, it is your desireto learn what worthy is for me to tell,hear ye the cause: Beyond all others shewas famed for beauty, and the envious hopeof many suitors. Words would fail to tellthe glory of her hair, most wonderfulof all her charms—A friend declared to mehe saw its lovely splendour. Fame declaresthe Sovereign of the Sea attained her lovein chaste Minerva's temple. While enragedshe turned her head away and held her shieldbefore her eyes. To punish that great crimeMinerva changed the Gorgon's splendid hairto serpents horrible. And now to strikeher foes with fear, she wears upon her breastthose awful vipers—creatures of her rage.