The maid accused the lingering days alone;

For whom she thought a man, she thought her

own.

But Iphis bends beneath a greater grief;
As fiercely burns, but hopes for no relief.
E'en her despair adds fuel to her fire;
A maid with madness does a maid desire.
And, scarce refraining tears, "Alas," said she,
"What issue of my love remains for me!
How wild a passion works within my breast!
With what prodigious flames am I possest!
Could I the care of Providence deserve,
Heaven must destroy me, if it would preserve.
And that's my fate, or sure it would have

sent

Some usual evil for my punishment;

Not this unkindly curse; to rage and burn,
Where nature shows no prospect of return.

Nor cows for cows consume with fruitless fire;

Nor mares, when hot, their fellow-mares desire; 100
The father of the fold supplies his ewes ;

The stag through secret woods his hind pursues;
And birds for mates the males of their own

species choose.

Her females nature guards from female flame,
And joins two sexes to preserve the game;
Would I were nothing, or not what I am!
Crete, famed for monsters, wanted of her store,
Till my new love produced one monster more.
The daughter of the Sun a bull desired; *
And yet e'en then a male a female fired :
Her passion was extravagantly new;
But mine is much the madder of the two.
To things impossible she was not bent,
But found the means to compass her intent.

* Pasiphae.

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maid,

To cheat his eyes she took a different shape;
Yet still she gained a lover, and a leap.
Should all the wit of all the world conspire,
Should Dædalus assist my wild desire,
What art can make me able to enjoy,
Or what can change Ianthe to a boy?
Extinguish then thy passion, hopeless
And recollect thy reason for thy aid.
Know what thou art, and love as maidens
ought,
And drive these golden wishes from thy thought.
Thou canst not hope thy fond desires to gain;
Where hope is wanting, wishes are in vain.
And yet no guards against our joys conspire;
No jealous husband hinders our desire;
My parents are propitious to my wish,
And she herself consenting to the bliss.
All things concur to prosper our design;
All things to prosper any love but mine.
And yet I never can enjoy the fair;

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130

Tis past the power of heaven to grant my prayer.
Heaven has been kind, as far as heaven can be; 135
Our parents with our own desires agree;

But nature, stronger than the gods above,
Refuses her assistance to my love:
She sets the bar that causes all my pain;
One gift refused makes all their bounty vain.
And now the happy day is just at hand,
To bind our hearts in Hymen's holy band;
Our hearts, but not our bodies; thus accursed,
In midst of water I complain of thirst.

140

Why comest thou, Juno, to these barren rites, 145
To bless a bed defrauded of delights?

And why should Hymen lift his torch on high,
To see two brides in cold embraces lie?"

Thus love-sick Iphis her vain passion mourns;
With equal ardour fair Ianthe burns;

VOL. XII.

I

150

Invoking Hymen's name, and Juno's power,
To speed the work, and haste the happy hour.
She hopes, while Telethusa fears the day,
And strives to interpose some new delay;
Now feigns a sickness, now is in a fright
For this bad omen, or that boding sight.
But having done whate'er she could devise,
And emptied all her magazine of lies,
The time approached; the next ensuing day
The fatal secret must to light betray.
Then Telethusa had recourse to prayer,
She and her daughter with dishevelled hair;
Trembling with fear, great Isis they adored,
Embraced her altar, and her aid implored.

"Fair queen, who dost on fruitful Egypt smile,

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165

Who sway'st the sceptre of the Pharian isle,
And seven-fold falls of disemboguing Nile;
Relieve, in this our last distress," she said,
"A suppliant mother, and a mournful maid.
Thou, goddess, thou wert present to my sight; 170
Revealed I saw thee by thy own fair light;
I saw thee in my dream, as now I see,

With all thy marks of awful majesty ;

The glorious train that compassed thee around;

And heard the hollow timbrel's holy sound.
Thy words I noted, which I still retain ;
Let not thy sacred oracles be vain.
That Iphis lives, that I myself am free
From shame and punishment, I owe to thee.
On thy protection all our hopes depend;
Thy counsel saved us, let thy power defend."
Her tears pursued her words, and, while she
spoke,

The goddess nodded, and her altar shook;
The temple doors, as with a blast of wind,

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180

Were heard to clap; the lunar horns, that bind 185

The brows of Isis, cast a blaze around;

The trembling timbrel made a murmuring sound.
Some hopes these happy omens did impart ;
Forth went the mother with a beating heart,
Not much in fear, nor fully satisfied;
But Iphis followed with a larger stride:
The whiteness of her skin forsook her face:
Her looks emboldened with an awful grace;
Her features and her strength together grew,
And her long hair to curling locks withdrew.
Her sparkling eyes with manly vigour shone;
Big was her voice, audacious was her tone.
The latent parts, at length revealed, began
To shoot, and spread, and burnish* into man.
The maid becomes a youth;-no more delay
Your vows, but look, and confidently pay.-
Their gifts the parents to the temple bear;
The votive tables this inscription wear ;-
"Iphis, the man, has to the goddess paid
The vows, that Iphis offered when a maid."
Now when the star of day had shown his face,
Venus and Juno with their presence grace
The nuptial rites, and Hymen from above
Descended to complete their happy love;
The gods of marriage lend their mutual aid,
And the warm youth enjoys the lovely maid.

* [This word, as here used = "swell," grow up," is now quite obsolete or provincial, but it was certainly so used in the seventeenth century. Professor Skeat, to whom I applied as to the possibility of the two words—“ burnish"= "brighten," and "burnish" = "grow"-being independent, gives his opinion that it is impossible, which indeed the termination seems to prove, in spite of any temptation that rash philologists may feel to extract a more suitable derivation from the first half of the word. The dialectic use of the word, which is still said to continue, pronounces, if it does not spell, it "barnish."-ED.]

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PYGMALION AND THE STATUE.

FROM THE TENTH BOOK OF

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

The Propatides, for their impudent behaviour, being turned into stone by Venus, Pygmalion, Prince of Cyprus, detested all women for their sake, and resolved never to marry. He falls in love with a statue of his own making, which is changed into a maid, whom he marries. One of his descendants is Cinyras, the father of Myrrha; the daughter incestuously loves her own father, for which she is changed into a tree, which bears her name. These two stories immediately follow each other, and are admirably well connected.

PYGMALION, loathing their lascivious life,
Abhorred all womankind, but most a wife;
So single chose to live, and shunned to wed,
Well pleased to want a consort of his bed.
Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill,
In sculpture exercised his happy skill;
And carved in ivory such a maid, so fair,
As nature could not with his art compare,
Were she to work; but in her own defence,
Must take her pattern here, and copy hence.
Pleased with his idol, he commends, admires,
Adores; and last, the thing adored desires.

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