THE TWELFTH BOOK

OF

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES,

WHOLLY TRANSLATED.

CONNECTION TO THE END OF THE

ELEVENTH BOOK.

Esacus, the son of Priam, loving a country life, forsakes the court; living obscurely, he falls in love with a nymph, who, flying from him, was killed by a serpent; for grief of this, he would have drowned himself; but, by the pity of the gods, is turned into a Cormorant. Priam, not hearing of Esacus, believes him to be dead, and raises a tomb to preserve his memory. By this transition, which is one of the finest in all Ovid, the poet naturally falls into the story of the Trojan War, which is summed up in the present book; but so very briefly in many places, that Ovid seems more short than Virgil, contrary to his usual style. Yet the House of Fame, which is here described, is one of the most beautiful pieces in the whole Metamorphoses. The fight of Achilles and Cygnus, and the fray betwixt the Lapitha and Centaurs, yield to no other part of this poet; and particularly the loves and death of Cyllarus and Hylonome, the male and female Centaur, are wonderfully moving.

PRIAM, to whom the story was unknown,
As dead, deplored his metamorphosed son;
A Cenotaph his name and title kept,

And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers, wept.

This pious office Paris did not share;
Absent alone, and author of the war,

Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue.

A thousand ships were manned, to sail the sea; Nor had their just resentments found delay, Had not the winds and waves opposed their way. At Aulis, with united powers, they meet, But there, cross winds or calms detained the fleet. Now, while they raise an altar on the shore, And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore, A boding sign the priests and people see: A snake of size immense ascends a tree, And in the leafy summit spied a nest,

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Which, o'er her callow young, a sparrow pressed.
Eight were the birds unfledged; their mother flew, 20
And hovered round her care, but still in view;
Till the fierce reptile first devoured the brood,
Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her
blood.

This dire ostent* the fearful people view;
Calchas alone, by Phoebus taught, foreknew
What heaven decreed; and, with a smiling glance,
Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance.

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"O Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours, But long delays shall first afflict our powers; Nine years of labour the nine birds portend,

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The tenth shall in the town's destruction end.
The serpent, who his maw obscene had filled,
The branches in his curled embraces held;
But as in spires he stood, he turned to stone;
The stony snake retained the figure still his own. 35
Yet not for this the windbound navy weighed ;
Slack were their sails, and Neptune disobeyed.

* [Dryden probably took this term (it is not in Ovid) from Chapman, which, after the reference in the Preface, was unkind.-ED.]

Some thought him loath the town should be destroyed,

Whose building had his hands divine employed; Not so the seer, who knew, and known foreshowed,

The virgin Phoebe, with a virgin's blood,
Must first be reconciled; the common cause
Prevailed; and pity yielding to the laws,
Fair Iphigenia,* the devoted maid,
Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes
arrayed.

All mourn her fate, but no relief appeared;
The royal victim bound, the knife already reared;
When that offended Power, who caused their

woe,

Relenting ceased her wrath, and stopped the coming blow.

A mist before the ministers she cast,

And in the virgin's room a hind she placed.
The oblation slain, and Phoebe reconciled,
The storm was hushed, and dimpled ocean
smiled;

A favourable gale arose from shore,

Which to the port desired the Grecian galleys bore.

Full in the midst of this created space, Betwixt heaven, earth, and skies, there stands a place

Confining on all three, with triple bound; Whence all things, though remote, are viewed around,

And thither bring their undulating sound;
The palace of loud Fame; her seat of power,
Placed on the summit of a lofty tower.

*

[I hope Dryden did not mean to scan "Iphigenia." It is possible.-ED.]

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A thousand winding entries, long and wide,
Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide;
A thousand crannies in the walls are made;
Nor gate nor bars exclude the busy trade.
"Tis built of brass, the better to diffuse
The spreading sounds, and multiply the news;
Where echoes in repeated echoes play:
A mart for ever full, and open night and day.
Nor silence is within, nor voice express,
But a deaf noise of sounds that never cease;
Confused, and chiding, like the hollow roar
Of tides, receding from the insulted shore;
Or like the broken thunder, heard from far,
When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.
The courts are filled with a tumultuous din
Of crowds, or issuing forth, or entering in;
A thoroughfare of news; where some devise
Things never heard; some mingle truth with lies; 80
The troubled air with empty sounds they beat;
Intent to hear, and eager to repeat.

Error sits brooding there; with added train
Of vain credulity, and joys as vain;
Suspicion, with sedition joined, are near;

And rumours raised, and murmurs mixed, and panic fear.

Fame sits aloft, and sees the subject ground, And seas about, and skies above, inquiring all around.

The goddess gives the alarm; and soon is known The Grecian fleet, descending on the town. Fixed on defence, the Trojans are not slow To guard their shore from an expected foe. They meet in fight; by Hector's fatal hand Protesilaus falls, and bites the strand;

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Which with expense of blood the Grecians won, 95 And proved the strength unknown of Priam's

son;

And to their cost the Trojan leaders felt
The Grecian heroes, and what deaths they dealt.
From these first onsets, the Sigæan shore
Was strewed with carcases, and stained with

gore.

Neptunian Cygnus troops of Greeks had slain;
Achilles in his car had scoured the plain,

And cleared the Trojan ranks; where'er he fought,
Cygnus, or Hector, through the fields he sought:
Cygnus he found; on him his force essayed;
For Hector was to the tenth year delayed.
His white-maned steeds, that bowed beneath the
yoke,

He cheered to courage, with a gentle stroke;
Then urged his fiery chariot on the foe,
And rising shook his lance, in act to throw.
But first he cried, "O youth, be proud to bear
Thy death, ennobled by Pelides' spear."
The lance pursued the voice without delay;
Nor did the whizzing weapon miss the way,
But pierced his cuirass, with such fury sent,
And signed his bosom with a purple dint.
At this the seed of Neptune: "Goddess-born,
For ornament, not use, these arms are worn;
This helm, and heavy buckler, I can spare,
As only decorations of the war;

So Mars is armed, for glory, not for need.
"Tis somewhat more from Neptune to proceed,
Than from a daughter of the sea to spring;
Thy sire is mortal; mine is Ocean's king.
Secure of death, I should contemn thy dart,
Though naked, and impassible depart."
He said, and threw; the trembling weapon passed
Through nine bull-hides, each under other placed
On his broad shield, and stuck within the last.
Achilles wrenched it out; and sent again
The hostile gift; the hostile gift was vain.

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