FRATERNAL rage, the guilty Thebes' alarms,
The alternate reign destroy'd by impious arms,
Demand our song; a sacred Fury fires
My ravish'd breast, and all the Muse inspires.
O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes
From the dire nation in its early times,
Europa's rape, Agenor's stern decree,
And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea?
How with the serpent's teeth he sow'd the soil,
And reap'd an iron harvest of his toil?
Or how from joining stones the city sprung,
While to his harp divine Amphion sung?
Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound,
Whose fatal rage the unhappy monarch found?
The sire against the son his arrows drew;
O'er the wide fields the furious mother flew ;
And while her arms a second hope contain,
Sprung from the rocks and plunged into the
main.
But wave whate'er to Cadmus may belong, And fix, O Muse! the barrier of thy song At Edipus-from his disasters trace The long confusions of his guilty race: Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing, And mighty Cæsar's conquering eagles sing; How twice he tamed proud Ister's rapid flood, 25 While Dacian mountains stream'd with barbarous
Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,
And stretch'd his empire to the frozen pole;
Or long before, with early valor strove,
In youthful arms, to assert the cause of Jove.
And thou, great heir of all thy father's fame,
Increase of glory to the Latian name,
O, bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,
Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain.
What though the stars contract their heavenly
And crowd their shining ranks to yield thee
Though all the skies, ambitious of thy sway, Conspire to court thee from our world away; Though Phoebus longs to mix his rays with thine,
And in thy glories more serenely shine;
Though Jove himself no less content would be
To part his throne, and share his heaven with
Yet stay, great Cæsar! and vouchsafe to reign
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the watery main ;
Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,
And people heaven with Roman deities.
The time will come, when a diviner flame
Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar's fame :
Meanwhile permit, that my preluding Muse
In Theban wars a humbler theme may choose: 50
Of furious hate surviving death, she sings;
A fatal throne to two contending kings;
And funeral flames, that, parting wide in air,
Express the discord of the souls they bear:
Of towns dispeopled, and the wandering ghosts
Of kings unburied in the wasted coasts;
When Dirce's fountain blush'd with Grecian blood;
And Thetis, near Ismenos' swelling flood,
With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep,
In heaps, his slaughter'd sons into the deep.
What hero, Clio! wilt thou first relate?
The rage of Tydeus, or the prophet's fate?
Or how, with hills of slain on every side,
Hippomedon repell'd the hostile tide?
Or how the youth, with
every grace adorn'd,
Untimely fell, to be for ever mourn'd?
Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend,
And sing with horror his prodigious end.
Now wretched Edipus, deprived of sight,
Led a long death in everlasting night;
But while he dwells where not a cheerful ray
Can pierce the darkness, and abhors the day,
The clear reflecting mind presents his sin
In frightful views, and makes it day within;
Returning thoughts in endless circles roll,
And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul.
65 Or how the youth. Parthenopaus.
The wretch then lifted to the unpitying skies Those empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes, Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook,
While from his breast these dreadful accents
'Ye gods! that o'er the gloomy regions reign, Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain:
Thou, sable Styx! whose livid streams are roll'd Through dreary coasts, which I though blind behold;
Tisiphone, that oft hast heard my prayer;— 85
Assist, if Edipus deserve thy care!
If you received me from Jocasta's womb,
And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come;
If leaving Polybus, I took my way,
To Cyrrha's temple on that fatal day,
When by the son the trembling father died,
Where the three roads the Phocian fields divide;
If I the Sphynx's riddles durst explain,
Taught by thyself to win the promised reign;
If wretched I, by baleful furies led,
With monstrous mixture stain'd my mother's bed;
For hell and thee begot an impious brood,
And with full lust those horrid joys renew'd;
Then self-condemn'd to shades of endless night,
Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of
sight;-
O, hear! and aid the vengeance I require,
If worthy thee, and what thou mightst inspire.
My sons their old, unhappy sire despise,
Spoil'd of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes ;
Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn,
Whilst these exalt their sceptres o'er my urn;
These sons, ye gods! who with flagitious pride
Insult my darkness, and my groans deride.
Art thou a father, unregarding Jove!
And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above? 110
Thou, Fury, then some lasting curse entail,
Which o'er their children's children shall prevail :
Place on their heads that crown distain'd with
Which these dire hands from my slain father tore :
Go! and a parent's heavy curses bear;
Break all the bonds of nature, and prepare
Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war.
Give them to dare, what I might wish to see
Blind as I am, some glorious villany!
Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands,
Their ready guilt preventing thy commands: Couldst thou some great, proportion'd mischief
They'd prove the father from whose loins they came.'
The Fury heard, while on Cocytus' brink, Her snakes untied sulphureous waters drink; 125 But at the summons roll'd her eyes around, And snatch'd the starting serpents from the ground.
Not half so swiftly shoots along in air
The gliding lightning, or descending star. Through crowds of airy shades she wing'd her
And dark dominions of the silent night:
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