Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

"within a terrible rumbling; and many miserably perished that "ventured to descend into the hollowness above. But that hollow "on the top is at present an orchard, and the mountain throughout " is bereft of its terrors."-Sandys's Travels, book 4, page 275, 277. " and 278.]

NEC procul infelix se tollit in æthera Gaurus,
Prospiciens vitreum lugenti vertice pontum :
Tristior ille diu, & veteri desuetus olivâ
Gaurus, pampineæque eheu jam nescius umbræ
Horrendi tam sæva premit vicinia montis,
Attonitumque urget latus, exuritque ferentem.

Nam fama est olim, mediâ dum rura silebant
Nocte, Deo victa, & molli perfusa quiete,
Infremuisse æquor ponti, auditamque per omnes
Latè tellurem surdùm immugire cavernas:
Quo sonitu nemora alta tremunt; tremit excita tuto
Parthenopea sinu, flammantisque ora Vesevi.
At subitò se aperire solum, vastosque recessus
Pandere sub pedibus, nigrâque voragine fauces;
Tum piceas cinerum glomerare sub æthere nubes
Vorticibus rapidis, ardentique imbre procellam.
Præcipites fugere feræ, perque avia longè

I

;

umbram

Sylvarum fugit pastor, juga per deserta,
Ah, miser! increpitans sæpè altâ voce per
Nequicquam natos, creditque audire sequentes.
Atque ille excelso rupis de vertice solus
Respectans notasque domos, & dulcia regna,
Nil usquàm videt infelix præter mare tristi
Lumine percussum, & pallentes sulphure campos,
Fumumque, flammasque, rotataque turbine saxa.

Quin ubi detonuit fragor, & lux reddita cœlo;
Mæstos confluere agricolas, passuque videres
Tandem iterum timido deserta requirere tecta:
Sperantes, si forte oculis, si forte darentur
Uxorum cineres, miserorumve ossa parentum
(Tenuia, sed tanti saltem solatia luctus)
Una colligere & justâ componere in urnâ.

Uxorum nusquam cineres, nusquam ossa parentum (Spem miseram!) assuetosve Lares, aut rura vide

bunt.

Quippe ubi planities campi diffusa jacebat ; Mons novus: ille supercilium, frontemque favillâ Incanum ostentans, ambustis cautibus, æquor

Subjectum, stragemque suam, mæsta arva, minaci Despicit imperio, soloque in littore regnat.

Hinc infame loci nomen, multosque per annos Immemor antiquæ laudis, nescire labores Vomeris, & nullo tellus revirescere cultu. Non avium colles, non carmine matutino Pastorum resonare; adeò undique dirus habebat Informes latè horror agros saltusque vacantes. Sæpius et longè detorquens navita proram Monstrabat digito littus, sævæque revolvens Funera narrabat noctis, veteremque ruinam. Montis adhuc facies manet hirta atque aspera

saxis:

Sed furor extinctus jamdudum, & flamma quievit,
Quæ nascenti aderat; seu fortè bituminis atri
Defluxere olìm rivi, atque effœta lacuna
Pabula sufficere ardori, viresque recusat ;
Sive in visceribus meditans incendia jam nunc
(Horrendùm) arcanis glomerat genti esse futuræ
Exitio, sparsos tacitusque recolligit ignes.
Raro per clivos haud secius ordine vidi

Canescentem oleam: longum post tempus amicti Vite virent tumuli; patriamque revisere gaudens Bacchus in assuetis tenerum caput exerit arvis Vix tandem, infidoque audet se credere cœlo.

[The following Translation may not be unacceptable to the mere English Reader. It appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1775:

On the fam'd shore where fierce volcanos glow,
And overlook the shining deeps below,
Old Gaurus rears his inauspicious head,
His vines consum'd, and all his honours fled;
So near a new-sprung mountain now abides,
Burning his groves, and thundering at his sides.
For Fame reports of old, while all around
The country lay in solemn silence drown'd,
While rustics, thoughtless of approaching woes,
Enjoy'd the grateful blessings of repose,
The swelling surges lash the sounding shores,
The lab'ring Earth thro' all her caverns.roars;
Loud echoes from the lofty woods rebound,
Fair Naples from her deepest bay profound,
And dread Vesuvius, tremble at the sound.
Sudden the yawning Earth discloses wide
Her dreadful jaws; forth-issuing in a tide,
Black pitchy clouds with bursting flames conspire
To whelm the landscape in a flood of fire.
The beasts are fled: along the pathless waste
The frighted shepherd flies with eager haste,
His ling'ring children calls, and thinks he hears
Their distant footsteps reach his list'ning ears;
Then lonely climbs a rock's stupendous height,
And backward o'er the plain directs his sight,
If still, perchance, to meet his longing eyes,
His much-lov'd woods and humble cottage rise.

No object meets his eyes, unhappy swain!
But dreadful gleams reflected from the main,
The earth beneath with flames of sulphur torn,
And fiery stones in whirling eddies borne.

The storms at length subside, the flames decay,
And op'ning Heav'n restores the face of day:
When, lo! the gath'ring hinds are seen around,
With trembling steps to tread the dreary ground;
In hopes (if yet a slender hope remain)

To trace their dwellings on the desert plain,
Their wives' and wretched sires' remains to mourn,
And decent place within the sacred urn.
(Small consolation granted to their woes,
But all, alas! their hapless state bestows.)
Unhappy men! no wives' or sires' remains
Shall greet your eyes, or mitigate your pains;
For where your peaceful dwellings late were spread,
The new-rais'd mountain rears his ghastly head,
With rocks deform'd and hoary ashes crown'd,
And proud o'erlooks the subject plains around,
With devastation threats the country o'er,
And reigns despotic on the lonely shore.

A name ill omen'd hence the country gains,
And long neglected lay the barren plains.
No more the plough is seen to break the soil,
Or fruitful fields to crown the peasant's toil;
No more is heard the shepherd's cheerful lay,
Or tuneful birds to hail the rising day:
So wide is spread a face of ruin o'er!
And oft the cautious seaman from the shore
Averts his slender bark, avoids the strand,
And pointing shews the inauspicious land;
Relates the horrors of the fatal night,

And all the dreary landscape rises to the sight.

Still rough with stones appears the mountain-head,

His former flames extinct, his terrors fled;

Whether the sulphurous rivers, which supplied
Of old his bowels with a constant tide,

« ÎnapoiContinuă »