BOOK I

Translated by Dryden.

O did

F bodies chang'd to various forms I sing:

spring,

Inspire my numbers with celestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work complete:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhymes,
Deduc'd from nature's birth, to Cæsar's times.
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
No Sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No Moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky;
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lie:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable,
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.
But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end; [driv'n,
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were
And grosser air sunk from ethereal Heav'n.
Thus disembroil'd, they take their proper place;
The next of kin contiguously embrace:
And foes are sunder'd, by a larger space.
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky:
Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;
Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.

Earth sinks beneath, and draws a num'rous throng
Of pondrous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.

About her coasts, unruly waters roar;

And rising, on a ridge, insult the shore.
Thus when the god, whatever god was he,

Had form'd the whole, and made the parts agree,

That no unequal portions might be found,

He moulded earth into a spacious round:
Then with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;

And bad the congregated waters flow.

He adds the running springs, and standing lakes;
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.
Some part in earth are swallow'd up, the most
In ample oceans, disembogu'd, are lost.
He shades the woods, the valleys he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.
And as five zones th' ethereal regions bind,
Five, correspondent, are to Earth assign'd:
The Sun with rays, directly darting down,
Fires all beneath and fries the middle zone:
The two beneath the distant poles complain
Of endiess winter, and perpetual rain.
Betwixt th' extremes, two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot and cold.
The fields of liquid air, enclosing all,
Surround the compass of this earthly ball:
The lighter parts lie next the fires above;
The grosser near the watry surface move: [there,
Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender
And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals fear,.
And winds that on their wings cold winter bear.
Nor were those blustring brethren left at large,
On seas, and shores, their fury to discharge:
Bound as they are, and circumscrib'd in place,
They rend the world, resistless, where they pass;
And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;
Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.
First Eurus to the rising morn is sent,
(The regions of the balmy continent;)
And eastern realms, where early Persians run,
To greet the blest appearance of the Sun.
Westward, the wanton Zephyr wings his flight;
Pleas'd with the remnants of departing light:
Fierce Boreas, with his offspring, issues forth
T' invade the frozen waggon of the north.

While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere;
And rots, with endless rain, th' unwholesome year.
High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,
The god a clearer space for Heav'n design'd;
Where fields of light, and liquid ether flow;
Purg'd from the pondrous dregs of earth below.
Scarce had the pow'r distinguish'd these, when
straight

The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads, from underneath the mass;
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,
And with diffusive light adorn their heav'nly
place.

Then, every void of nature to supply,
With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share:
New colonies of birds, to people air;
And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair.
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heav'nly fire
The God of Nature did his soul inspire,
Or earth, but new divided from the sky,
And, pliant, still retain'd th' ethereal energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image

cast.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
From such rude principles our form began;
And earth was metamorphos'd into man.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

THE golden age was first; when man, yet new, No rule but uncorrupted reason knew: And, with a native bent, did good pursue. Unfore'd by punishment, unaw'd by fear, His words were simple, and his soul sincere; Needless was written law, where noue opprest: The law of man was written in his breast: No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd, No court erected yet, nor cause was heard: But all was safe, for conscience was their guard. The mountain-trees in distant prospect please, Ere yet the pine descended to the seas: Ere sails were spread, new oceans to explore: And happy mortals, unconcern'd for more, Confir'd their wishes to their native shore.

No walls were yet: nor fence, nor mote, nor mound,

Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound:
Nor swords were forg'd; but void of care and
'The soft creation slept away their time. [crime,
The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
And unprovok'd, did fruitful stores allow :
Content with food, which nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed;
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.
The flow'rs unsown, in fields and meadows
reign'd:

And western winds immortal spring maintain’d.
In following years, the bearded corn ensu'd
From earth unask'd, nor was that earth renew'd.
From veins of valleys, milk and nectar broke;
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.

-HARD steel succeeded then: And stubborn as the metal, were the men. Truth, Modesty, and Shame, the world forsook: Fraud, Avarice, and Force, their places took. Then sails were spread, to every wind that blew, Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new: Trees, rudely hollow'd, did the waves sustain; Ere ships in triumph plough'd the wat’ry plain.

Then land-marks limited to each his right:
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone requir'd to bear
Her annual income to the crooked share,
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Digg'd from her entrails first the precious ore;
Which, next to Hell, the prudent gods bad laid;
And that alluring ill, to sight display'd,
Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold:
And double death did wretched man invade,
By steel assaulted, and by gold betray'd.
Now (brandish'd weapons glitt'ring in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands;
No rights of hospitality remain:

The guest, by him who harbour'd him, is slain.
The son-in-law pursues the father's life;
The wife her husband murders, he the wife.
The step-dame poison for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;
And Justice, here opprest, to Heav'n returns.

THE GIANTS' WAR.

NOR were the gods themselves more safe above; Against beleaguer'd Heav'n the giants move. Hills pil'd on hills, on mountains mountains lie, To make their mad approaches to the sky. 'Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time T' avenge with thunder their audacious crime: Red light'ning play'd along the firmament, And their demolish'd works to pieces rent. Sing'd with the flames, and with the bolts transfixt, With native earth their blood the monsters mist; The blood, indu'd with animating heat, Did in th' impregnant earth new sons beget:

They, like the seed from which they sprung,
accurst,

Against the gods immortal hatred nurst.
An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood;
Expressing their original from blood.

Which when the king of gods beheld from high
(Withal revolving in his memory,

What he himself had found on Earth of late,
Lycaon's guilt, and his inhuman treat,)
He sigh'd; nor longer with his pity strove;
But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove:
Then call'd a general council of the gods;
Who, summon'd, issue from their blest abodes,
And fill th' assembly with a shining train.
A way there is, in Heav'n's expanded plain,
Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,
And mortals, by the name of milky, know. [road
The ground-work is of stars; through which the
Lies open to the thunderer's abode :
The gods of greater nations dwell around,
And, on the right and left, the palace bound;
The commons where they can: the nobler sort,
With winding-doors wide open, front the court.
This place, as far as Earth with Heav'n may vie,
I dare to call the Louvre of the sky.
When all were plac'd, in seats distinctly known,
And he, their father, had assum❜d the throne,
Upon his iv'ry sceptre first he leant,

Then shook his head, that shook the firmament:
Air, earth, and seas, obey'd th' almighty nod;
And, with a gen'ral fear, confess'd the god.
At length, with indignation, thus he broke
His awful silence, and the powers bespoke.
"I was not more concern'd in that debate
Of empire, when our universal state
Was put to hazard, and the giant race
Our captive skies were ready to embrace:
For though the foe was fierce, the seeds of all
Rebellion sprung from one original;
Now, wheresoever ambient waters glide,
All are corrupt, and all must be destroy'd.
Let me this holy protestation make,
By Hell, and Hell's inviolable lake,
I try'd, whatever in the godhead lay:
But gangren'd members must be lopt away,
Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.
There dwells below, a race of demi-gods,
Of nymphs in waters, and of fawns in woods:
Who, though not worthy yet in Heav'n to live,
Let them, at least, enjoy that Earth we give.
Can these be thought securely lodg’d below,
When I myself, who no superior know,
1, who have Heav'n and Earth at my command,
Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand?"

At this a murmur through the synod went,
And with one voice they vote his punishment.
Thus, when conspiring traitors dar'd to doom
The fall of Cæsar, and in him of Rome,
The nations trembled with a pious fear;
All anxious for their earthly thunderer:
Nor was their care, O Cæsar, less esteem'd

By thee, than that of Heav'n for Jove was deem'd:
Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain
Their murmurs, then resum'd his speech again.
The gods to silence were compos'd, and sate
With reverence, due to his superior state.
"Cancel your pious cares; already he
Has paid his debt to justice, and to me.
Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments
Remains for me thus briefly to declare.

VOL. XX.

[were,

The clamours of this vile degenerate age,
The cries of orphans, and th' oppressor's rage,
Had reach'd the stars; I will descend,' said I,
In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie.'
Disguis'd in human shape, I travell'd round
The world, and more than what I heard, I found.
O'er Mænalus I took my steepy way,

By caverns infamous for beasts of prey:
Then cross'd Cyllené, and the piny shade
More infamous by curst Lycaon made:

Dark night had cover'd Heav'n, and Earth, before

I enter'd his unhospitable door.

Just at my entrance, I display'd the sign
That somewhat was approaching of divine.
The prostrate people pray; the tyrant grins;
And, adding profanation to his sins,
'I'll try,' said he, and if a god appear,
To prove his deity shall cost him dear.
'Twas late; the graceless wretch my death pre-
pares,

When I should soundly sleep, opprest with cares:
This dire experiment he chose, to prove
If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove:
But first he had resolv'd to taste my pow'r;
Not long before, but in a luckless hour,
Some legates, sent from the Molossian state,
Were on a peaceful errand come to treat:
Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh;
And lays the mangled morsels in a dish:
Some part he roasts; then serves it up, so drest,
And bids me welcome to this human feast.
Mov'd with disdain, the table I o'cr-turn'd;
And with avenging flames the palace burn'd.
The tyrant in a fright, for shelter gains
The neighb'ring fields, and scours along the plains.
Howling he fled, and fain he would have spoke;
But human voice his brutal tongue forsook.
About his lips the gather'd foam he churns,
And, breathing slaughter, still with rage he burns,
But on his bleating flock his fury turns.
H's mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs
Cleaves to his back; a famish'd face he bears;
His arms descend, his shoulders sink away
To multiply his legs for chase of prey.
He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,
And the same rage in other members reigns.
His eyes still sparkle in a narr'wer space:
His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face.
"This was a single ruin, but not one
Deserves so just a punishment alone.
Mankind's a monster, and th' ungodly times
Confed'rate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.
All are alike involv'd in ill, and all
Must by the same relentless fury fall."
Thus ended he; the greater gods assent;
By clamours urging his severe intent;
The less fill up the cry for punishment.
Yet still with pity they remember man;
And mourn as much as heav'nly spirits can.
They ask, when those were lost of human birth,
What he would do with all this waste of earth:
If his dispeopled world he would resign
To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line;
Neglected altars must no longer smoke,
If none were left to worship, and invoke.
To whom the father of the gods reply'd,
"Lay that unnecessary fear aside:
Mine be the care, new people to provide.
I will from wondrous principles ordain
A race unlike the first, and try my skill again."

FF

Already had he toss'd the flaming brand; And roll'd the thunder in his spacious hand; Preparing to discharge on seas and land: But stopt, for fear, thus violently driv'n, The sparks should catch his axle-tree of Heav'n. Rememb'ring, in the fates, a time when fire Should to the battlements of Heav'n aspire, And all his blazing worlds above should burn; And all th' inferior globe to cinders turn. His dire artill'ry thus dismist, he bent His thoughts to some securer punishment: Concludes to pour a watry deluge down;

And what he durst not burn, resolves to drown. The northern breath, that freezes floods, he binds;

With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:
The South he loos'd, who night and horrour brings;
And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours,
His head, and rheumy eyes distil in show'rs.
With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow:
And lazy mists are lowring on his brow;
Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fist
He squeez'd the clouds, th' imprison'd clouds

resist:

The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;
And show'rs enlarg'd come pouring on the ground.
Then, clad in colours of a various dye,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply

To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burden bends:

Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain;
And the long labours of the year are vain.

Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down; Aid from his brother of the seas he craves, To help him with auxiliary waves. The watry tyrant calls his brooks and floods, Who roll from mossy caves (their moist abodes;) And with perpetual urns his palace fill: To whom in brief, he thus imparts his will. "Small exhortation needs; your pow'rs employ: And this bad world, so Jove requires, destroy. Let loose the reins to all your watry store: Bear down the dams, and open ev'ry door." The floods, by nature enemies to land, And proudly swelling with their new command, Remove the living stones, that stopt their way, And, gushing from their source, augment the

sea.

Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the ground;

With inward trembling Earth receiv'd the wound;
And rising streams a ready passage found.
Th' expanded waters gather on the plain:
They float the fields, and over-top the grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear flocks and folds, and lab'ring hinds away.
Nor safe their dwellings were, for, sapp'd by floods,
Their houses fell upon their household, gods.
The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their heads behold a watry wall:
Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is born:
And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his corn.
Others o'er chimney-tops and turrets row,
And drop their anchors on the meads below:
Or downward driv'n, they bruise the tender vine,
Or tost aloft, are knock'd against a pine.

And where of late the kids had cropt the grass,
The monsters of the deep now take their place.
Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,
And wond'ring dolphins o'er the palace glide.
On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks they browse;
And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.
The frighted wolf now swims amongst the sheep:
The yellow lion wanders in the deep:
His rapid force no longer helps the boar:
The stag swims faster than he ran before.
The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills and vales no more distinction know;
And levell'd nature lies oppress'd below.
The most of mortals perish in the flood:
The small remainder dies for want of food.

A mountain of stupendous height there stands
Betwixt th' Athenian and Boeotian lands,
The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they
were,

But then a field of waters did appear:
Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise
Mounts thro' the clouds, and mates the lofty skies.
High on the summit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion wafting, moor'd his little skiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perish'd man; they two were human kind.
The mountain nymphs, and Themis they adore,
And from her oracles relief implore.
The most upright of mortal men was he;
The most sincere, and holy woman, she.

When Jupiter, surveying Earth from high,
Beheld it in a lake of water lie,
That where so many millions lately liv'd,
But two, the best of either sex, surviv'd;
He loos'd the nothern wind; fierce Boreas flies
To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies:
Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driv❜a
Discover Heav'n to Earth, and Earth to Heav'n.
The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face.
Already Triton at his call appears

Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,
And give the waves the signal to retire.
His writhen shell he takes; whose narrow vent
Grows by degrees into a large extent;
Then gives it breath; the blast with doubling
sound,

Runs the wide circuit of the world around:
The Sun first heard it, in his early east,
And met the rattling echos in the west.
The waters list'ning to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.

A thin circumference of land appears;
And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds;
The streams, but just contain'd within their
bounds,

By slow degrees into their channels crawl;
And Earth increases, as the waters fall.
In longer time the tops of trees appear,
Which mud on their dishonour'd branches bear.
At length the world was all restor❜d to view;
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:
Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,
A dismal desert, and a silent waste.
Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look,
Behcid, he wept, and thus to Pyrrba spoke;

"Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind
The best, and only creature left behind,
By kindred, love, and now by dangers join'd;
Of multitudes, who breath'd the common air,
We two remain: a species in a pair:
The rest the seas have swallow'd; nor have we
Ev'n of this wretched life a certainty.

The clouds are still above; and while I speak,
A second deluge o'er our heads may break.
Should I be snatcht from hence, and thou remain,
Without relief, or partner of thy pain,

we,

How couldst thou such a wretched life sustain?
Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea,
That bury'd her I lov'd, should bury me.
Oh could our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolish'd man retrieve,
And perish'd people in new souls might live!
But Heav'n is pleas'd, nor ought we to complain,
That
th' examples of mankind, remain."
He said; the careful couple join their tears:
And then invoke the gods with pious prayers.
Thus, in devotion having eas'd their grief,
From sacred oracles they seek relief;
And to Cephisus' brook their way pursue:
The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew;
With living waters, in the fountain bred,
They sprinkle first their garments, and their head,
Then took the way, which to the temple led.
The roofs were all defil'd with moss and mire,
The desert altars void of solemn fire.
Before the gradual, prostrate they ador'd:
The pavement kiss'd; and thus the saint implor'd.
"O righteous Themis! if the pow'rs above
By pray'rs are bent to pity, and to love;
I human miseries can move their mind;
If yet they can forget, and yet be kind;
Tell how we may restore, by second birth,
Mankind, and people desolated Earth."
Then thus the gracious goddess, nodding, said;
Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:
And stooping lowly down, with loosen'd zones,
Throw each behind your backs, your mighty
mother's bones."

Amaz'd the pair, and mute with wonder, stand,
Till Pyrrha first refus'd the dire command.
"Forbid it Heav'n," said she, "that I should tear
Those holy relics from the sepulchre."
They ponder'd the mysterious words again,
For some new sense; and long they sought in vain:
At length Deucalion clear'd his cloudy brow,
And said, "The dark enigma will allow
A meaning, which if well I understand,

From sacrilege will free the god's command:

This Earth our mighty mother is, the stones

In her capacious body are her bones:

While yet the roughness of the stone remains,
Without the rising muscles, and the veins.
The sappy parts, and next resembling juice,
Were turn'd to moisture, for the body's use:
Sapplying humours, blood, and nourishment;
The rest, too solid to receive a bent,
Converts to bones; and what was once a vein,
Its former name and nature did retaio.
By help of pow'r divine, in little space,
What the man threw, assum'd a manly face;
And what the wife, renew'd the female race.
Hence we derive our nature; born to bear
Laborious life; and harden'd into care.

The rest of animals, from teeming carth
Produc'd, in various forms receiv'd their birth.
The native moisture, in its close retreat,
Digested by the Sun's ethereal heat,
As in a kindly womb, began to breed:
Then swell'd, and quicken'd by the vital seed.
And some in less, and some in longer space,
Were ripen'd into form, and took a sev'ral face.
Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
And seeks, with ebbing tides, his ancient bed,
The fat manure with heav'nly fire is warm'd;
And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are form'd;
These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants
find;

Some rude, and yet unfinish'd in their kind:
Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth;
One half alive, and one of lifeless earth.

For heat, and moisture, when in bodies join'd,
The temper that results from either kind
Conception makes; and fighting till they mix,
Their mingled atoms in each other fix.
Thus Nature's hand the genial bed prepares
With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars.
From hence the surface of the ground with mud
And slime besmear'd (the feces of the flood)
Receiv'd the rays of Heav'n; and sucking in
The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin:
Some were of several sorts produc'd before,
But of new monsters Earth created more.
Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light
Thee, Python too, the wond'ring world to fright,
And the new nations, with so dire a sight:
So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space
Did his vast body, and long train embrace.
Whom Phoebus basking on a bank espy'd;
Fre now the god his arrows had not try'd,
But on the trembling deer, or mountain goat;
At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.
Though every shaft took place, he spent the store
Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before
Th' expiring serpent wallow'd in his gore.
Then, to preserve the fame of such a deed,
For Python slain, he Pythian games decreed,

The woman did the new solution hear:
The man diffides in his own augury,
And doubts the gods; yet both resolve to try.
Descending from the mount, they first unbind
Their vests, and veil'd they cast the stones behind;
The stones (a miracle to mortal view,
But long tradition makes it pass for true)
Did first the rigour of their kind expel,
And suppled into softness as they fell;

Then swell'd, and swelling, by degrees grew warm,
And took the rudiments of human form;
Imperfect shapes: in marble such are seen,
When the rude chisel does the man begin;

To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive
The prize was fame: In witness of renown
An oaken garland did the victor crown.
The laurel was not yet for triumphs born;
But every green alike by Phoebus worn
Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks
THE TRANSFORMATION OF DAPHNE INTO A

LAUREL.

[adorn.

THE first and fairest of his loves was she, Whom not blind Fortune, but the dire decree Of angry Cupid forc'd him to desire: Daphne her name, and Peneus was her sire.