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Thick darkness now obscured the dusky skies:
Now, Roman, closed in sleep were mortal eyes,
When Health's auspicious god appears to thee,
And thy glad dreams his form celestial see:
In his left hand, a rural staff preferred,
His right is seen to stroke his decent beard.
"Dismiss (said he, with mildness all divine),

Dismiss your fears; I come and leave my shrine;
His serpent view, that with ambitious play
My staff encircles, mark him every way;

His form, though larger, nobler, I'll assume,

And changed, as gods should be, bring aid to Rome."
Here fled the vision, and the vision's flight

Was followed by the cheerful dawn of light.

Now was the morn with blushing streaks o'erspread,
And all the starry fires of heaven were fled;
The chiefs perplexed, and filled with doubtful care,
To their protector's sumptuous roofs repair,
By genuine signs implore him to express,

What seats he deigns to choose, what land to bless;
Scarce their ascending prayers had reached the sky,
Lo, the serpentine god, erected high!

Forerunning hissings his approach confessed;

Bright shone his golden scales, and waved his lofty crest.

The trembling altar his appearance spoke,

The marble floor and glittering ceiling shook;

The doors were rocked, the statue seemed to nod,

And all the fabric owned the present god,

The world's great mistress, Rome, receives him now;
On the mast's top reclined, he waves his brow,
And from that height surveys the great abodes,
And mansions, worthy of residing gods.

The land, a narrow neck, itself extends,

Round which his course the stream divided bends;
The stream's two arms, on either side, are seen,
Stretched out in equal length, the land between,
The isle, so called, from hence derives its name:
'Twas here the salutary serpent came;
Nor sooner has he left the Latian pine,
But he assumes again his form divine,
And now no more the drooping city mourns,
Joy is again restored, and health returns.

OVID'S Metamorphoses, book 15.

BOREAS.

BOREAS, the chief of the gods who presided over the four winds, was the son of Astræus and Aurora. He was adored by the Greeks and Romans, but principally by the former, who erected altars, and celebrated festivals named Boreasmi, at Athens, to his honour: he had also temples and sacrifices in Arcadia.

This god was supposed to dwell in Thrace, and preside over the nation of the Hyberboreans, who constantly sent offerings to Boreas into Greece. He is drawn as an old grey-haired man, adorned with wings.

From Thracia, nurse of steeds, comes rushing forth,
O'er the broad sea, the whirlwind of the north,

And moves it with his breath: then howl the shores
Of earth, and long and loud the forest roars.
He lays the oaks of lofty foliage low,

Tears the thick pine trees from the mountain's brow,
And strews the vallies with their overthrow.
He stoops to earth; shrill swells the storm around,
And all the vast wood rolls a deeper roar of sound.
He bows the old man, crooked beneath the storm,
But spares the smooth-skinned virgin's tender form.
HESIOD. Works.

HYMEN.

This god, worshipped by the Greeks as Hymen, by the Romans as Thalassius, was, by the early mythologists, said to be the son of Bacchus, and the goddess of beauty.

He is

described, by more modern writers, as being of Athenian origin. Hymen was universally worshipped as the god of marriage, and, as such, his presence was invoked on all occasions when that rite was to be solemnized. If he appeared with his torch brightly burning, it was considered as a happy omen; but, if he absented himself, or his torch flamed but faintly, it was deemed most inauspicious, and a calamitous termination to the nuptials was expected. Festivals were instituted, and sacrifices offered to him, under the figure of a young man crowned with roses, and attired in a purple or saffron vest, bearing in his hand his famous torch. Ovid well describes his unfortunate appearance at the marriage of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the disastrous events which succeeded their union.

Thence, in his saffron robe, for distant Thrace,
Hymen departs through air's unmeasured space;
By Orpheus called, the nuptial power attends,
But with ill-omened augury descends;
Nor cheerful looked the god, nor prosperous spoke,
Nor blazed his torch, but wept in hissing smoke:
In vain they whirled it round, in vain they shake,
No rapid motion can its flames awake.

With dread these inauspicious signs were viewed,
And soon a more disastrous end ensued;

For as the bride, amid the Naiad train,
Ran joyful, sporting o'er the flowery plain,
A venomed viper bit her as she passed,

Instant she fell, and sudden breathed her last.

Metamorphoses, book 10.

SOMNUS.

This gloomy deity, the son of Erebus and Nox, presided over sleep, and is generally classed with the infernal rulers, from the circumstance of his palace being situated in Chaos, or unbounded space, beyond the confines of the peopled universe. He is usually represented as buried in deep slumbers on a couch surrounded with sable curtains, fantastic images of the phantasies and dreams flitting near him.

Morpheus, the god of dreams, is his principal attendant; he watches by his side, holding in one hand a vase containing narcotic juices, and in the other fresh gathered poppies, which are peculiarly sacred to this god, on account of their somniferous qualities. Mors, the goddess of death, and daughter of Night, is sometimes introduced by mythologists into the cave of Somnus, in the form of a skeleton armed with a scymeter and a scythe.

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