Thus while she sings, the sisters turn the wheel, Empty the woolly rack, and fill the reel.
A mournful sound again the mother hears;
Again the mournful sound invades the sisters' ears. 495
Starting at once from their green seats, they rise-
Fear in their heart, amazement in their eyes.
But Arethusa, leaping from her bed,
First lifts above the waves her beauteous head,
And, crying from afar, thus to Cyrene said:
"O sister, not with causeless fear possest!
No stranger voice disturbs thy tender breast,
'Tis Aristæus, 'tis thy darling son,
Who to his careless mother makes his moan.
Near his paternal stream he sadly stands,
With downcast eyes, wet cheeks, and folded hands.
Upbraiding heav'n from whence his lineage came,
And cruel calls the gods, and cruel thee, by name."
Cyrene, mov'd with love, and seiz'd with fear,
Cries out, "Conduct my son, conduct him here:
'Tis lawful for the youth, deriv'd from gods,
To view the secrets of our deep abodes."
At once she wav'd her hand on either side;
At once the ranks of swelling streams divide.
Two rising heaps of liquid crystal stand,
And leave a space betwixt, of empty sand.
Thus safe receiv'd, the downward track he treads,
Which to his mother's wat'ry palace leads.
With wond'ring eyes he views the secret store
Of lakes, that, pent in hollow caverns, roar;
He hears the crackling sounds of coral woods,
And sees the secret source of subterranean floods;
And where, distinguish'd in their sev'ral cells,
The fount of Phasis, and of Lycus, dwells;
Where swift Enipeus in his bed appears,
And Tyber his majestic forehead rears;
Whence Anio flows, and Hypanis profound
Breaks thro' th' opposing rocks with raging sound;
Where Po first issues from his dark abodes,
And, awful in his cradle, rules the floods:
Two golden horns on his large front he wears,
And his grim face a bull's resemblance bears:
With rapid course he seeks the sacred main,
And fattens, as he runs, the fruitful plain.
Now, to the court arriv'd, th' admiring son
Beholds the vaulted roofs of pory stone,
Now to his mother goddess tells his grief,
Which she with pity hears, and promises relief.
Th' officious nymphs, attending in a ring,
With water drawn from their perpetual spring,
From earthly dregs his body purify,
And rub his temples, with fine towels, dry;
Then load the tables with a lib'ral feast,
And honour with full bowls their friendly guest.
The sacred altars are involv'd in smoke;
And the bright choir their kindred gods invoke.
Two bowls the mother fills with Lydian wine;
Then thus: "Let these be pour'd, with rites divine,
To the great authors of our wat❜ry line
To father Ocean, this; and this," she said.
"Be to the nymphs his sacred sisters paid,
Who rule the wat'ry plains, and hold the woodland shade."
She sprinkled thrice, with wine, the Vestal-fire;
Thrice to the vaulted roof the flames aspire.
Rais'd with so blest an omen, she begun,
With words like these, to cheer her drooping son
"In the Carpathian bottom, makes abode
The shepherd of the seas, a prophet and a god.
High o'er the main in wat'ry pomp he rides,
His azure car and finny coursers guides-
Proteus his name.-To his Pallenian port
I see from far the weary god resort.
Him, not alone, we river gods adore,
But aged Nereus hearkens to his lore.
With sure foresight, and with unerring doom,
He sees what is, and was, and is to come.
This Neptune gave him, when he gave to keep
His scaly flocks, that graze the wat'ry deep.
Implore his aid; for Proteus only knows
The secret cause, and cure, of all thy woes.
But first the wily wizard must be caught;
For, unconstrain'd, he nothing tells fr nought;
Nor is with pray'rs, or bribes, or flattery bought.
Surprise him first, and with hard fetters bind;
Then all his frauds will vanish into wind.
I will myself conduct thee on thy way,
When next the southing sun inflames the day,
When the dry herbage thirsts for dews in vain,
And sheep, in shades, avoid the parching plain;
Then will I lead thee to his secret seat,
When, weary with his toil, and scorch'd with heat,
The wayward sire frequents his cool retreat.
His eyes with heavy slumber overcast-
With force invade his limbs, and bind him fast.
Thus surely bound, yet be not over bold:
The slipp'ry god will try to loose his hold,
And various forms assume, to cheat thy sight,
And with vain images of beasts affright;
With foamy tusks, he seems a bristly boar,
Or imitates the lion's angry roar;
Breaks out in crackling flames to shun thy suares,
Hisses a dragon, or a tiger stares;
Or with a wile thy caution to betray,
In fleeting streams attempts to slide away.
But thou, the more he varies forms, beware
To strain his fetters with a stricter care,
Till, tiring all his arts, he turns again
To his true shape, in which he first was seen."
This said, with nectar she her son anoints;
Infusing vigour through his mortal joints:
Down from his head the liquid odours ran;
He breath'd of heav'n, and look'd above a man.
Within a mountain's hollow womb, there lies
A large recess conceal'd from human eyes,
Where heaps of billows, driv'n by wind and tide,
In form of war their wat❜ry ranks divide,
And there like centries set, without the mouth abide:
A station safe for ships, when tempests roar,
A silent harbour, and a cover'd shore.
Secure within resides the various god,
And draws a rock upon his dark abode.
Hither with silent steps, secure from sight,
The goddess guides her son, and turns him from the
1 light:
Herself, involv'd in clouds, precipitates her flight.
'Twas noon; the sultry Dog-star from the sky
Scorch'd indian swains; the rivel'd grass was dry;
The sun with flaming arrows pierc'd the flood,
And, darting to the bottom, bak'd the mud;
When weary Proteus, from the briny waves,
Retir'd for shelter to his wonted caves.
His finny flocks about their shepherd play,
And, rolling round him spurt the bitter sea:
Unwieldily they wallow first in ooze,
Then in the shady covert seek repose.
Himself, their herdsman, on the middle mount,
Takes of his muster'd flocks a just account.
So, seated on a rock, a shepherd's groom
Surveys his evening flocks returning home,
When lowing calves and bleating lambs, from far,
Provoke the prowling wolf to nightly war.
Th' occasion offers, and the youth complies;
For scarce the weary god had clos'd his eyes,
When, rushing on with shouts, he binds in chains
The drowsy prophet, and his limbs constrains.
He, not unmindful of his usual art,
First in dissembled fire attempts to part:
Then roaring beasts, and running streams, he tries.
And wearies all his miracles of He:
But, having shifted ev'ry form to 'scape,
Convinc'd of conquest, he resum'd his shape,
And thus, at length, n human accent spoke:
"Audacious youth what madness could provoke
A mortal man t' invade a sleeping god?
What bus'ness brought thee to my dark abode?"
To this th' audacious youth: "Thou know'st full well
My name and bus'ness, god; nor need i tell.
No man can Proteus cheat: but, i roteus, leave
Thy fraudful arts. and do not thou deceive.
Following the gods' command I come t' implore
Thy help, my perish'd people to restore."
The seer, who could not yet his wrath assuage,
Roll'd his green eyes, that sparkled with his rage,
And gnash'd his teeth, and cried, "no vulgar god
Pursues thy crimes, nor with a common rod.
Thy great misdeeds have met a due reward,
And Orpheus' dying prayers at length are heard.
For crimes, not his, the lover lost his life,
And at thy hands requires his murder'd wife:
Nor (if the Fates assist not) canst thou 'scape
The just revenge of that intended rape.
To shur thy lawless lust the dying bride,
Unwary, took along the river's side,
Nor at her heels perceiv'd the deadly snake,
That kept the bank, in covert of the brake.
But all her fellow-nymphs the mountains tear
With loud laments, and break the yielding air:
The realms of Mars remurmur all around,
And echoes to th' Athenian shores rebound.
Th' unhappy husband, husband now no more,
Did on his tuneful harp his loss deplore
And sought his mournful mind with music to restore.
On thee, dear wife, in deserts all alone,
He call'd, sigh'd, sung: his griefs with day begun,
Nor were they finish'd with the setting sun,
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