Thy hand flew Python, and the dame who lost
Her num'rous off-spring for a fatal boast.
In Phlegyas' doom thy juft revenge appears,
Condemn'd to furies and eternal fears;
He views his food, but dreads, with lifted eye,
The mouldring rock that trembles from on high.
Propitious hear our pray'r, O Pow'r divine !
And on thy hofpitable Argos shine
Whether the style of Titan please thee more,
Whose purple rays th’Achæmenes adore;
Or great Ofiris, who firft taught the swain
In Pharian fields to fow the golden grain ;
Or Mitra, to whose beams the Perfian bows,
And pays, in hollow rocks, his awful vows;
Mitra, whose head the blaze of light adorns,
Who grafps the struggling heifer's lunar horns.
-Tolol se
Ingemuit; quam fic nurus eft adfata dolentem:
Te tamen, o genitrix, alienae fanguine vestro
Rapta movet facies. quid fi tibi mira fororis ́ ̧
Fata meae referam? quamquam lacrymaeque dolor-
Impediunt, prohibentque loqui. fuit unica matri
(Me pater ex alia genuit) notiffima forma
Oechalidum Dryope: quam virginitate carentem,
Vimque Dei paffam, Delphos Delonque tenentis,
Excipit Andraemon; et habetur conjuge felix.
DRYOPE.] Upon occafion of the death of Hercules, his Mother Alcmena recounts her misfortunes to Iole, who anfwers with a relation of thofe of her own family, in par
DRYOPE.
From the NINTH BOOK of
HE faid, and for her loft Galanthis sighs,
When the fair Confort of her fon replies.
Since you a fervant's ravish'd form bemoan,
And kindly figh for forrows not your own;
Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate
A nearer woe, a fifter's ftranger fate.
No Nymph of all chalia could compare
For beauteous form with Dryope the fair,
Her tender mother's only hope and pride,
(Myfelf the offspring of a second bride.)
This Nymph compress'd by him who rules the day,
Whom Delphi and the Delian ifle obey,
Andræmon lov'd; and, blefs'd in all those charms
That pleas'd a God, fucceeded to her arms.
ticular the Transformation of her fifter Dryope, which is the fubject of the enfuing Fable. P.
Eft lacus, acclivi devexo margine formam
Littoris efficiens: fummum myrteta coronant.
Venerat huc Dryope fatorum nefcia ; quoque
Indignere magis, Nymphis latura coronas.
Inque finu puerum, qui nondum impleverat annum,
Dulce ferebat onus: tepidique ope lactis alebat.
Haud procul a ftagno, Tyrios imitata colores,
In fpem baccarum florebat aquatica lotos.
Carpferat hinc Dryope, quos oblectamina nato
Porrigeret flores: et idem factura videbar;
Namque aderam. vidi guttas e flore cruentas
Decidere; et tremulo ramos horrore moveri.
Scilicet, ut referunt tardi nunc denique agreftes,
Lotis in hanc Nymphe, fugiens obscoena Priapi,
Contulerat verfos, fervato nomine, vultus.
Nefcierat foror hoc; quae cum perterrita retro 35 Ire et adoratis vellet difcedere Nymphis ;
Haeferunt radice pedes. convellere pugnat:
A lake there was, with fhelving banks around, 15
Whose verdant fummit fragrant myrtles crown'd.
These fhades, unknowing of the fates, fhe fought,
And to the Naiads flow'ry garlands brought;
Her fmiling babe (a pleasing charge) she preft
Within her arms, and nourish'd at her breast.
Not diftant far, a watry Lotos grows,
The spring was new, and all the verdant boughs
Adorn'd with bloffoms promis'd fruits that vie
In glowing colours with the Tyrian die :
Of these she crop'd to please her infant fon,
And I myself the same rash act had done;
But lo! I faw (as near her fide I ftood)
The violated bloffoms drop with blood j
Upon the tree I caft a frightful look ;
The trembling tree with fudden horror shook.
Lotis the nymph (if rural tales be true)
As from Priapus' lawless luft she flew,
Forfook her form; and fixing here became
A flow'ry plant, which still preferves her name.
This change unknown, astonish'd at the fight 35
My trembling fifter ftrove to urge her flight,
And first the pardon of the nymphs implor'd,
And thofe offended fylvan pow'rs ador'd;
But when the backward would have fled, she found
Her ftiff ning feet were rooted in the ground:
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