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OVID'S METAMORPHOSE S.

BOOK III.

THE STORY OF CADMUS.

WHEN now Agenor had his daughter loft,

He fent his fon to fearch on every coast;

And sternly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or fee his face no more.
But live an exile in a foreign clime;

Thus was the father pious to a crime.

The restless youth fearch'd all the world around; But how can Jove in his amours be found? When, tir'd at length with unfuccefsful toil, To fhun his angry fire and native foil,^ He goes a fuppliant to the Delphic dome; There asks the God what new-appointed home Should end his wanderings, and his toils relieve. The Delphic oracles this answer give :

"Behold among the fields a lonely cow, "Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plough; "Mark well the place where first she lays her down, "There measure out thy walls, and build thy town, "And from thy guide Boeotia call the land,

"In which the deftin'd walls and town fhall stand.” No fooner had he left the dark abode,

Big with the promise of the Delphic God,
When in the fields the fatal cow he view'd,

Nor gall'd with yokes, nor worn with fervitude;
Her gently at a distance he pursued;

And,

And, as he walk'd aloof, in filence pray'd
To the great power whofe counfels he obey'd.
Her way through flowery Panopè fhe took,
And now, Cephifus, crofs'd thy filver brook;
When to the heavens her spacious front she rais'd,
And bellow'd thrice, then backward turning gaz'd
On those behind, till on the deftin'd place

She ftoop'd, and couch'd amid the rifing grass.
Cadmus falutes the foil, and gladly hails

The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,
And thanks the Gods, and turns about his eye
To fee his new dominions round him lie;
Then fends his fervants to a neighbouring grove
For living ftreams, a facrifice to Jove.

O'er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
O'er-run with brambles, and perplex'd with thorn:
Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,
With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.
Deep in the dreary den, conceal'd from day,

Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
Fire broke in flashes when he glanc'd his eyes:
His towering crest was glorious to behold,
His fhoulders and his fides were fcal'd with gold;

Three tongues he brandish'd when he charg'd his foes:
His teeth ftood jaggy in three dreadful rows.

The Tyrians in the den for water fought,
And with their urns explor'd the hollow vault:

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From fide to fide their empty urns rebound,
And rouse the fleepy serpent with the sound.
Straight he beftirs him, and is feen to rife ;
And now with dreadful hiffings fills the skies,
And darts his forky tongue, and rolls his glaring eyes.
The Tyrians drop their veffels in the fright,
All pale and trembling at the hideous fight.
Spire above fpire uprear'd in air he stood,
And, gazing round him, over-look'd the wood:
Then floating on the ground, in circles roll'd;
Then leap'd upon them in a mighty fold.
Of fuch a bulk, and fuch a monstrous fize,
The ferpent in the polar circle lies,
That ftretches over half the northern skies.
In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,
In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly :
All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;
Some die entangled in the winding train;
Some are devour'd; or feel a loathfome death,
Swoln up with blafts of peftilential breath.

And now the fcorching fun was mounted high,
In all its luftre, to the noon-day sky;

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When, anxious for his friends, and fill'd with cares,
To fearch the woods th' impatient chief prepares.
A lion's hide around his loins he wore,
The well-pois'd javelin to the field he bore
Inur'd to blood; the far-destroying dart,
And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart.
Soon as the youth approach'd the fatal place,
He faw his fervants breathlefs on the grafs;
The fcaly foe amid their corpse he view'd,
Basking at ease, and feafting in their blood,

Such

Such friends, he cries, deferv'd a longer date :
"But Cadmus will revenge, or share their fate.”
Then heav'd a ftone, and, rifing to the throw,
He fent it in a whirlwind at the foe :
A tower, affaulted by fo rude a stroke,
With all its lofty battlements had shook ;
But nothing here th' unwieldy rock avails,
Rebounding harmlefs from the plaited fcales,
That, firmly join'd, preferv'd him from a wound,
With native armour crufted all around.
With more fuccefs the dart unerring flew,
Which at his back the raging warrior threw ;
Amid the plaited scales it took its course,
And in the spinal marrow spent its force.
The monfter hifs'd alond, and rag'd in vain,
And writh'd his body to and fro with pain;
And bit the spear, and wrench'd the wood away :
The point still buried in the marrow lay.

And now his rage, inereafing with his pain,
Reddens his eyes, and beats in every vein;
Churn'd in his teeth the foamy venom rose,
Whilft from his mouth a blaft of vapours flows,
Such as th' infernal Stygian waters cast':
The plants around him wither in the blast.
Now in a maze of rings he lies enroll'd,
Now all unravel'd, and without a fold;
Now, like a torrent, with a mighty force
Bears down the foreft in his boisterous courfe.
Cadmus gave back, and on the lion's spoil
Suftain'd the fhock, then fore'd him to recoil;

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The pointed javelin warded off his rage:
Mad with his pains, and furious to engage,
The serpent champs the steel, and bites the spear,
Till blood and venom all the point befmear.
But ftill the hurt he yet receiv'd was flight;
For, whilft the champion with redoubled might
Strikes home the javelin, his retiring foe
Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the blow.
The dauntless hero ftill purfues his stroke,

And preffes forward, till a knotty oak
Retards his foe, and stops him in the rear;
Full in his throat he plung'd the fatal spear,
That in th' extended neck a paffage found,
And pierc'd the solid timber through the wound.
Fix'd to the reeling trunk, with many a stroke
Of his huge tail, he lash'd the sturdy oak;
Till, spent with toil, and labouring hard for breath,
He now lay twisting in the pangs of death.

Cadmus beheld him wallow in a flood
Of swimming poison, intermix'd with blood;
When fuddenly a speech was heard from high,
(The fpeech was heard, nor was, the speaker nigh)
"Why dost thou thus with secret pleasure see,
"Insulting man! what thou thyself shalt be?"
Aftonish'd at the voice, he stood amaz'd,
And all around with inward horror gaz'd:
When Pallas swift descending from the skies,
Pallas, the guardian of the bold and wife,
Bids him plow up the field, and scatter round
The dragon's teeth o'er all the furrow'd ground;

Then

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