RECITATIVE.

Acis.

His hideous love provokes my rage;
Weak as I am, I must engage:
Infpir'd with thy victorious charms,
The God of Love will lend his arms.

RECITATIVE.

GALATEA.

Ceafe, O ceafe, thou gentle youth;
Truft my conftancy and truth;
Truft my truth, and powers above,
The powers propitious ftill to Love.

TRIO.

ACIS, GALATEA, and POLYPHEME.

ACIS and GAL. The flocks fhall leave the mountains,
The woods the turtle-dove,
The nymphs forfake the fountains

POLY.

Ere I forfake my love.

Torture! fury rage! despair!
I cannot, cannot, cannot bear.

ACIS and GAL. Not fhowers to larks so pleasing,

Help, Galatea help, ye parent gods!
And take me dying to your deep abodes!

CHORUS.

CHORU S.

Mourn, all ye Mufes; weep, ye fwains;

Tune, tune your reeds to doleful ftains ; Groans, cries, and howlings, fill the neighbouring fhore, the gentle Acis is no more.

Ah!

SONG AND CHORUS.

GALATEA.

Muft I my Acis ftill bemoan,"
Inglorious crush'd beneath that stone
Muft the lovely charming youth
Die for his conftancy and truth?
Say, what comfort can you find
For dark defpair o'erclouds my mind.

CHORU S.

Ceafe, Galatea, cease to grieve;
Bewail not, when thou canft relieve:
Call forth thy power, employ thy art;
The goddefs foon can heal thy fmart:
To kindred gods the youth return,
Through verdant plains to roll his urn.

RECITATIVE.

GALATEA.

'Tis done thus I exert my power divine;
Be thou immortal, though thou art not mine.

AIR

AIR.

Heart, thou feat of foft delight!
Be thou now a fountain bright;
Purple be no more thy blood,
Glide thou like a crystal flood;
Rock, thy hollow womb difclofe :
The bubbling fountain, lo! it flows..
Through the plains he joys to rove,
Murmuring still his gentle love.

CHORUS.

Galatea, dry thy tears:

Acis now a god appears.

See how he rears him from his bed;
See the wreath that binds his head..
Hail! thou gentle murmuring stream,
Shepherds' pleasure, Mufes' theme;
Through the plain ftill joy to rove,
Murmuring, ftill thy gentle love..

TRANS

ACHELOUS AND HERCULES.

From OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. BOOK IX.

ARGUMENT.

Thefeus, returning from a great hunting-match' in Calydon, is stopped from proceeding by the overflow ing of the river Acheloüs. The god of the stream courteously invites him into his cave, where they pafs the time in difcourfing of various metamorphofes. At last, to prove the poffibility of fuch changes, he afferts that he has himfelf the power of varying his form within certain limitations, among which he mentions his having loft one of his horns when in the fhape of a bull; and this gives rife to the following ftory.

TH

HESEUS requests the God to tell his woes,
Whence his maim'd brow, and whence his groans

arofe

When