That my expiring groans may reach the ear
Of him who flies from her he will not hear!
Perhaps, though whilst alive I cannot please,
My dying cries his anger may appease;
And my last fall, trophy of his disdain,
May yield delight, and his lost love regain.
"Receive my heart in this extreme farewel,
Thou, in whom cruelty and beauty dwell:
With thee it fled; but what, alas! for me
Is it to lose my heart, who have lost thee?
Thou art my better self! Thou of my heart,
The soul, more than the soul that moves it, art:
And if thou sentence me to suffer death,
(My life) to thee let me resign my breath.
"Alas! I do not ask to live content,
That were a blessing me Fate never meant:
All that my wishes aim at is, that I
(And that's but a poor wish) content may die;
And if my heart, by thee already slain,
Some reliques yet of a loath'd life retain,
Oh! let them by thy pity find release,
And in thy arms breathe forth their last in peace.
"No greater happiness than death I crave,
So in thy dearest sight I death may have;
And if thy hand, arm'd with relentless pride,
Shall the small thread of my poor life divide,
What pleasure than that sorrow would be higher?
When I in Paradise at least expire,
And so at once the different arrows prove,
Of death from thy hand, from thy eyes of love.
"Ah! if so pleas'd thou art with war's alarms;
If that be it that calls thee from my arms;
If thou aspir'st, by some advent'rous toils,
To raise proud trophiesdeck'd with glorious spoils ;
Why fondly dost thou seek for these elsewhere?
Why leav'st thou me a pris'ner to despair?
Turn; nor thy willing captive thus forsake,
And thou shalt all my victories partake.
"Though I to thy dear eyes a captive be,
Thousands of lovers are no less to me.
Unhappy! who contend and sue for sight
Of that, which thou unkindly thus dost slight.
Is't not a high attempt that can comprise
Within one act so many victories;
To triumph over triumphs, and subdue
At once the victor and the vanquish'd too?
"But if to stay with me thou dost refuse,
And the rude company of soldiers choose,
Yet give me leave to go along with thee,
And in the army thy attendant be.
Love, tho' a child and blind, the wars hath known,
Can handle arms, and buckle armour on ;
And thou shalt see, my courage will disdain
(Save of thy death) all fear to entertain.
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I will securely 'midst the arm'd troops run, Venus hath beeu Mars' his companion; And though the heart in thy obdurate breast Be with an adamantine corslet drest, Yet I in steel (to guard thee from all harm) With my own hands will thy fair body arm, And the reward love did from me detain In peace, in war shall by this service gain. "And if it fortune that thou undergo Some dangerous hurt by the prevailing foe, I sadly by thy side will sit to keep Thee company, and as thou groan'st will weep.
My sorrow with thy anguish shall comply,
I will thy blood, and thou my tears shalt dry:
Thus, by an equal sympathy of pure
Affections, we each other's wounds will cure.
"Perhaps, when he this sweet effect of love
Shall see, the happy precedent may move
The stubborn enemy more mild to grow,
And to so soft a yoke his stiff neck bow,
Who by himself gladly betray'd to thine,
Shall willingly his own command resign.
So by a way of conquest strangely new,
Thou shalt at once love, arms, and souls subdue.
"Ah, most unhappy! he, to these sad cries
Inexorable, his deaf ear denies ;
And, far more cruel than the rough seas are,
Laughs at my sighs, and slights my juster prayer.
See, whilst thou spread'st thy sails to catch the
What a sad object thou hast left behind!
Of war, alas! why dost thou go in quest?
Thou leav'st a fiercer war within my breast.
"Thou fly'st thy country and more happy state,
To seek in some strange land a stranger fate;
And under foreign climes and unknown stars,
T'encounter hazards of destructive wars;
Eager to thrust thyself (lavish of breath)
Upon disasters, dangers, blood, and death,
Changing (ah! too unwary, too unwise!)
Thy certain joys for an uncertain prize.
"Can it be true, thou more thyself should'st please
With busy troubles, than delightful ease,
And lik'st th' enraged deep's rough toils above
The calmer pleasures and sweet sports of love?
Canst thou from a soft bosom fly, (ah! lost
To gentleness!) to be on rude waves tost?
And rather choose in seas a restless grave,
Than in these arms a quiet port to have?
"With furrowing keel thou plough'st the foaming
main,
And (O obdurate!) hear'st not me complain;
Too swift thou fly'st for Love's slow wings t'o'ertake,
Love, whom perfidiously thou didst forsake;
And all the way thou swell'st with pride, to know
The suff'rings for thy sake I undergo,
Whilst the mild East, to flatter thy desires,
With his soft breath thy flagging sail inspires.
"Go, faithless youth! faithless and foolish too,
Thy fate, or folly rather, still pursue;
Go, and now thou art from my fetters free,
Never take care who sighs or dies for thee.
Oh! if the Heavens are just, if ever they
With eyes impartial human wrongs survey,
Heaven, Heaven, my tears implore, to Heaven I
Avenge my suff'rings, and his treachery! [cry,
"Be seas and skies thy foes! no gentle gale
Blow on thy shrouds! destruction fill thy sail!
No star to thee (lost in despair and night)
When thou invok'st, disclose its friendly light!
To Scythian pirates (such as shall despise
Thy fruitless tears) may'st thou become a prize,
By whose inhuman usage may'st thou be
Spoil'd of the liberty thou took'st from me.
"Then thou the difference shalt understand
Betwixt the shafts shot from a Thracian hand,
And lover's eye; the odds betwixt a rude
Insulting foe, and love's soft servitude:
The breast his golden darts not pierc'd, shall feel
The sharp impression of more cruel steel,
And thou, enslav'd, which are the stronger prove,
The fetters of barbarians, or of love.
"Ye seas and skies, which of my amorous care
The kindly faithful secretaries are,
To you my crying sorrows I address,
To you, the witnesses of my distress:
Shores by the loss of my fair sun forlorn,
Winds, who my sole delight away have borne,
Rocks, the spectators of my hapless fate,
And night, that hear'st me mourn disconsolate.
"Nor without reason is 't (alas!) that I
To stars and sands bewail my misery;
For with my state they some proportion bear,
And numberless as are my woes appear.
Heaven in this choir of beauteous lights doth seem
To represent what I have loss in him :
The sea, to whom his flight I chiefly owe,
His heart in rocks, my tears in waves doth show.
"And since to these eternal fires, whose light
Makes Sleep's dark mansion so serenely bright,
I turn, what one amongst them shall I find
To pity me above the rest inclin'd?
She who in Naxos, when forsook, did meet
A better spouse than him she chose in Crete,
Though all the rest severely are intent
To work me harm, should be more mildly bent.
"O thou, who gild'st the pompous train of night,
With the addition of thy glorious light,
Whose radiant hair a crown adorns, whence streams
The dazzling lustre of seven blazing gems:
If that extremity thou not forget,
If thy own sorrows thou remember yet,
Stop at my sighs awhile, and make the crew
Of thy bright fellows stay and hearken too.
"Thou know'st the like occasions of our fate,
Both circumvented by unkind deceit ;
A cruel I, a love ungrateful thou
Didst follow, both to equal suff'rings bow;
In this to thine a near resemblance bears,
The cause that dooms me to eternal tears;
I now am left, as thou wert heretofore,
Alone upon the solitary shore.
"But howsoever our misfortunes share
The same effects, their causes diff'rent are:
I my poor self no other have deceiv'd;
Thy brother was thro' thee of life bereav'd.
Sleep thy betrayer was, but love was mine,
Thou by thy short eclipse didst brighter shine,
And in the skies a crown of stars obtain,
But I on Earth (forsaken) still remain.
"Fool, to whose care dost thou thy grief impart ?
What dost thou talk, or know'st thou where thou
She, 'midst a dancing bevy of fair lights,
Trips it away, and thy misfortune slights:
Yet happy may she go, and her clear beams,
Whilst I lament, drench in the brinish streams;
Perhaps the sea, to my afflicted state,
Will prove than her less incompassionate.
"But how on seas for help should I rely,
Where nothing we but waves and rocks can spy?
Yet so small hopes of succour hath my grief,
That of those rocks and waves' I beg relief.
Down from these rocks, of life my troubled breast
By a sad precipice may be releast,
And my impurer soul in these waves may
Quench her loose flames, and wash her stains away.
"Ah, Lydia, Lydia! whither dost thou send
Thy lost complaint? Why words so fruitless spend
To angry waves to winds, where horrour roars?
To rocks that have no ears? to senseless shores?
Thou giv'st thy grief this liberty in vain,
If liberty from grief thou canst not gain;
And fond presumption will thy hopes abuse,
Unless thou grief and life together lose.
"Die, then! so shall my ghost (as with despair
Laden it flies) raise in the troubled air
Tempests more loud than thunder, storms more
Than Hell or horrour, in curl'd waves to wrack
His ship and him: so (and 'tis just) shall I
And my proud foe, at least, together die :
On him, who first these bitter sorrows bred,
Seas shall avenge the seas of tears I shed."
This said, she made a stop; and with rash haste
(By violent despair assisted) cast
Herself down headlong in the raging sea,
Where she believ'd it deepest: now to be
Sadly by her enrich'd; whilst from her fair
Vermilion lips, bright eyes, Phoebeian hair,
Coral a purer tincture doth endue,
Crystal new light, pearls a more orient hue.
Such was the hapless fate of Lydia,
Who in those waves from which the king of day
Each morn ascends the blushing East, in those
From which the queen of love and beauty rose,
A second queen of love and beauty perish'd,
Who in her looks a thousand graces cherish'd;
And by a sad fate (not unpitied yet)
A second sun eternally did set.
Sweet beauty, the sad wrack of ruthless seas,
And ill-plac'd love, whom cruel destinies
Have food for monsters made, and sport for waves,
With whom so many graces had their graves,
If vain be not my hopes, if no dead fire
These lines devoted to thy name inspire,
Though buried in the sea's salt waves thou lie,
Yet in oblivion's waves thou shalt not die.
THE RAPE OF HELEN.
OUT OF THE GREEK OF COLUTHUS.
Ye Trojan nymphs! Xanthus' fair progeny!
Who, on your father's sands oft laying by
Your sacred armlets, and heads' reedy tires,
Ascend to dance on Ide in mixed choirs, [swain's
Quit your rough flood; and tell the Phrygian
Just verdict: how the hills he left, the main's
New toils to undergo: his mind what press'd
With fatal ships both sea and land t' infest;
Whence did that unexpected strife arise,
Which made a shepherd judge 'twixt deities:
What was his bold award; how to his ear
Arriv'd the fair Greek's name; for you were there:
And Paris thron'd in Ida's shades did see,
And Venus glorying in her victory.
When tall Thessalian mountains the delights
Witness'd of Peicus's hymenæal rites,
Ganymede néctar at the sacred feast,
By Jove's command, fill'd out to every guest;
For all descended from celestial race,
That day, with equal forwardness, to grace
Fair Thetis (Amphitrite's sister) strove.
From seas came Neptune, from the Heavens came
Jove,
And Phoebus from the Heliconian spring,
Did the sweet consort of the Muses bring.
Next whom, the sister to the thunderer,
Majestic Juno, came: nor did the fair
Harmonia's mother, Venus, stay behind;
Suada went too, who for the bride entwin'd
The wedding garland, and Love's quiver bare.
Pallas, from nuptials though averse, was there ;
Aside her heavy helmet having laid.
Apolio's sister, the Latonian maid,
(Though wholly to the savage chase apply'd) Her presence at this meeting not deny'd.
Stern Mars, not such as when his spear he shakes,
But as when he to lovely Venus makes
His amorous address, (his shield and lance
Thrown by) there siniling mix'd in a soft dance.
But thence unhonour'd Iris was debarr'd;
Nor Chiron her, nor Pelens, did regard.
But Bacchus, shaking with his golden hair
His dangling grapes, lets Zephyr's sportive air
Play with his curled tresses: like some young
Heifer, (which, by a furious gad-fly stung,
Quitting the fields, in shady forests strays)
Whilst madded Eris roams, seeking always
How to disturb the quiet of the feast.
Oft from her rocky cell (with rage possest)
She flings; now stands, then sits: still up and down
Groping on th' earth, yet could not find a stone:
For lightning she'd have struck or by some spell
The bold Titanean brethren rais'd from Hell,
With hostile flames to storm Jove's starry fort.
Though thus enrag'd, she yet does Vulcan court,
Whom fire and malleable steel obeys:
She thought the sound of clatt'ring shields to raise,
That so the gods, affrighted with the noise,
Might have run forth, and left their festive joys.
But fearing Mars, she does at last incline
To put in act a far more quaint design:
She calls to mind Hesperia's golden fruit;
Whence a fair apple, of dire wars the root,
Pulling, the cause of signal strifes she found:
Then 'midst the feast, dissension's fatal ground
Casts, and disturbs the goddesses' fair choir.
Juno, of Jove's bed proud, does first admire
The shining fruit, then challeng'd as her due:
Bat Venus (all surpassing) claims it too
As love's propriety: which by Jove seen,
He calls, then thus to Hermes does begin :
"Know'st thou not Paris, one of Priam's sons,
Who, where through Phrygian grounds smooth
Grazes his horned herds, on Ida's hill?
To him this apple bear: say, 'tis our will,
As arbiter of beauty, he declare
Which of these goddesses excels in rare
Conjunction of arch'd eyebrows, lovely grace,
And well-proportion'd roundness of the face;
And she that seems the fairest in his eyes,
To have the apple, as her beauty's prize."
This charge on Mercury Saturnius lays,
Who humbly his great sire's commands obeys;
And with officious care th' immortals guides:
Whilst each herself in her own beauty prides.
But as they went, love's subtle queen, her head's
Rich tire unloosing, with gold fillets braids
Her curious hair; then thus, with eyes intent On her wing'd sons, her troubled thoughts does vent: "The strife is near! dear sons, your mother This day must crown my beauty, or degrade. And much I fear to whom this clown will give The golden fruit: Juno, all men believe To be the Graces' reverend nurse to her The gift of sceptres they assign: in war A powerful goddess is Minerva deem'd : But we alone are of no pow'r esteem'd. Nor empires we, nor martial arms bestow: Yet why without a cause thus fear we? Though Minerva's spear we have not, we yet better Are with our cæstus arin'd, sweet love's soft fetter, Our cæstus: that our bow is, that our sting, Which smart to women, but not death does bring." Thus rosy-finger'd Venus on the way To her attendant Cupids spake, whilst they, With duteous words, their drooping mother cheer. And now they reach'd the top of Ida; where The youthful Paris, near Anaurus' head, His father's sheep in flocks divided fed: Here of his roving bulls he count doth keep, And there he reckons o'er his well-fed sheep. Low as his knee a mountain goat's rough hide Hung from his shoulders, flagging by his side: In's hand a neatherd's goad: such to the eye (As slowly to his pipe's soft melody He moves) appear'd the gentle Phrygian swain, Tuning on's reed a sweet, though rural strain. I' th' solitary stalls oft would he sit Himself with songs delighting; and forget The care both of his herds and flocks; the praise Of Pan and Hermes subject of his lays, (With shepherds most in use) whose sweeter note No dog's rude howl, no bull's loud-bellowing throat, Disturbs; but Echo only, that affords An artless sound in unarticulate words. His oxen, cloy'd with the rank grass, were laid, Stretching their fat sides in the cooler shade; Under th❜umbrella of a spreading tree Whilst he himself sat singing: but when he Spy'd Hermes with the goddesses, afraid, Upstarting, from their sight he would have made: And (his sweet pipe among the bushes flung) Abruptly clos'd his scarce commenced song.
To whom, amaz'd, thus Heaven's wing'd nuncius spake :
"Cast away fear; a while thy flocks forsake, Thou must in judgment sit, and freely tell Which of the pow'rs in beauty does excel, And to the fairest this fair fruit present." Thus he: when Paris, with eyes mildly bent In amorous glances, of their beauties took Exact survey: which had the gracefull'st look, The brightest eyes, whose neck the whitest skin, Not leaving aught from head to heel unseen. To whom Minerva first herself addrest, Then, taking by the hand, these words express'd: "Come hither, Paris! leave Jove's wife behind: Nor Venus, president of nuptials, mind. Pallas, of valour the directress, praise : Entrusted with large rule and power, Fame says, Thou govern'st Troy: me chief for form confess, I'll make thee too its guardian in distress. Comply, and 'gainst Bellona's dreadful harms Secur'd, I'll teach thee the bold deeds of arms." Thus Pallas courted him: she scarce had done, When, with fair words and looks, Juno begun :
The troubled air a show'ring tempest flew.
With strokes of active oars the ocean swell'd:
And now, the Trojan shores forsook, he held
His course for Greece, and, borne with winged haste,
Ismarus' mouth and tall Pangaus past.
Then love-slain Phyllis' rising monument,
And of the walk which oft she came and went,
The ninefold round he saw; there she to mourn
Did use, while her Demophoon's safe return
She from Athenian lands expected: then
Coasting by Thessaly's broad shores, in ken
The fair Achaian cities next appear'd.
Men-breeding Phthia and Mycene, rear'd
Promis'd a wife, her sister, Helen nam'd,
For whom these troubles I thro' seas sustain'd.
High, and wide built; when the rich meadows past, Since Venus bids, here let us solemnize
Water'd by Erymanthus, he at last
Spies Sparta, lov'd Atrides' city, plac'd
Near clear Eurotas, with rare beauties grac'd:
Not far from whence, under a shady wood,
H' admiring saw how sweet Therapnæ stood.
For now but a short cut he had to sail,
Nor long was heard the dash of oars: they hale
The ship to shore, and with strong haulsers ty'd;
When Paris, with clear water purifi'd,
Upon his tiptoes lightly treads, for fear
His lovely feet he with the dust should smear,
Or going hastily, his hair, which flows
Beneath his hat, the winds should discompose.
By this, the stately buildings, drawing nigher,
He views, the neighbouring temples that aspire,
And city's splendour: where, with wond'ring eyes,
The statue of their Pallas he espies,
All of pure gold; from which, his roving sight
Next Hyacinthus' image does invite,
The boy with whom Apollo us'd to play :
Whom, lest Latona should have rapt away,
(Displeas'd with Jove) the Amyclæans fear'd.
Phoebus, from envious Zephyr, who appear'd
His rival, could not yet secure the boy :
But Earth, t' appease the sad king's tears, his joy,
A flow'r produc'd; a flow'r, that doth proclaim
Of the once lovely youth the still-lov'd name.
Now near Atrides' court, before the gates,
Bright in celestial graces Paris waits.
Not Semele a youth so lovely bare:
(Your pardon, Bacchus' tho' Jove's son you are)
Such beauty did his looks irradiate.
But Helen the court doors unbolting straight,
When 'fore the hall the Trojan she had seen,
And throughly mark'd, kindly invites him in,
And seats him in a silver chair: her eyes,
Whilst on his looks she feeds, not satisfies.
First she suppos'd he Venus' son might be,
Yet, when his quiver'd shafts she did not see,
She knew he was not Love; but by the shine
Of his bright looks thought him the god of wine.
At length her wonder in these words did break:
"Whence art, my guest? thy stock, thy country,
For majesty is printed in thy face: [speak;
And yet thou seem'st not of the Argive race.
Of sandy Pylos sure thou canst not be :
I know Antilochus, but know not thee.
Nor art of Phthia, which stout men doth breed :
I know all Eacus' renowned seed;
The glorious Peleus, and his warlike son,
Courteous Patroclus, and stout Telamon."
Thus Helen, curious to be satisfi'd,
Questions her guest; who fairly thus reply'd:
"If thou of Troy, in Phrygia's utmost bound,
By Neptune and Apollo walled round,
And of a king from Saturn sprung, who there
Now fortunately rules, didst ever hear,
His son am I; and all within his sway,
To me, as chief next him, subjection pay.
From Dardanus am I descended, he
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Sleep brought, suspended by the morn's ascent,
Of dreams the two gates opening: this of horn,
In which the gods' unerring truths are born:
T'other of ivory, whence cozening lies,
And vain delusions of false dreams arise.
When from Atrides' hospitable court
Paris thro' plough'd seas Helen does transport,
And in the gift of Venus proudly joy,
Bearing with speed the freight of war to Troy.
Hermione, soon as the morn appears,
To winds her torn veil casting, big with tears,
Her loss bewails; and from her chamber flying,
With grief distraught, thus to her maids spake,
crying:
"Whither without me is my mother fled?
Who lay with me last night in the same bed!
And with her own hand lock'd the chamber door!"
Thus spake she, weeping: all the maids deplore
With her their mistress' absence; yet assay
With these kind words her passion to allay:
Why dost thou weep, sweet child! thy mo-
ther's gone,
But will return soon as she hears thy moan.
See, how thy tears have blubber'd thy fair cheeks!
Much weeping the divinest beauty breaks.
She 'mongst the virgins is but gone to play,
And, coming back, perhaps hath miss'd her way:
And in some flow'ry meadow doubtful stands;
Or, in Eurotas bath'd, sports on his sands."
The weeping child replies: "The hill, brook,
And fields, she knows; do not so idly talk! [walk,
The stars do sleep, yet on cold rocks she lies;
The stars awake, and yet she does not rise.
O my dear mother! where dost thou abide ?
Upon what mountain's barren top reside?
Hath some wild beast, alas! thee wand'ring slain?
(Yet from Jove's royal blood wild beasts refrain)
Or, fall'n from some steep precipice, art laid,
An unregarded corse, in some dark shade?
And yet in ev'ry grove, at ev'ry tree,
Search have I made, but cannot meet with thee.
The woods we blame not then; nor do profound
Eurotas' gentle streams conccal thee drown'd:
For in deep floods the Naïades do use,
From Jove; where gods, immortal though they be, Nor e'er by them their lives do women lose."
Do oft serve mortals: who begirt our town
Round with a wall, a wall that ne'er shall down.
I am, great queen! the judge of goddesses,
Whom, tho' displeas'd, I censur'd, and of these
The lovely Venus' beauty did prefer:
For which, in noble recompense, by her
Thus poor Hermione complaining wept,
Then tow'rd her shoulder her head leaning, slept.
(Sleep is Death's twin, and as the younger brother,
In every thing doth imitate the other;
Hence 'tis that women often, when they weep,
O'ercharg'd with their own sorrows, fall asleep.)
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