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TRANSLATIONS

FROM

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

THE FIRST BOOK

OF

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

O bodies chang'd to various forms I sing:
Ye gods, from whence these miracles did
Inspire my numbers with celestial heat, [spring,
Till I my long laborious work complete;
And add perpetual tenour to my rhymes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Cæsar's times.
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heaven's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature, if a face;
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos nam'd.
No Sun was lighted up the world to view;
No Moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky;
Nor, pois'd, did on her own foundations lie:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;

All were confuş'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt,
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.
But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,
[driven,
To these intestine discords put an end.
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were
And grosser air sunk from etherial Heaven.
Thus disembroil'd, they take their proper place;
The next of kin contiguously embrace;
And foes are sunder'd by a larger space.
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky.
Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;
Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.

Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng
Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.
About her coasts unruly waters roar,
And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore.
Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had form'd the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded earth into a spacious round:
Then, with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;
And bade the congregated waters flow.
He adds the running springs, and standing lakes,
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.
Some part in earth are swallow'd up, the most
In ample oceans, disembogued, are lost.
He shades the woods, the vallies he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.
And as five zones th' etherial regions bind,
Five, correspondent, are to earth assign'd:
The Sun with rays, directly darting down,
Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone
The two beneath the distant poles complain
Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.
Betwixt th' extremes, two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot and cold,
The fields of liquid air, enclosing all,
Surround the compass of this earthly ball:
The lighter parts lie next the fires above;
The grosser near the watery surface move:
Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender
there,

And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals

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First Eurus to the rising morn is sent,
(The regions of the balmy continent)
And eastern realms, where early Persians run,
To greet the blest appearance of the Sun.
Westward the wanton Zephyr wings his flight,
Pleas'd with the remnants of departing light :
Fierce Boreas with his offspring issues forth,
T' invade the frozen waggon of the North.
While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere,
And rots, with endless rain, th' unwholesome year.
High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,
The God a clearer space for Heaven design'd;
Where fields of light and liquid ether flow,
Purg'd from the ponderous dregs of earth below.
Scarce had the power distinguish'd these, when
straight

The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads from underneath the mass,
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,
And with diffusive light adorn the heavenly place.
Then, every void of nature to supply,
With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share;
New colonies of birds, to people air;

And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair.
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heavenly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire;
Or Earth, but new divided from the sky,.
And pliant still, retain'd th' etherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image

cast.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
From such rude principles our form began,
And earth was metamorphos'd into man.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

THE golden age was first; when man, yet new, No rule but uncorrupted reason knew; And, with a native bent, did good pursue. Unforc'd by punishment, unaw'd by fear, His words were simple, and his soul sincere: Needless was written-law, where none opprest; The law of man was written in his breast: No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd; No court erected yet, nor cause was heard; But all was safe, for conscience was their guard. The mountain-trees in distant prospect please, Ere yet the pine descended to the seas; Ere sails were spread, new oceans to explore; And happy mortals, unconcern'd for more, Confin'd their wishes to their native shore. No walls were yet, nor fence, nor mote, nor mound; Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound: Nor swords were forg'd; but, void of care and crime, The soft creation slept away their time. The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough, And unprovok'd, did fruitful stores allow : Content with food, which Nature freely bred, On wildings and on strawberries they fed; Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest, And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast:

The flowers unsown in fields and meadows reign'd;

And western winds immortal Spring maintain❜d.
In following years the bearded corn ensu'd
From earth unask'd, nor was that earth renew'd.
From veins of vallies milk and nectar broke;
And honey, sweating through the pores of oak.

THE SILVER AGE.

BUT when good Saturn, banish'd from above, Was driven to Hell, the world was under Jove. Succeeding times a silver age behold,

Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
Then Summer, Autumn, Winter, did appear;
And Spring was but a season of the year.
The Sun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted, and enlarg'd the bad.
Then air with sultry heats began to glow,
The wings of winds were clogg'd with ice and snow;
And shivering mortals, into houses driven,
Sought shelter from th' inclemency of Heaven.
Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds,
With twining oziers fenc'd, and moss their beds.
Then ploughs, for seed, the fruitful furrows broke,
And oxen labour'd first beneath the yoke.

THE BRAZEN AGE.

To this next came in course the brazen age, A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage, Not impious yet

THE IRON AGE.

-Hard steel succeeded then;
And stubborn as the metal were the men.
Truth, Modesty, and Shame, the world forsook:
Fraud, Avarice, and Force, their places took.
Then sails were spread to every wind that blew;
Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:
Trees rudely hollow'd, did the waves sustain,
Ere ships in triumph plough'd the watery plain.
Then land-marks limited to each his right:
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone requir'd to bear
Her annual income to the crooked share;
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Digg'd from her entrails first the precious ore,
Which next to Hell the prudent God had laid,
And that alluring ill to sight display'd:
Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
Gave Mischief birth, and made that mischief bold:
And double death did wretched man invade,
By steel assaulted, and by gold betray'd.
Now (brandish'd weapons glittering in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands;
No rights of hospitality remain:

The guest, by him who harbour'd him, is slain :
The son-in-law pursues the father's life:
The wife her husband murders, be the wife.
The step-dame poison for the son prepares,
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;
And Justice, here opprest, to Heaven returns.

THE GIANTS WAR.

NOR were the gods themselves more safe above; Against beleagur'd Heaven the giants move.

Hills pil'd on hills, on mountains mountains lie,
To make their mad approaches to the sky;
Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time
T'avenge with thunder their audacious crime:
Red lightning play'd along the firmament,
And their demolish'd works to pieces rent.
Sing'd with the flames, and with the bolts transfix'd,
With native earth their blood the monsters mix'd;
The blood, indued with animating heat,
Did in th' impregnate earth new sons beget:
They, like the seed from which they sprung, accurst,
Against the gods immortal hatred nurst:
An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood;
Expressing their original from blood.
Which when the king of gods beheld from high
(Withal revolving in his memory,
What he himself had found on Earth of late,
Lycaon's guilt, and his inhuman treat)
He sigh'd, nor longer with his pity strove;
But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove;
Then call'd a general council of the gods;
Who, summon'd, issue from their blest abodes,
And fill th' assembly with a shining train.
A way there is, in Heaven's expanded plain,
Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,
And mortals by the name of milky know.

The ground-work is of stars; through which the road

Lies open to the thunderer's abode.

The gods of greater nations dwell around,
And, on the right and left, the palace bound;
The commons where they can; the nobler sort,
With winding-doors wide open, front the court.
This place, as far as Earth with Heaven may vie,
I dare to call the Louvre of the sky.

When all were plac'd, in seats distinctly known,
And he their father had assum'd the throne,
Upon his ivory sceptre first he leant,
Then shook his head, that shook the firmament:
Air, Earth, and Seas, obey'd th' almighty nod;
And, with a general fear, confess'd the God.
At length with indignation, thus he broke
His awful silence, and the powers bespoke:
"I was not more concern'd in that debate
Of empire, when our universal state
Was put to hazard, and the giant race
Our captive skies were ready to embrace;
For, though the foe was fierce, the seeds of all
Rebellion sprung from one original:
Now, wheresoever ambient waters glide,
All are corrupt, and all must be destroy'd.
Let me this holy protestation make:
By Hell and Hell's inviolable lake,
I try'd whatever in the godhead lay,
But gangren'd members must be lopt away,
Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.
There dwells below a race of demi-gods,
Of nymphs in waters, and of fawns in woods:
Who, though not worthy yet in Heaven to live,
Let them at least enjoy that Earth we give.
Can these be thought securely lodg'd below,
When I myself, who no superior know,

I, who have Heaven and Earth at my command,
Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand?”

At this a murmur through the synod went,
And with one voice they vote his punishment.
Thus, when conspiring traitors dar'd to doom
The fall of Cæsar, and in him of Rome,
The nations trembled with a pious fear,
All anxious for their earthly thunderer:

VOL. IX.

Nor was their care, O Cæsar, less esteem'd
By thee, than that of Heaven for Jove was deem'd:
Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain
Their murmurs, then resum'd his speech again.
The gods to silence were compos'd, and sate
With reverence due to his superior state.

"Cancel your pious cares; already he
Has paid his debt to justice, and to me.
Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were,
Remains for me thus briefly to declare.
The clamours of this vile degenerate age,
The cries of orphans, and th' oppressor's rage,
Had reach'd the stars; I will descend,' said I,
In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie.'
Disguis'd in human shape, I travell'd round
The world, and more than what I heard, I found.
O'er Mænalus I took my steepy way,

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By caverns infamous for beasts of prey:
Then cross'd Cyllene, and the piny shade,
More infamous by curst Lycaon made:

Dark night had covered Heaven and Earth, before

I enter'd his unhospitable door.

Just at my entrance, I display'd the sign
That somewhat was approaching of divine.
The prostrate people pray; the tyrant grins;
And, adding prophanation to his sins,

I'll try,' said he, and if a god appear,

To prove his deity shall cost him dear.'

[pares,

'Twas late; the graceless wretch my death preWhen I should soundly sleep, opprest with cares: This dire experiment he chose, to prove

If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove:
But first he had resolv'd to taste my power:
Not long before, but in a luckless hour,
Some legates sent from the Molossian state,
Were on a peaceful errand come to treat:
Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh,
And lays the mangled morsels in a dish:
Some part he roasts; then serves it up so drest,
And bids me welcome to this human feast.
Mov'd with disdain, the table I o'erturn'd;
And with avenging flames the palace burn'd.
The tyrant, in a fright, for shelter gains
The neighbouring fields, and scours along the plains.
Howling he fled, and fain he would have spoke,
But human voice his brutal tongue forsook,
About his lips the gather'd foam he churns,
And, breathing slaughter, still with rage he burns,
But on the bleating flock his fury turns.
His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs
Cleaves to his back; a famish'd face he bears;
His arms descend, his shoulders sink away,
To multiply his legs for chase of prey.
He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,
And the same rage in other members reigns.
His eyes still sparkle in a narrower space,
His jaws retain the grin and violence of his face.
"This was a single ruin, but not one
Deserves so just a punishment alone.
Mankind's a monster, and th' ungodly times,
Confederate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.
All are alike involv'd in ill, and all
Must by the same relentless fury fall."
Thus ended he; the greater gods assent,
By clamours urging his severe intent;
The less fill up the cry for punishment.
Yet still with pity they remember man;
And mourn as much as heavenly spirits can.
They ask, when those were lost of human birth,
What he would do with all his waste of Earth?

If his dispeopled world he would resign
To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line?
Neglected altars must no longer smoke,
If none were left to worship and invoke.
To whom the father of the gods reply'd:
"Lay that unnecessary fear aside:
Mine be the care new people to provide.
I will from wondrous principles ordain
A race unlike the first, and try my skill again.”
Already had he toss'd the flaming brand,
And roll'd the thunder in his spacious hand;
Preparing to discharge on seas and land:
But stopt, for fear, thus violently driven,
The sparks should catch his axle-tree of Heaven.
Remembering, in the Fates, a time, when fire
Should to the battlements of Heaven aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all th' inferior globe to cinders turn.
His dire artillery thus dismiss'd, he bent
His thoughts to some securer punishment:
Concludes to pour a watery deluge down ;
And, what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.
The northern breath, that freezes floods, he
binds;

With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:
The South he loos'd, who night and horrour brings;
And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours;
His head and rheumy eyes distil in showers.
With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow,
And lazy mists are lowering on his brow:
Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fist,
He squeez'd the clouds; th' imprison'd clouds
resist:

The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;
And showers enlarg'd come pouring on the ground.
Then, clad in colours of a various die,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply,

To feed the clouds impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burthen bends:
Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain;
And the long labours of the year are vain.

Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down:
Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.
The watery tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes,
And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom in brief he thus imparts his will:

"Smallexhortation needs; your powers employ:
And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy.
Let loose the reins to all your watery store:
Bear down the dams, and open every door."

The floods, by nature enemies to land, And proudly swelling with their new command, Remove the living stones that stopp'd their way, And, gushing from their source, augment the sea. Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the

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Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne,
And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his corn.
Others o'er chimney tops and turrets row,
And drop their anchors on the meads below:
Or, downward driven, they bruise the tender vine;
Or, toss'd aloft, are knock'd against a pine.
And where of late the kids had cropp'd the grass,
The monsters of the deep now take their place.
Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,

And wandering dolphins o'er the palace glide.
On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks, they brouze ;
And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.
The frighted wolf now swims among the sheep;
The yellow lion wanders in the deep:
His rapid force no longer helps the boar:
The stag swims faster than he ran before.
The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills and vales no more distinction know,
And levell'd Nature lies oppress'd below.
The most of mortals perish in the flood,
The small remainder dies for want of food.

A mountain of stupendous height there stands
Betwixt th' Athenian and Boeotian lands.
The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they were,
But then a field of waters did appear:
Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise
Mounts through the clouds, and meets the lofty
skies.

High on the summit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion wafting moor'd his little skiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perish'd man; they two were human-kind.
The mountain-nymphs and Themis they adore,
And from her oracles relief implore.
The most upright of mortal men was he;
The most sincere and holy woman, she.

When Jupiter, surveying Earth from high,
Beheld it in a lake of water lie,
That, where so many millions lately liv'd,
But two, the best of either sex, surviv'd,
He loos'd the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies
To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies:
Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driven
Discover Heaven to Earth, and Earth to Heaven.
The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face.
Already Triton, at his call, appears
Above the waves: a Tyrian robe he wears;
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,
And give the waves the signal to retire.
His writhen shell he takes, whose narrow vent
Grows by degrees into a large extent;
Then gives it breath; the blast, with doubling
Runs the wide circuit of the world around.
The Sun first beard it, in his early east,
And met the rattling echos in the west.
The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.

[sound,

A thin circumference of land appears; And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears, And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds: The streams, but just contain'd within their bounds, By slow degrees into their channels crawl; And Earth increases as the waters fall. In longer time the tops of trees appear, Which mud on their dishonour'd branches bear.

At length the world was all restor❜d to view,
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:
Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,
A dismal desert, and a silent waste.

Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look,
Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke :
"Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind
The best and only creature left behind,
By kindred, love, and now by dangers join'd;
Of multitudes, who breath'd the common air,
We two remain; a species in a pair:
The rest the seas have swallow'd; nor have we
Ev'n of this wretched life a certainty.
The clouds are still above; and, while I speak,
A second deluge o'er our heads may break.
Should I be snatch'd from hence, and thou remain,
Without relief, or partner of thy pain,

How could'st thou such a wretched life sustain ? Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea, That bury'd her I lov'd, should bury me. Oh could our father his old arts inspire, And make me heir of his informing fire, That so I might abolish'd man retrieve, And perish'd people in new souls might live! But Heaven is pleas'd, nor ought we to complain, That we, th' examples of mankind, remain." He said the careful couple join their tears, And then invoke the gods with pious prayers. Thus in devotion having eas'd their grief, From sacred oracles they seek relief: And to Cephisus' brook their way pursue: The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew. With living waters in the fountain bred, They sprinkle first their garments and their head, Then took the way which to the temple led. The roofs were all defil'd with moss and mire, The desert altars void of solemn fire. Before the gradual prostrate they ador'd, The pavement kiss'd; and thus the saint implor'd. "O righteous Themis, if the powers above By

prayers are bent to pity, and to love; If human miseries can move their mind; If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind; Tell how we may restore, by second birth, Mankind, and people desolated Earth." Then thus the gracious goddess, nodding, said; "Depart, and with your vestments veil your head: And stooping lowly down, with loosen'd zones, Throw each behind your backs your mighty mo

ther's bones."

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This Earth our mighty mother is, the stones

In her capacious body are her bones:

Did first the rigour of their kind expel, And suppled into softness as they fell: Then swell'd, and, swelling, by degrees grew warm And took the rudiments of human form; Imperfect shapes, in marble such are seen, When the rude chisel does the man begin ;* While yet the roughness of the stone remains, Without the rising muscles and the veins. The sappy parts, and next resembling juice, Were turn'd to moisture, for the body's use, Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment: The rest, too solid to receive a bent, Converts to bones; and what was once a vein, Its former name and nature did retain. By help of power divine, in little space, What the man threw assum'd a manly face; And what the wife, renew'd the female race. Hence we derive our nature, born to bear Laborious life, and harden'd into care.

The rest of animals, from teeming Earth
Produc'd, in various forms receiv'd their birth.
The native moisture, in its close retreat,
Digested by the Sun's etherial heat,
As in a kindly womb, began to breed:
Then swell'd, and quicken'd by the vital seed.
And some in less, and some in longer space,
Were ripen'd into form, and took a severai face.
Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
And seeks with ebbing tides his ancient bed,
The fat manure with heavenly fire is warm'd;
And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are form'd:
These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants
find:

Some rude, and yet unfinish'd in their kind:
Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth;
One half alive, and one of lifeless earth.

For heat and moisture when in bodies join'd,
The temper that results from either kind
Conception makes; and fighting, till they mix,
Their mingled atoms in each other fix.
Thus Nature's hand the genial bed prepares
With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars.

From hence the surface of the ground with mud
And slime besmear'd (the feces of the flood)
Receiv'd the rays of Heaven; and, sucking in
The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin:
Some were of several sorts produc'd before;
But of new monsters Earth created more.
Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light
Thee, Python too, the wondering world to fright,
And the new nations, with so dire a sight,
So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space
Did his vast body and long train embrace:
Whom Phoebus basking on a bank espy'd,
Ere now the god his arrows had not try'd,
But on the trembling deer, or mountain-goat;
At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.
Though every shaft took place, he spent the store
Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before
Th' expiring serpent wallow'd in his gore.
Then, to preserve the fame of such a deed,
For Python slain, he Pythian games decreed,

These we must cast behind." With hope, and fear, Where noble youths for mastership should strive,

The woman did the new solution hear:
The man diffides in his own augury,

And doubts the gods; yet both resolve to try.
Descending from the mount, they first unbind
Their vests, and veil'd they cast the stones behind:
The stones (a miracle to mortal view,
But long tradition makes it pass for true)

To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive.
The prize was fame, in witness of renown,
An oaken garland did the victor crown.
The laurel was not yet for triumphs born;
But every green alike by Phoebus worn
Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks
adorn.

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