With furies frights her from her native home,
And drives her gadding round the world to roam :
Nor ceas'd her madness and her flight, before
She touch'd the limits of the Pharian shore.
At length, arriving on the banks of Nile,
Wearied with length of ways, and worn with toil,
She laid her down: and leaning on her knees,
Invok'd the cause of all her miseries:
And caft her languishing regards above,
For help from heav'n, and her ungrateful Jove.
She figh'd, she wept, she low'd; 'twas all the cou'd
And with unkindness seem'd to tax the God,
Last, with an humble pray'r, she begg'd repose,
Or death at least to finish all her woes.
Jove heard her vows, and with a flatt'ring look,
In her behalf to jealous Juno spoke.
He cast his arms about her neck, and faid:
Dame, rest secure; no more thy nuptial bed
This nymph thall violate; by Styx I swear,
And every oath that binds the Thunderer.
The Goddess was appeas'd: and at the word
Was Io to her former shape restor'd.
The rugged hair began to fall away;
The sweetness of her eyes did only stay,
Tho' not fo large; her crooked horns decrease;
The wideness of her jaws and nostrils cease :
Her hoofs to hands return, in little space;
The five long taper fingers take their place;
And nothing of the heifer now is seen,
Beside the native whiteness of her skin.
Erected on her feet she walks again,
And two the duty of the four sustain.
She tries her tongue, her filence softly breaks,
And fears her former lowings when she speaks:
A Goddess now thro' all th' Egyptian state;
And serv'd by priests, who in white linen wait.
Her fon was Epaphus, at length believ'd
The fon of Jove, and as a God receiv'd.
With facrifice ador'd, and public pray'rs,
He common temples with his mother shares.
Equal in years, and rival in renown
With Epaphus, the youthful Phaeton,
Like honour claims, and boasts his fire the fun.
His haughty looks, and his affuming air,
The fon of Ifis could no longer bear:
Thou tak'st thy mother's word too far, said he,
And haft ufurp'd thy boafted Pedigree.
Go, base pretender, to a borrow'd name,
Thus tax'd, he blush'd with anger, and with shame;
But fhame repress'd his rage: the daunted youth
Soon seeks his mother, and enquires the truth:
Mother, faid he, this infamy was thrown
By Epaphus on you, and me your fon.
He spoke in public, told it to my face;
Nor durst I vindicate the dire disgrace:
Ev'n I the bold, the fenfible of wrong,
Restrain'd by shame, was forc'd to hold my tongue.
To hear an open slander, is a curse:
But not to find an answer, is a worse.
If I am heav'n-begot, assert your fon
By fome fure fign; and make my father known,
To right my honour, and redeem your own.
He faid, and saying cast his arms about
Her neck, and begg'd her to resolve the doubt.
'Tis hard to judge if Clymené were mov'd
More by his pray'r, whom she so dearly lov'd,
Or more with fury fir'd, to find her name
Traduc'd, and made the sport of common fame.
She stretch'd her arms to heav'n, and fix'd her eyes
On that fair planet that adorns the skies;
Now by those beams, said she, whose holy fires
Confume my breast, and kindle my defires;
By him who fees us both, and chears our fight,
By him, the public minister of light,
I swear that Sun begot thee: if I lye,
Let him his chearful influence deny :
Let him no more this perjur'd creature see,
And shine on all the world but only me.
If still you doubt your mother's innocence,
His eastern manfion is not far from hence;
With little pains you to his levee go,
And from himself your parentage may know,
With joy th' ambitious youth his mother heard,
And eager for the journey soon prepar'd.
He longs the world beneath him to survey;
To guide the chariot, and to give the day:
From Meroe's burning sands he bends his course,
Nor less in India feels his father's force;
His travel urging, till he came in fight,
And faw the palace by the purple light.
Out of the Eighth Book of
Connection to the former Story.
Ovid, having told how Thefens had freed Athens from the tribute of children, which was imposed on them by Minos king of Creta, by killing the Minotaur, here makes a digreffion to the story of Meleager and Atalanta, which is one of the most inartificial connections in all the Metamorphoses: for he only says, that Theseus obtained fuch bonour from that combat, that ail Greece had recourse to bim in their neceffities; and, amongst others, Calydon, though the hero of that country, prince Meleager, was then living.
Rom him, the Caledonians sought relief;
Tho' valiant Meleagrus was their chief.
The cause, a boar, who ravag'd far and near :
Of Cynthia's wrath, th' avenging minifter.
For Oeneus with autumnal plenty bless'd,
By gifts to heav'n his gratitude express'd:
Cull'd sheafs, to Ceres; to Lyæus, wine;
To Pan, and Pales, offer'd sheep and kine;
And fat of olives, to Minerva's shrine.
Beginning from the rural Gods, his hand
Was lib'ral to the powers of high command:
Each Deity in ev'ry kind was bless'd,
Till at Diana's fane th' invidious honour ceas'd.
Wrath touches ev'n the Gods; the queen of night
Fir'd with disdain, and jealous of her right,
Unhonour'd tho' I am, at least, said she,
Not unreveng'd that impious act shall be.
Swift as the word, she sped the boar away,
With charge or those devoted fields to prey.
No larger bulls the Ægyptian pastures feed,
And none so large Sicilian meadows breed:
His eye-balls glare with fire, fuffus'd with blood;
His neck shoots up a thick set thorny wood;
His briftled back a trench impal'd appears,
And stands erected, like a field of spears.
Froth fills his chaps, he sends a grunting found,
And part he churns, and part befoams the ground.
For tusks with Indian elephants he strove,
And Jove's own thunder from his mouth he drove.
He burns the leaves; the scorching blast invades
The tender corn, and shrivels up the blades:
Or fuff'ring not their yellow beards to rear,
He tramples down the spikes, and intercepts the year
In vain the barns expect their promis'd load,
Nor barns at home, nor ricks are heap'd abroad:
In vain the hinds the threshing-floor prepare,
And exercise their flails in empty air.
With olives ever green the ground is strow'd,
And grapes ungather'd shed their gen'rous blood.
Amid the fold he rages, nor the sheep
Their shepherds, nor the grooms their bulls can keep.
From fields to walls the frighted rabble run,
Nor think themselves secure within the town:
Till Meleagrus, and his chosen crew,
Contemn the danger, and the praise pursue.
Fair Leda's twins, (in time to stars decreed)
One fought on foot, one curb'd the fiery steed;
Then issued forth fam'd Jason after these,
Who mann'd the foremost ship that fail'd the feas;
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