brother. Adrastus entertains them, having received an oracle from Apollo that his daughters should be married to a boar and a lion, which he understands to to be meant of these strangers, by whom the hides of those beasts were worn, and who arrived at the time when he kept an annual feast in honour of that god. The rise of this solemnity: he relates to his guests the loves of Phoebus and Psamathe, and the story of Choræbus: he inquires and is made acquainted with their descent and quality: the sacrifice is renewed, and the Book concludes with a hymn to Apollo.
FRATERNAL rage the guilty Thebes alarms; Th' alternate reign destroy'd by impious arms Demand our song; a sacred fury fires
My ravish'd breast, and all the Muse inspires.
O Goddess! say, shall I deduce my rhymes
From the dire nation in its early times,
Europa's rape, Agenor's stern decree,
And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea
How with the serpent's teeth he sow'd the soil,
And reap'd an iron harvest of his toil?
Or how from joining stones the city sprùng,
While to his harp divine Amphion sung?
Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound,
Whose fatal rage th'unhappy monarch found?
The sire against the son his arrows drew;
O'er the wild fields the furious mother flew,
And while her arms a second hope contain,
Sprung from the rocks, and plung'd into the main.
But wave whate'er to Cadmus may belong,
And fix, Muse! the barrier of thy song
At Oedipus-from his disasters trace
The long confusions of his guilty race:
Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing,
And mighty Cæsar's conqu'ring Eagles sing;
How twice he tam'd proud Ister's rapid flood,
While Dacian mountains stream'd with barb'rous
Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,
And stretch'd his empire to the frozen pole;
Or, long before, with early valour strove
In youthful arms t' assert the cause of Jove.
And thou great heir of all thy father's fame,
Increase of glory to the Latian name!
Oh! bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,
Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain.
What tho' the stars contract their heavenly space, And crowd their shining ranks to yield thee place; Tho' all the skies ambitious of thy sway,
Conspire to court thee from our world away;
Tho' Phœbus longs to mix his rays with thine,
And in thy glories more serenely shine;
Tho' Jove himself no less content would be
To part his throne and share his heav'n with thee;
Yet stay, great Cæsar! and vouchsafe to reign
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the watʼry main;
Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,
And people heav'n with Roman deities.
The time will come when a diviner flame
Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar's fame!
Mean while permit that my paeluding Muse
In Theban wars an humbler theme may chuse :
Of furious hate surviving death she, sings,
A fatal throne or two contending kings,
And fun❜ral flames that, parting wide in air,
Express the discord of the souls they bear:
Of towns dispeopled, and wand'ring ghosts
Of kings unbury'd in the wasted coasts;
When Dirce's fountain blush'd with Grecian blood,
And Thetis, near Ismenos' swelling flood,
With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep
In heaps his slaughter'd sons into the deep.
What hero, Clio! wilt thou first relate?
The rage of Tydeus, or the Prophet's fate?
Or how, with hills of slain on ev'ry side,
Hippomedom repell'd the hostile tide?
Or how the youth, with ev'ry grace adorn'd,
Untimely fell, to be for ever mourn'd?
Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend,
And sing with horror his prodigious end.
Now wretched Oedipus, depriv'd of sight,
Led a long death in everlasting night;
But while he dwells where not a cheerful ray
Can pierce the darkness, and abhors the day,
The clear reflecting mind presents his sin
In frightful views, and makes it day within;
Returning thoughts in endless circles roll,
And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul:
The wretch then lifted to th' unpitying skies
Those empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes,
Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook, While from his breast these dreadful accents broke. 80
"Ye Gods! that o'er the gloomy regions reign, Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain;
Thou, sable Styx! whose livid streams are roll'd,
Thro' dreary coasts, which I tho' blind behold;
Tisiphone! that oft' hast heard my pray❜r,
Assist, if Oedipus deserve thy care.
If you receiv'd me from Jocasta's womb,
And nurs❜d the hope of mischiefs yet to come;
If, leaving Polybus, I took my way
To Cyrrha's temple, on that fatal day,
When by the son the trembling father dy'd,
Where the three roads the Phocian fields divide;
If I the Sphynx's riddles durst explain,
Taught by thyself to win the promis'd reign;
If wretched I, by baleful Furies led,
With monstrous mixture stain'd my mother's bed,
For hell and thee begot an impious brood,
And with full lust those horrid joys renew'd;
When, self-condemn'd, to shades of endless night,
Forc'd from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight;
Oh, hear! and aid the vengeance I require,
If worthy thee, and what thou might'st inspire.
My sons their old unhappy sire despise,
Spoil'd of his kingdom and depriv'd of eyes;
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