dress; as where she makes Eustathius call Cratis- by public and general acts of worship, others by a thenes the Phliasian, Callisthenes the Physician.* reverend sort of reasoning and inquiry about the What a triumph might some slips of this sort have grounds of it; it is the same in admiration : some prove afforded to Homer's, hers, and my enemies, from it by exclamations, others by respect. I have observed which she was only screened by their happy igno- that the loudest huzzas given to a great man in a trirance! How unlucky had it been, when she insulted umph, proceed not from his friends, but the rabble; Mr. de la Motte for omitting a material passage in the and as I have fancied it the same with the rabble of speech of Helen to Hector, Iliad vi.† if some cham. critics, a desire to be distinguished from them has pion for the moderns had by chance understood so turned me to the more moderate, and I hope, more much Greek, as to whisper him, that there was no rational method. Though I am a poet, I would not such passage in Homer! be an enthusiast; and though I am an Englishman I Our concern, zeal, and even jealousy for our great would not be furiously of a party. I am far from author's honour were mutual; our endeavours to ad- thinking myself that genius, upon whom, at the end vance it were equal: and I have as often trembled of these remarks, Madam Dacier congratulates my for it in her hands, as she could in mine. It was one country: one capable of 'correcting Homer, and of the many reasons I had to wish the longer life of consequently of reforming mankind, and amending this lady, that I must certainly have regained her good this constitution.' It was not to Great Britain this opinion, in spite of all misrepresenting translators ought to have been applied, since our nation has one whatever I could not have expected it on any other happiness for which she might have preferred it to terms than being approved as great, if not as passion- her own, that as much as we abound in other miserate, an admirer of Homer as herself. For that was able misguided sects, we have at least none of the the first condition of her favour and friendship; other- blasphemers of Homer. We steadfastly and unaniwise not one's taste alone, but one's morality had mously believe, both his poem, and our constitution, been corrupted, nor would any man's religion have to be the best that ever human wit invented: that been unsuspected, who did not implicitly believe in the one is not more incapable of amendment than an author whose doctrine is so comformable to Holy the other; and (old as they both are) we despise any Scripture. However, as different people have dif- French or Englishman whatever, who shall presume ferent ways of expressing their belief, some purely to retrench, to innovate, or to make the least alteration in either. Far therefore from the genius for which Madam Dacier mistook me, my whole desire * Dacier Remarques sur le 4me ivre de l'Odyss. is but to preserve the humble character of a faithful p. 467. De la Corruption du Gout. translator, and a quiet subject.

THE

BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE.

BY MR. ARCHDEACON PARNELL.

CORRECTED BY MR. POPE.

NAMES OF THE MICE.

PSYCARPAX, one who plunders granaries.
TROXARTES, a bread-eater.

LYCHOMYLE, a licker of meal.

PTERNOTROCTAS, a bacon-eater.

LYCHOPINAX, a licker of dishes.

EMBASICHYTROS, a creeper into pots.

LYCHENOR, a name from licking.

TROGLODYTES, one who runs into holes.

ARTOPHAGUS, who feeds on bread.

TYROGLYPHUS, a cheese-scooper.

PTERNOGLYPHUS, a bacon-scooper.

PTERNOPHAGUS, a bacon-eater.

CNISSODIOCTES, one who follows the steam of

kitchens.

SITOPHAGUS, an eater of wheat.
MERIDARPAX, one who plunders his share.

NAMES OF THE FROGS.

PHYSIGNATHUS, one who swells his cheeks
PELEUS, a name from mud.

HYDROMEDUSE, a ruler in the water

HYPSIBOAS, a loud bawler.

PELION, from mud.

SEUTLEUS, called from the beets.

POLYPHONUS, a great babbler.

LYMNOCHARIS, one who loves the lake

CRAMBOPHAGUS, a cabbage-eater.
LYMNISIUS, called from the lake.
CALAMINTHIUS, from the herb.
HYDROCHARIS, who loves the water

BORBOCATES, who lies in the mud.
PRASSOPHAGUS, an eater of garlic.
PELUSIUS, from mud.

PELOBATES, who walks in the dirt.
PRASSEUS, called from garlic.
CRAUGASIDES, from croaking.

BOOK I.

To fill my rising song with sacred fire,
Ye tuneful Nine, ye sweet celestial quire!
From Helicon's imbowering height repair,
Attend my labours, and reward my prayer.
The dreadful toils of raging Mars I write,
The springs of contest, and the fields of fight;
How threatening mice advanced with warlike grace,
And waged dire combats with the croaking race.
Not louder tumults shook Olympus' towers,
When earth-born giants dared immortal powers.
These equal acts an equal glory claim,
And thus the muse records the tale of fame.

If worthy friendship, proffer'd friendship take,
And, entering, view the pleasurable lake:
Range o'er my palace, in my bounty share,
And glad return from hospitable fare.
This silver realm extends beneath my sway,
And me, their monarch, all its frogs obey.
Great Physignathus I, from Peleus' race,
Begot in fair Hydromeduse' embrace,
Where by the nuptial bank that paints his side
The swift Eridanus delights to glide.

Thee too, thy form, thy strength and port proclaim, 10 A scepter'd king; a son of martial fame;

Then trace thy line, and aid my guessing eyes.
Thus ceased the frog, and thus the mouse replies:
Known to the gods, the men, the birds that fly
Through wild expanses of the midway sky,
My name resounds; and if unknown to thee,
The soul of great Psycarpax lives in me.
Of brave Troxartes' line, whose sleeky down
In love compress'd Lychomyle the brown.
My mother she, and princess of the plains
20 Where'er her father Pternotroctas reigns:
Born where a cabin lifts its airy shed,
With figs, with nuts, with varied dainties fed.
But since our natures nought in common know
From what foundation can a friendship grow ?
480

Once on a time, fatigued and out of breath,
And just escaped the stretching claws of death,
A gentle mouse, whom cats pursued in vain,
Flies swift of foot across the neighbouring plain,
Hangs o'er a brink, his eager thirst to cool,
And dips his whiskers in the standing pool;
When near a courteous frog advanced his head,
And from the waters, hoarse resounding said:
What art thou, stranger? what the line you boast?
What chance hath cast thee panting on our coast?
With strictest truth let all thy words agree,
Nor let me find a faithless mouse in thee.

30

50

Nor thou that flingst me floundering from thy back,
As from hard rocks rebounds the shattering wrack,
Nor thou shalt 'scape thy due, perfidious king!
Pursued by vengeance on the swiftest wing:
At land thy strength could never equal mine,
60 At sea to conquer, and by craft was thine.
But heaven has gods, and gods have searching eyes:
Ye mice, ye mice, my great avengers rise! 130

This said, he sighing gasp'd, and gasping died.
His death the young Lychopinax espied,

As on the flowery brink he pass'd the day,
Bask'd in the beam, and loiter'd life away.
Loud shrieks the mouse, his shrieks the shores repeat;
The nibbling nation learn their hero's fate;
Grief, dismal grief ensues; deep murmurs sound,
70 And shriller fury fills the deafen'd ground;
From lodge to lodge the sacred heralds run,
To fix their counsel with the rising sun;
Where great Troxartes crown'd in glory reigns,
And winds his lengthening court beneath the plains:
Psycarpax' father, father now no more!

482

THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE.

[BOOK III

Ye frogs! the mice, with vengeance fired, advance, In vain, my father! all their dangers plead;
And deck'd in armour shake the shining lance;
Their hapless prince, by Physignathus slain,
Extends incumbent on the watery plain.
Then arm your host, the doubtful battle try;
Lead forth those frogs that have the soul to die.
The chief retires; the crowd the challenge hear,
And proudly swelling, yet perplex'd appear;
Much they resent, yet much their monarch blame,
Who, rising, spoke to clear his tainted fame:

O friends! I never forced the mouse to death,
Nor saw the gaspings of his latest breath.
He, vain of youth, our art of swimming tried,
And venturous in the lake the wanton died;
To vengeance now by false appearance led,
They point their anger at my guiltless head:
But wage the rising war by deep device,
And turn its fury on the crafty mice:
Your king directs the way: my thoughts elate
With hopes of conquest, form designs of fate.
Where high the banks their verdant surface heave,
And the steep sides confine the sleeping wave,
There, near the margin, and in armour bright,
Sustain the first impetuous shocks of fight:
Then where the dancing feather joins the crest,
Let each brave frog his obvious mouse arrest;
Each strongly grasping headlong plunge a foe,
Till countless circles whirl the lake below;
Down sink the mice in yielding waters drown'd;
Loud flash the waters, echoing shores resound:
The frogs triumphant tread the conquer'd plain,
And raise their glorious trophies of the slain.

110

120

To such, thy Pallas never grants her aid.
My flowery wreaths they petulantly spoil,
40 And rob my crystal lamps of feeding oil:
(Ills following ills) but what afflicts me more,
My veil that idle race profanely tore.
The web was curious, wrought with art divine;
Relentless wretches! all the work was mine:
Along the loom the purple warp I spread,
Cast the light shoot, and cross'd the silver thread.
In this their teeth a thousand breaches tear:
The thousand breaches skilful hands repair;
For which, vile earthly duns thy daughter grieve:
50 But gods, that use no coin, have none to give;
And learning's goddess never less can owe;
Neglected learning gets no wealth below.
Nor let the frogs to gain my succour sue,
Those clamorous fools have lost my favour too.
For late, when all the conflict ceased at might,
When my stretch'd sinews ach'd with eager fight,
When spent with glorious toil I left the field,
And sunk for slumber on my swelling shield;
Lo from the deep, repelling sweet repose,
60 With noisy croakings half the nation rose:
Devoid of rest, with aching brows I lay,
Till cocks proclaim'd the crimson dawn of day. 130
Let all, like me, from either host forbear,
Nor tempt the flying furies of the spear.
Let heavenly blood (or what for blood may flow)
Adorn the conquest of a nobler foe,
Who, wildly rushing, meet the wondrous odds,
Though gods oppose, and brave the wounded goda
O'er gilded clouds reclined, the danger view,
70 And be the wars of mortals scenes for you.

He spake no more; his prudent scheme imparts
Redoubling ardour to the boldest hearts.
Green was the suit his arming heroes chose,
Around their legs the greaves of mallows close;
Green were the beets about their shoulders laid,
And green the colewort which the target made;
Form'd of the varied shells the waters yield,
Their glossy helmets glisten'd o'er the field;
And tapering sea-reeds for the polish'd spear,
With upright order pierce the ambient air:
Thus dress'd for war, they take the appointed height,
Poise the long arms, and urge the promised fight. 80
But now, where Jove's irradiate spires arise,
With stars surrounded in ethereal skies,
(A solemn council call'd) the brazen gates
Unbar; the gods assume their golden seats:
The sire superior leans, and points to show
What wondrous combats mortals wage below:
How strong, how large, the numerous heroes stride:|
What length of lance they shake with warlike pride;
What eager fire their rapid march reveals!
So the fierce Centaurs ravaged o'er the dales;
And so confirm'd the daring Titans rose,
Heap'd hills on hills, and bade the gods be foes.
This seen, the power his sacred visage rears,
He casts a pitying smile on worldly cares,
And asks what heavenly guardians take the list,
Or who the mice, or who the frogs assist?
Then thus to Pallas: If my daughter's mind
Have join'd the mice, why stays she still behind?
Drawn forth by savoury steams, they wind their way,
And sure attendance round thine altar pay,
Where while the victims gratify their taste,
They sport to please the goddess of the feast.

Thus spake the ruler of the spacious skies;
When thus, resolved, the blue-eyed maid replies:

So moved the blue-eyed queen; her words per suade;

Great Jove assented, and the rest obey'd.

BOOK III.

140

10

Now front to front the marching armies shine,
Halt ere they meet, and form the lengthening line;
The chiefs conspicuous seen, and heard afar,
Give the loud sign to loose the rushing war,
Their dreadful trumpets deep-mouth'd hornets sound,
The sounded charge remurmurs o'er the ground;
Even Jove proclaims a field of horror nigh,
And rolls low thunder through the troubled sky.
First to the fight the large Hypsiboas flew,
And brave Lychenor with a javelin slew;
The luckless warrior fill'd with generous flame,
90 Stood foremost glittering in the post of fame,
When in his liver struck, the javelin hung;
The mouse fell thundering and the target rung:
Prone to the ground he sinks his closing eye,
And soil'd in dust his lovely tresses lie.
A spear at Pelion, Troglodytes cast,
The missive spear within the bosom past;
Death's sable shades the fainting frog surround,
And life's red tide runs ebbing from the wound. 20
Embasichytros felt Seutlæus' dart

100 Transfix and quiver in his panting heart!
But great Artophagus avenged the slain,
And big Seutlæus tumbling loads the plain.
And Polyphonus dies, a frog renown'd
For boastful speech, and turbulence of sound;

Deep through the belly pierced, supine he lay,
And breath'd his soul against the face of day.

Hoarse croaking threats precede: with fatal speed Deep through the belly runs the pointed reed, Then, strongly tugg'd, return'd imbrued with gore, 30 And on the pile his reeking entrails bore.

The strong Lymnocharis, who view'd with ire
A victor triumph, and a friend expire,
With heaving arms a rocky fragment caught,
And fiercely flung where Troglodytes fought,
A warrior versed in arts of sure retreat,
Yet arts in vain elude impending fate;
Full on his sinewy neck the fragment fell,
And o'er his eye-lids clouds eternal dwell.
Lychenor (second of the glorious name)
Striding advanced, and took no wandering aim;
Through all the frog the shining javelin flies,
And near the vanquished mouse the victor dies.
The dreadful stroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, less inured to fights;
Heedless he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And, wildly floundering, flashes up the deep:
Lychenor, following, with a downward blow
Reach'd, in the lake, his unrecover'd foe;
Gasping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Distains the surface of the silver flood;
Through the wide wound the rushing entrails throng,
And slow the breathless carcass floats along.
Lymnisius good Tyroglyphus assails,

Prince of the mice that haunts the flowery vales;
Lost to the milky fares and rural seat,
He came to perish on the bank of fate.
The dread Pternoglyphus demands the fight,
Which tender Calaminthius shuns by flight,
Drops the green target, springing quits the foe,
Glides through the lake, and safely dives below.
The dire Pternophagus divides his way

50

110

120

The lame Sitophagus, oppress'd with pain,
Creeps from the desperate dangers of the plain: 100
And where the ditches rising weeds supply,
To spread their lowly shades beneath the sky;
There lurks the silent mouse relieved of heat,
And, safe imbower'd, avoids the chance of fate.
But here Troxartes, Physignathus there,
Whirl the dire furies of the pointed spear:
Then where the foot around its ankle plies,
40 Troxartes wounds, and Physignathus flies,
Halts to the pool, a safe retreat to find,
And trails a dangling length of leg behind.
The mouse still urges, still the frog retires,
And half in anguish of the flight expires:
Then pious ardour young Prassæus brings,
Betwixt the fortunes of contending kings:
Lank, harmless frog! with forces hardly grown,
He darts the reed in combats not his own,
Which faintly tinkling on Troxartes' shield,
Hangs at the point, and drops upon the field.
Now nobly towering o'er the rest appears
A gallant prince that far transcends his years,
Pride of his sire, and glory of his house,
And more a Mars in combat than a mouse:
His action bold, robust his ample frame,
And Meridarpax his resounding name.
The warrior singled from the fighting crowd,
Boasts the dire honours of his arms aloud;
Then strutting near the lake, with looks elate,
Threats all its nations with approaching fate.
And such his strength, the silver lakes around
Might roll their waters o'er unpeopled ground.
But powerful Jove, who shows no less his grace
To frogs that perish, than to human race,
Felt soft compassion rising in his soul,
And shook his sacred head, that shook the pole
Then thus to all the gazing powers began,
The sire of gods, and frogs, and mouse, and man:
What seas of blood I view, what worlds of slain!
70 An Iliad rising from a day's campaign!
How fierce his javelin, o'er the trembling lakes,
The black furr'd hero, Meridarpax, shakes!
Unless some favouring deity descend,
Soon will the frogs' loquacious empire end.
Let dreadful Pallas wing'd with pity fly,
And make her ægis blaze before his eye:
While Mars, refulgent on his rattling car,
Arrests his raging rival of the war.

61

Through breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day;
No nibbling prince excell'd in fierceness more;
His parents fed him on the savage boar:

But where his lance the field with blood imbrued,
Swift as he moved Hydrocharis pursued,
"Till fallen in death he lies; a shattering stone
Sounds on his neck, and crushes all the bone;
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his nostrils bursts the gushing brain.
Lychophinax with Borbocates fights,
A blameless frog, whom humbler life delights;
The fatal javelin unrelenting flies,

And darkness seals the gentle croaker's eyes.
Incensed Prassophagus, with sprightly bound,
Bears Cnissodioctes off the rising ground;
Then drags him o'er the lake, deprived of breath,
And downward plunging, sinks his soul to death.
But now the great Psycarpax shines afar
(Scarce he so great whose loss provoked the war,)
Swift to revenge his fatal javelin fled,
And through the liver struck Pelusius dead;
His freckled corse before the victor fell,
His soul indignant sought the shades of hell.
This saw Pelobates, and from the flood
Lifts with both hands a monstrous mass of mud;
The cloud obscene o'er all the warrior flies,
Dishonours his brown face, and blots his eyes.
Enraged, and wildly sputtering from the shore,
A stone immense of size the warrior bore;
A load for labouring earth, whose bulk to raise,
Asks ten degenerate mice of modern days:
Full to the leg arrives the crushing wound;
The frog supportless writhes upon the ground.
Thus flush'd, the victor wars with matchless force,
"Till loud Craugasides arrests his course:

He ceased, reclining with attentive head;
80 When thus the glorious god of combats said:
Nor Pallas, Jove! though Pallas take the field,
With all the terrors of her hissing shield;
Nor Mars himself, though Mars in armour bright
Ascend his car, and wheel amidst the fight;
Not these can drive the desperate mouse afar,
And change the fortunes of the bleeding war.
Let all go forth, all heaven in arms arise;
Or launch thy own red thunder from the skies;
Such ardent bolts as flew that wondrous day,

90 When heaps of Titans mix'd with mountains lay;
When all the giant race enormous fell;
And huge Enceladus was hurl'd to hell.

130

140

150

160

'Twas thus th' armipotent advis'd the gods, When from his throne the cloud-compeller nods;