Encircles with the moss of bitter bark,

And rears them towering alders from the ground.
Then sings he how one of the sisters led

Gallus, estraying by Permessus' streams,

To th' Aon mountains; and how Phœbus' choir

To the hero all in homage rose; how these to him

Linus, the shepherd of a heavenly lay,

With flowers and bitter parsley on his locks

90

Betrimmed, pronounced, "These reeds to thee vouchsafe,—
Lo! take them thou,-the Muses, which they erst
[Vouchsafed] unto Ascræa's agèd [bard];
Wherewith he was accustomed, as he played,
To draw down sturdy ashes from the mounts.
On these the birth of the Grynean glade
By thee be sung, lest there be any grove
Wherein Apollo more may boast himself."

100

Soone as they did the monstrous Scorpion vew,
With ugly craples crawling in their way,
The dreadful sight did them so sore affray,
That their well-knowen courses they forwent ;
And, leading th' ever burning lampe astray,
This lower world nigh all to ashes brent,
And left their scorched path yet in the firmament."

F. Q. v. 8, 40.

Line 95. So Gray makes Nature address Shakspeare:
"What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,

To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child

Stretch'd forth his little arms and smil'd:

'This pencil take,' she said, 'whose colours clear

Richly paint the vernal year.

Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;
Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."

Progress of Poesy.

Why should I tell how [he] of Scylla [sang],
[Daughter] of Nisus, whom hath rumour traced:
That she, beneath her snowy waist begirt
With baying monsters, plagued Dulichium's ships,
And in the deepsome gulf, ah! piecemeal rent
The frighted mariners with her sea-dogs?

Or how he told of Tereus' limbs transshaped;
What cates for him, what presents Philomel
Prepared; with what career the wilderness

He sought, and with what wings, unhappy [wight],
He fluttered o'er the palace erst his own?

All [those] which, Phoebus playing them of yore,
The blest Eurotas heard, and bade his bays

By aid of memory to learn, he sings:

110

The stricken valleys echo them to the stars;

Till to collect the sheep into the cotes,

And count their number, Vesper gave command,

And issued forth upon unwilling heaven.

120

Line 104. Catrou's and Doering's reading of aut before quam would relieve this passage of much of its difficulty; but there is so little manuscript authority for it, that, with Heyne, Forbiger, Wagner, and Weise, it is better to leave the difficulty as it is, than to tamper with the

text.

118. "By this the moystie Night approaching fast,

Her deawy humour 'gan on th' earth to shed,

That warn'd the shepheards to their home to hast

Their tender flocks, now being fully fed."

Spenser, Faerie Queene, vi. 9, 13.

ECLOGUE VII. MELIBUS.

MELIBUS. CORYDON. THYRSIS.

MELIBUS.

By chance had Daphnis 'neath a whispering holm
Sat down, and Corydon and Thyrsis driven
Their flocks in one together; Thyrsis sheep,
Corydon his she-goats swoln out with milk:
Both blooming in their years, Arcadians both,
In singing matches too, and ready at reply.
Hither from me, while from the cold I screen
The tender myrtles, the he-goat himself,
The husband of my flock, had strayed away;
And Daphnis I espy. When he sees me

On th' other hand: "Quick," quoth he, "hither come,
O Melibœus; safe is thy he-goat,

And kids; and if thou canst make any stay,

Rest 'neath the shade; hither will of themselves
Thy bullocks come along the leas to drink.

Here his green marges with the tender reed
Doth Mincius fringe, and from the holy oak

The swarms are murmuring." What could I do?
I nor Alcippe nor a Phyllis had,

To pen at home my lambkins weaned from milk;
Yet a grand match there was, with Thyrsis Corydon.

Line 16. See note on Georgics, b. iii. 20.

Still I postponed my grave employ to their disport.
So in alternate verses to contend

They both of them began; the Muses willed
That they alternate [verses] should recite:
These Corydon, those Thyrsis told in turn.

CORYDON.

Libethran nymphs, my charm, either to me
A lay, such as to Codrus mine, accord;
(To Phœbus' verses he the closest frames;)
Or if we have not all the power, here

My tuneful pipe shall hang on the holy pine.

THYRSIS.

Shepherds of Arcady, with ivy deck

Your rising bard, that so may Codrus' sides
Be burst with envy; or, if past his will

He shall have praised, with baccar bind my brow,
Lest his ill tongue the future poet harm.

CORYDON.

Delia, to thee this bristly wild boar's head,
And branching antlers of a long-lived hart,
Young Mycon [brings]. If this shall lasting prove,
Of polished marble thou full-length shalt stand,
With scarlet buskin booted on thy legs.

THYRSIS.

A bowl of milk and these wheat-cakes for thee,
Priapus, yearly 'tis enough to expect:
Thou keeper of a wretched garden art.
Now thee of marble for our present means
We have fashioned; but do thou, if teemfulness
Our flock shall have recruited, be of gold.

30

40

Line 35. Strictly, frontem should be rendered by "his brow," not "my brow," referring to poeta; but the confusion between Codrus and Thyrsis would thus become inextricable.

CORYDON.

O Galatea, Nereus-born, to me,

More sweet than Hybla's thyme, more white than swans, More fair than ivy pale,-soon as, full-fed, the bulls Shall seek again the cribs, if any care

For thy own Corydon possess thee, come.

THYRSIS.

Nay, may I unto thee more bitter seem

Than Sardon herbs, more spiked than butcher's broom,
More worthless than the stranded ocean-weed,

If unto me not longer is this day

Than an entire year. Go home, full-fed ;
If [ye have] any shame, begone, ye steers.

CORYDON.

Ye mossy springs, and grass more soft than sleep,
And verdant arbutus, which you bescreens
With broken shade, the solstice from the flock
Ward off; now burning summer cometh on,
Now on the merry vine-spray swell the buds.

THYRSIS.

Here hearth and fatty pines, here plenteous fire
Aye be, and lintels black with ceaseless soot:
Here we as much the chills of Boreas reck,

As either for the tale [of sheep] the wolf,

Or boiling torrents for their rivages.

Line 56. Much the same were the feelings of Britomart at the ab

sence of Artegal: Spenser, F. Q. v. 6, 5:

"And then, her griefe with errour to beguyle,

She fayn'd to count the time againe anew,

As if before she had not counted trew:

For dayes, but houres; for moneths that passed were,
She told but weeks, to make them seeme more few:
Yet, when she reckned them still drawing neare,
Each hour did seem a moneth, and every moneth a yeare."