"O Neptune!" instant as he came, he cries,
"Here let my presence wake no cold surprise.
A friend I come, your friendship to implore
Against the Fates unjust, and Fortune's power;
Beneath whose shafts the great Celestials bow,
Yet ere I more, if more you wish to know,
The wat'ry gods in awful senate call,
For all should hear the wrong that touches all."
Neptune alarm'd, with instant speed commands
From ev'ry shore to call the wat’ry bands:
Triton, who boasts his high Neptunian race,
Sprung from the god by Salacé's 1 embrace,
Attendant on his sire the trumpet sounds,
Or, through the yielding waves, his herald, bounds:
Huge is his bulk, deform'd, and dark his hue;
His bushy beard, and hairs that never knew
The smoothing comb, of seaweed rank and long,
Around his breast and shoulders dangling hung,
And, on the matted locks black mussels clung;

1

Next. colle Sea divinities

1 The description of Triton, who, as Fanshaw says"Was a great nasty clown,"

}

is in the style of the classics. His parentage is differently related. Hesiod makes him the son of Neptune and Amphitrité. By Triton, in the physical sense of the fable, is meant the noise, and by Salacé, the mother by some ascribed to him, the salt of the ocean. The origin of the fable of Triton, it is probable, was founded on the appearance of a sea animal, which, according to some ancient naturalists, in the upward parts resembles the human figure. Pausanias relates a wonderful story of a monstrously large one, which often came ashore on the meadows of Boeotia. Over his head was a kind of finny cartilage, which, at a distance, appeared like hair; the body covered with brown scales; the nose and ears like the human; the mouth of a dreadful width, jagged with the teeth of a panther; the eyes of a greenish hue; the hands divided into fingers, the nails of which were crooked, and of a shelly substance. This monster, whose extremities ended in a tail like a dolphin's, devoured both men and beasts as they chanced in his way. The citizens of Tanagra, at last, contrived his destruction. They set a large vessel full of wine on the sea shore. Triton got drunk with it, and fell into a profound sleep, in which condition the Tanagrians beheaded him, and afterwards, with great propriety, hung up his body in the temple of Bacchus; where, says Pausanias, it continued a long time.

A shell of purple on his head he bore,1
Around his loins no tangling garb he wore,
But all was cover'd with the slimy brood,
The snaily offspring of the unctuous flood;
And now, obedient to his dreadful sire,
High o'er the wave his brawny arms aspire;
To his black mouth his crooked shell applied,
The blast rebellows o'er the ocean wide:

8

[BOOK VI.

Wide o'er their shores, where'er their waters flow,
The wat❜ry powers the awful summons know;
And instant, darting to the palace hall,
Attend the founder of the Dardan wall; 2
Old Father Ocean, with his num'rous race
Of daughters and of sons, was first in place.
Nereus and Doris, from whose nuptials sprung
The lovely Nereid train, for ever young,
Who people ev'ry sea on ev'ry strand,
Appear'd, attended with their filial band;
And changeful Proteus, whose prophetic mind
The secret cause of Bacchus' rage divin'd,
Attending, left the flocks, his scaly charge,
To graze the bitter, weedy foam at large.
In charms of power the raging waves to tame,
The lovely spouse of ocean's sov'reign came.*
From Heaven and Vesta sprung the birth divine,
Her snowy limbs bright through the vestments shine.
Here, with the dolphin, who persuasive led
Her modest steps to Neptune's spousal bed,
Fair Amphitrité mov'd, more sweet, more gay
Than vernal fragrance, and the flowers of May;
Together with her sister-spouse
she came,
The same their wedded lord, their love the same;

1 A shell of purple on his head he bore.—In the Portuguese— Na cabeça por gorra tinha posta

Huma mui grande casco de lagosta.

Thus rendered by Fanshaw—

2 Neptune.

"He had (for a montera *) on his crown
The shell of a red lobster overgrown."

3 And changeful Proteus, whose prophetic mind. The fullest and best account of the fable of Proteus is in the fourth Odyssey.

• Thetis.

* Montera, the Spanish word for a huntsman's cap.

The same the brightness of their sparkling eyes,
Bright as the sun, and azure as the skies.
She, who, the rage of Athamas to shun,1
Plung'd in the billows with her infant son;
A goddess now, a god the smiling boy,
Together sped; and Glaucus lost to joy,2
Curs'd in his love by vengeful Circé's hate,
Attending, wept his Scylla's hapless fate.

And now, assembled in the hall divine,
The ocean gods in solemn council join;
The goddesses on pearl embroid❜ry sat,
The gods, on sparkling crystal chairs of state,
And, proudly honour'd, on the regal throne,
Beside the ocean's lord, Thyoneus 3 shone.

High from the roof the living amber glows, whate perfume

High from the roof the stream of glory flows,

1 She who the rage of Athamas to shun.-Ino, the daughter of Cadmus and Hermione, and second spouse of Athamas, king of Thebes. The fables of her fate are various. That which Camoëns follows is the most common. Athamas, seized with madness, imagined that his spouse was a lioness, and her two sons young lions. In this frenzy he slew Learchus, and drove the mother and her other son, Melicertus, into the sea. The corpse of the mother was thrown ashore on Megara and that of the son at Corinth. They were afterwards deified, the one as a sea goddess, the other as the god of harbours.

2 And Glaucus lost to joy.-A fisherman, says the fable, who, on eating a certain herb, was turned into a sea god. Circé was enamoured of him, and in revenge of her slighted love, poisoned the fountain where his mistress usually bathed. By the force of the enchantment the favoured Scylla was changed into a hideous monster, whose loins were surrounded with the ever-barking heads of dogs and wolves. Scylla, on this, threw herself into the sea, and was metamorphosed into the rock which bears her name. The rock Scylla at a distance appears like the statue of a woman. The furious dashing of the waves in the cavities, which are level with the water, resembles the barking of wolves and dogs.

3 Thyoneus, a name of Bacchus.

High from the roof the living amber glows.—
"From the arched roof,

Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps, and blazing cressets, fed
With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky."

MILTON.

Bacchus,

plea

And, richer fragrance far around exhales
Than that which breathes on fair Arabia's gales.

Attention now, in list'ning silence waits:
The power, whose bosom rag'd against the Fates,
Rising, casts round his vengeful eyes, while rage
Spread o'er his brows the wrinkled seams of age.
"O thou," he cries, "whose birthright sov'reign sway,
From pole to pole, the raging waves obey;

Of human race 'tis thine to fix the bounds,
And fence the nations with thy watʼry mounds:
And thou, dread power, O Father Ocean, hear,

Thou, whose wide arms embrace the world's wide sphere,
'Tis thine the haughtiest victor to restrain,

And bind each nation in its own domain :

And you, ye gods, to whom the seas are giv'n,
Your just partition with the gods of heav'n;
You who, of old unpunish'd never bore

The daring trespass of a foreign oar;

You who beheld, when Earth's dread offspring strove1
To scale the vaulted sky, the seat of Jove:
Indignant Jove deep to the nether world
The rebel band in blazing thunders hurl'd.
Alas! the great monition lost on you,
Supine you slumber, while a roving crew,
With impious search, explore the wat❜ry way,
And, unresisted, through your empire stray:
To seize the sacred treasures of the main,
Their fearless prows your ancient laws disdain :
Where, far from mortal sight his hoary head
Old Ocean hides, their daring sails they spread,
And their glad shouts are echo'd where the roar
Of mounting billows only howl'd before.

2

In wonder, silent, ready Boreas 2 sees
Your passive languor, and neglectful ease;
Ready, with force auxiliar, to restrain
The bold intruders on your awful reign;
Prepar'd to burst his tempests, as of old,
When his black whirlwinds o'er the ocean roll'd,

1 The Titans.

2 The north wind.

2

Game of
worship

And rent the Mynian1 sails, whose impious pride
First brav'd their fury, and your power defied.
Nor deem that, fraudful, I my hope deny;
My darken'd glory sped me from the sky.
How high my honours on the Indian shore!
How soon these honours must avail no more!
Unless these rovers, who with doubled shame
To stain my conquests, bear my vassal's name,
Unless they perish on the billowy way.
Then rouse, ye gods, and vindicate your sway.
The powers of heaven, in vengeful anguish, see
The tyrant of the skies, and Fate's decree;
The dread decree, that to the Lusian train
Consigns, betrays your empire of the main :
Say, shall your wrong alarm the high abodes ?
Are men exalted to the rank of gods?
O'er you exalted, while in careless ease
You yield the wrested trident of the seas,
Usurp'd your monarchy, your honours stain'd,

Your birthright ravished, and your waves profan'd imp
Alike the daring wrong to me, to you,

And, shall my lips in vain your vengeance sue!
This, this to sue from high Olympus bore--"
More he attempts, but rage permits no more.
Fierce, bursting wrath the wat'ry gods inspires,
And, their red eye-balls burn with livid fires :
Heaving and panting struggles evr'y breast,
With the fierce billows of hot ire oppress'd.
Twice from his seat divining Proteus rose,
And twice he shook, enrag'd, his sedgy brows:
In vain; the mandate was already giv'n,
From Neptune sent, to loose the winds of heav'n:
In vain; though prophecy his lips inspir'd,
The ocean's queen his silent lips requir'd.
Nor less the storm of headlong rage denies,
Or counsel to debate, or thought to rise.
And now, the God of Tempests swift unbinds
From their dark caves the various rushing winds:

And rent the Mynian sails.-The sails of the Argonauts, inhabitants of Mynia.

2 See the first note on the first book of the Lusiad.