Fool, to whose care dost thou thy grief impart? What dost thou talk, or know'st thou where thou
She, 'midst a dancing bevy of fair lights,
Trips it away, and thy misfortune slights:
Yet happy may she go, and her clear beams,
Whilst I lament, drench in the brinish streams;
Perhaps the sea, to my afflicted state,
Will prove than her less incompassionate.
"But how on seas for help should I rely,
Where nothing we but waves and rocks can spy?
Yet so small hopes of succour hath my grief,
That of those rocks and waves I beg relief.
Down from these rocks, of life my troubled breast
By a sad precipice may be releast,
And my impurer soul in these waves may
Quench her loose flames, and wash her stains away.
"Ah, Lydia, Lydia. whither dost thou send
Thy lost complaint? Why words so fruitless spend
To angry waves? to winds, where horrour roars?
To rocks that have no ears? to senseless shores?
Thou giv'st thy grief this liberty in vain,
If liberty from grief thou canst not gain;
And fond presumption will thy hopes abuse,
Unless thou grief and life together lose.
"Die, then! so shall my ghost (as with despair
Laden it flies) raise in the troubled air
Tempests more loud than thunder, storms more black
Than Hell or horrour, in curl'd waves to wrack
His ship and him: so (and 'tis just) shall I
And my proud foe, at least, together die :
On him, who first these bitter sorrows bred,
Seas shall avenge the seas of tears I shed."
This said, she made a stop; and with rash haste
(By violent despair assisted) cast
Herself down headlong in the raging sea,
Where she believ'd it deepest: now to be
Sadly by her enrich'd; whilst from her fair
Vermilion lips, bright eyes, Phœbeian hair,
Coral a purer tincture doth endue,
Crystal new light, pearls a more orient hue.
Such was the hapless fate of Lydia,
Who in those waves from which the king of day
Each morn ascends the blushing East, in those
From which the queen of love and beauty rose,
A second queen of love and beauty perish'd,
Who in her looks a thousand
graces And by a sad fate (not unpitied yet)
A second sun eternally did set.
Sweet beauty, the sad wrack of ruthless seas,
And ill-plac'd love, whom cruel destinies
Have food for monsters made, and sport for waves,
With whom so many graces had their graves,
If vain be not my hopes, if no dead fire
These lines devoted to thy name inspire,
Though buried in the sea's salt waves thou lie,
Yet in oblivion's waves thou shalt not die.
OUT OF THE GREEK OF COLUTHUS.
YE Trojan nymphs! Xanthus' fair progeny!
Who, on your father's sands oft laying by
Your sacred armlets, and heads' reedy tires,
Ascend to dance on Ide in mixed choirs,
Quit your rough flood; and tell the Phrygian
Just verdict: how the hills he left, the main's
New toils to undergo: his mind what press'd
With fatal ships both sea and land t' infest;
Whence did that unexpected strife arise,
Which made a shepherd judge 'twixt deities:
What was his bold award; how to his ear
Arriv'd the fair Greek's name; for you were there:
And Paris thron'd in Ida's shades did see,
And Venus glorying in her victory.
When tall Thessalian mountains the delights
Witness'd of Peleus's hymenaal rites,
Ganymede nectar, at the sacred feast,
By Jove's command, fill'd out to every guest;
For all descended from celestial race,
That day, with equal forwardness to grace
Fair Thetis (Amphitrite's sister) strove.
From seas came Neptune, from the Heavens came
Jove,
And Phoebus from the Heliconian spring,
Did the sweet consort of the Muses bring.
Next whom, the sister to the thunderer,
Majestic Juno, came: nor did the fair
Harmonia's mother, Venus, stay behind;
Suada went too, who for the bride entwin'd
Dd
The wedding garland, and Love's quiver bare.
Pallas, from nuptials though averse, was there;
Aside her heavy helmet having laid.
Apollo's sister, the Latonian maid,
(Though wholly to the savage chace apply'd)
Her presence at this meeting not deny'd.
Stern Mars, not such as when his spear he shakes,
But as when he to lovely Venus makes
His amorous address, (his shield and lance
Thrown by) there smiling mix'd in a soft dance.
But thence unhonour'd Iris was debarr'd;
Nor Chiron her, nor Peleus, did regard.
But Bacchus, shaking with his golden hair
His dangling grapes, lets Zephyr's sportive air
Play with his curled tresses: like some young
Heifer, (which, by a furious gad-fly stung,
Quitting the fields, in shady forests strays)
Whilst madded Eris roams, seeking always
How to disturb the quiet of the feast.
Oft from her rocky cell (with rage possest)
She flings; now stands, then sits: still up and down
Groping on th' earth, yet could not find a stone:
For lightning she'd have struck or by some spell
The bold Titanean brethren rais'd from Hell,
With hostile flames to storm Jove's starry fort.
Though thus enrag'd, she yet does Vulcan court,
Whom fire and malleable steel obeys:
She thought the sound of clatt'ring shields to raise,
That so the gods, affrighted with the noise,
Might have run forth, and left their festive joys.
But fearing Mars, she does at last incline
To put in act a far more quaint design:
She calls to mind Hesperia's golden fruit;
Whence a fair apple, of dire wars the root,
Pulling, the cause of signal strifes she found:
Then 'midst the feast, dissension's fatal ground
Casts, and disturbs the goddesses' fair choir.
Juno, of Jove's bed proud, does first admire
The shining fruit, then challeng'd as her due:
But Venus (all surpassing) claims it too
As love's propriety: which by Jove seen,
He calls, then thus to Hermes does begin:
"Know'st thou not Paris, one of Priam's sons,
Who, where through Phrygian grounds smooth
Xanthus runs,
Grazes his horned herds, on Ida's hill?
To him this apple bear: say, 'tis our will,
As arbiter of beauty, he declare
Which of these goddesses excels in rare
Conjunction of arch'd eyebrows, lovely grace,
And well-proportion'd roundness of the face;
And she that seems the fairest in his eyes,
To have the apple, as her beauty's prize."
This charge on Mercury Saturnius lays,
Who humbly his great sire's commands obeys;
And with officious care th' immortals guides:
While each herself in her own beauty prides.
But as they went, love's subtle queen, her head's
Rich tire unloosing, with gold fillets braids
Her curious hair; then thus, with eyes intent
On her wing'd sons, her troubled thoughts does
vent :
"The strife is near! dear sons, your mother aid!
This day must crown my beauty, or degrade.
And much I fear to whom this clown will give
The golden fruit: Juno, all men believe
To be the Graces' reverend nurse: to her
The gift of sceptres they assign in war
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