The story of his change shall here be told In Thessaly there liv'd a nymph of old, Coronis nam'd; a peerless maid she shin'd, Confest the fairest of the fairer kind.
Apollo lov'd her, till her guilt he knew,
While true she was, or whilst he thought her truc.
But his own bird the raven chanc'd to find
The false one with a secret rival join'd.
Coronis begg'd him to suppress the tale,
But could not with repeated prayers prevail.
His milk-white pinions to the god he ply'd;
The busy daw flew with him, side by side,
And by a thousand teasing questions drew
Th' important secret from him as they flew.
The daw gave honest counsel, tho' despis'd,
And, tedious in her tattle, thus advis'd:
Stay, silly bird, th' ill-natur'd task refuse,
Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.
Be warn'd by my example: you discern
What now I am, and what I was shall learn.
My foolish honesty was all my crime;
Then hear my story. Once upon a time,
The two-shap'd Ericthonius had his birth
(Without a mother) from the teeming earth;
Minerva nurs'd him, and the infant laid
Within a chest of twining osiers made.
The daughters of King Cecrops undertook
To guard the chest, commanded not to look
On what was hid within. I stood to see
The charge obey'd, perch'd on a neighb'ring tree. The sisters Pandrosos and Hersè keep
The strict command; Aglauros needs would peep,
And saw the monstrous infant in a fright,
And call'd her sisters to the hideous sight:
A boy's soft shape did to the waist prevail,
But the boy ended in a dragon's tail.
I told the stern Minerva all that pass'd,
But for my pains, discarded and disgrac'd,
The frowning goddess drove me from her sight,
And for her favorite chose the bird of night.
Be then no tell-tale; for I think my wrong
Enough to teach a bird to hold her tongue.
"But you, perhaps, may think I was remov'd,
As never by the heavenly maid belov'd:
But I was lov'd; ask Pallas if I lie;
Tho' Pallas hate me now, she won't deny :
For I, whom in a feather'd shape you view,
Was once a maid, (by heaven the story's true)
A blooming maid, and a king's daughter too.
A crowd of lovers own'd my beauty's charms;
My beauty was the cause of all my harms;
Neptune, as on his shores I went to rove,
Observ'd me in my walks, and fell in love.
He made his courtship, he confess'd his pain,
And offer'd force when all his arts were vain;
Swift he pursu'd: I ran along the strand,
"Till, spent and weary'd on the sinking sand,
I shriek'd aloud, with cries I fill'd the air
To gods and men; nor god nor man was there :
A virgin goddess heard a virgin's prayer.
For, as my arms I lifted to the skies,
I saw black feathers from my fingers rise;
I strove to fling my garment on the ground;
My garment turn'd to plumes, and girt me round:
My hands to beat my naked bosom try;
Nor naked bosom now nor hands had I.
Lightly I tript, nor weary as before
Sunk in the sand, but skimm'd along the shore;
Till, rising on my wings, I was preferr'd
To be the chaste Minerva's virgin bird:
Preferr'd in vain! I now am in disgrace:
Nyctimene, the owl, enjoys my place.
"On her incestuous life I need not dwell,
(In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell)
And of her dire amours you must have heard,
For which she now does penance in a bird,
That, conscious of her shame, avoids the light,
And loves the gloomy cov'ring of the night;
The birds, where'er she flutters, scare away
The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day."
The raven, urg'd by such impertinence,
Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,
And curst the harmless daw; the daw withdrew :
The raven to her injur'd patron flew,
And found him out, and told the fatal truth
Of false Coronis and the favour'd youth.
The god was wroth; the colour left his look,
The wreath his head, the harp his hand forsook :
His silver bow and feather'd shafts he took,
And lodg'd an arrow in the tender breast,
That had so often to his own been prest.
Down fell the wounded nymph, and sadly groan'd,
And pull'd his arrow reeking from the wound;
And welt'ring in her blood, thus faintly cry'd,
"Ah cruel god! tho' I have justly dy'd,
What has, alas! my unborn infant done,
That he should fall, and two expire in one?"
This said, in agonies she fetch'd her breath.
The god dissolves in pity at her death;
He hates the bird that made her falsehood known,
And hates himself for what himself had done;
The feather'd shaft, that sent her to the fates,
And his own hand, that sent the shaft, he hates.
Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain,
And tries the compass of his art in vain.
Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,
The pile made ready, and the kindling fire,
With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept,
And, if a god could weep, the god had wept.
Her corpse he kiss'd, and heavenly incense brought,
And solemniz'd the death himself had wrought.
But, lest his offspring should her fate partake,
Spite of th' immortal mixture in his make,
He ript her womb, and set the child at large,
And gave him to the centaur Chiron's charge:
Then in his fury black'd the raven o'er,
And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.
OCYRRHOE TRANSFORMED TO A MARE.
Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,
Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.
His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore.
The nymph Chariclo to the centaur bore,
With hair dishevel'd on her shoulders came
To see the child, Ocyrrhöe was her name;
She knew her father's arts, and could rehearse
The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.
Once, as the sacred infant she survey'd,
The god was kindled in the raving maid,
And thus she utter'd her prophetic tale;
"Hail, great physician of the world, all hail;
Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come
Shalt heal the nations and defraud the tomb;
Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfin'd!
Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.
Thy daring art shall animate the dead,
And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:
Then shalt thou die; but from the dark abode
Rise up victorious, and be twice a god.
And thou, my sire, not destin'd by thy birth
To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,
How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to die,
And quit thy claim to immortality;
When thou shalt feel, enrag'd with inward pains,
The Hydra's venom rankling in thy veins?
The gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,
And give thee over to the power of Fate."
Thus, entering into destiny, the maid
The secrets of offended Jove betray'd:
More had she still to say; but now appears
Oppress'd with sobs and sighs, and drown'd in tears.
"My voice," says she, "is gone, my language fails; Through every limb my kindred shape prevails: Why did the god this fatal gift impart, And with prophetic raptures swell my heart! What new desires are these? I long to pace O'er flowery meadows, and to feed on grass; I hasten to a brute, a maid no more; But why, alas! am I transform'd all o'er?
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