A

moral and natural philosophy of Pythagoras: on both which our author enlarges; and which are the most learned and beautiful parts of the Metamorphoses.

KING is sought, to guide the glowing state,
One able to support the public weight,

And fill the throne where Romulus had sate.
Renown, which oft bespeaks the public voice,
Had recommended Numa to their choice:
A peaceful, pious prince; who, not content
To know the Sabine rites, his study bent
To cultivate his mind: to learn the laws
Of Nature, and explore their hidden cause:
Urg'd by this care, his country he forsook,
And to Crotona thence his journey took.
Arriv'd, he first inquir'd the founder's name
Of this new colony: and whence he came.
Then thus a senior of the place replies,
(Well read, and curious of antiquities)
""Tis said, Alcides hither took his way
From Spain, and drove along his conquer'd prey;
Then, leaving in the fields his grazing cows,
He sought himself some hospitable house:
Good Croton entertain'd his godlike guest,
While he repair'd his weary limbs with rest.
The hero, thence departing, bless'd the place;
'And here,' he said, 'in Time's revolving race,
A rising town shall take its name from thee;'
Revolving Time fulfill'd the prophecy :
For Myscelos, the justest man on Earth,
Alemon's son, at Argos had his birth: .
Him Hercules, arm'd with his club of oak,
O'ershadow'd in a dream, and thus bespoke;
'Go, leave thy native soil, and make abode
Where Asaris rolls down his rapid flood;'
He said; and sleep forsook him, and the god.
Trembling he wak'd, and rose with anxious heart;
His country laws forbad him to depart :
What should he do? 'Twas death to go away;
And the god menac'd if he dar'd to stay:
All day he doubted; and when night came on,
Sleep, and the same forewarning dream, begun:
Once more the god stood threatening o'er his
head;

With added curses if he disobey'd.
Twice warn'd, he study'd flight; but would convey,
At once, his person and his wealth away :
Thus while he linger'd, his design was heard;
A speedy process form'd, and death declar'd.
Witness there needed none of his offence,
Against himself the wretch was evidence:
Condemn'd, and destitute of human aid,
To him, for whom he suffered, thus he pray'd:
Opower, who hast deserv'd in Heaven a throne
Not given, but by thy labours made thy own,
Pity thy suppliant, and protect his cause,
Whom thou hast made obnoxious to the laws.'

แ

A custom was of old, and still remains,
Which life or death by suffrages ordains;
White stones and black within an urn are cast,
The first absolve, but fate is in the last:
The judges to the common urn bequeath
Their votes, and drop the sable signs of death;
The box receives all black; but, pour'd from thence,
[cence.

The

Thus Alimonides his safety won,
Preserv'd from death by Alcumena's son:
Then to his kinsman god his vows he pays,
And cuts with prosperous gales th' Ionian seas:

He leaves Tarentum, favour'd by the wind,
And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand
Along the shore, he makes in sight of land;
Still doubling, and still coasting, till he found
The mouth of Esaris, and promis'd ground:
Then saw where, on the margin of the flood,
The tomb that held the bones of Croton stood:
Here, by the god's command, he bui't and wall'd
The place predicted; and Crotona call'd:
Thus Fame, from time to time, delivers down
The sure tradition of th' Italian town."

Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore,
But now self-banish'd from his native shore,
Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear
The chains which none but servile souls will wear :
He, though from Heaven remote, to Heaven could

move,

With strength of mind, and tread th' abyss above;
And penetrate, with his interior light,

Those upper depths, which Nature hid from sight:
And what he had observ'd, and learnt from thence,
Lov'd in familiar language to dispense.

The crowd with silent admiration stand,
And heard him, as they heard their god's com-

mand;

While he discours'd of Heaven's mysterious laws,
The World's original, and Nature's cause;
And what was God, and why the fleecy snows
In silence fell, and rattling winds arose;
What shook the stedfast Earth, and whence begun
The dance of planets round the radiant Sun;
If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,

Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above:
Of these, and things beyond the common reach,
He spoke, and charm'd his audience with his
speech.

He first the taste of flesh from tables drove,
And argued well, if arguments could move.
"O mortals! from your fellows blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane :
While corn and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholesome herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their generous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,

But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;
While kine to pails distended udders bring,
And bees their honey redolent of spring;
While Earth not only can your needs supply,
But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;
A guiltless feast administers with ease,
And without blood is prodigal to please.

Wild beasts their maws with their slain brethren
fill,

And yet not all, for some refuse to kill :
Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed,
On browz, and corn, the flowery meadows feed.
Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's angry brood,
Whom Heaven endued with principles of blood,
He wisely sunder'd from the rest, to yell
In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell,
Where stronger beasts oppress the weak by might,
And all in prey and purple feasts delight.

Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
"O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
Where, fatten'd by their fellows' fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought that mother Earth provides
The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,

If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread;
What else is this but to devour our guests,
And barbarously renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by destroying life, our life sustain ;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.
"Not so the golden age, who fed on fruit,
Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy space might safely move,
And timorous hares on heaths securely rove,
Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,
For all was peaceful, and that peace sincere.
Whoever was the wretch (and curs'd be he)
That envy'd first our food's simplicity;
Th' essay of bloody feasts on brutes began,
And after forg'd the sword to murder man ;
Had he the sharpen'd steel alone employ'd
On beasts of prey that other beasts destroy'd,
Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been justify'd by Nature's laws,
And self-defence: but who did feasts begin
Of flesh, he stretch'd necessity to sin.
To kill man-killers, man has lawful power;
But not th' extended licence, to devour.

"Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
The sow, with her broad snout for rooting up
Th' intrusted seed, was judg'd to spoil the crop,
And intercept the sweating farmer's hope:
The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,
Th' offender to the bloody priest resign'd:
Her hunger was no plea; for that she dy'd.
The goat came next in order, to be try'd:
The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine:
In vengeance laity and clergy join,
Where one had lost his profit, one his wine.
Here was, at least, some shadow of offence:
The sheep was sacrific'd on no pretence,
But meek and unresisting innocence.
A patient, useful creature, born to bear

The warm and woolly fleece, that cloth'd her mur-
derer,

And daily to give down the milk she bred,
A tribute for the grass on which she fed.
Living, both food and raiment she supplies,
And is of least advantage when she dies.

"How did the toiling ox his death deserve,
A downright simple drudge, and born to serve?
O tyrant! with what justice canst thou hope
The promise of the year, a plenteous crop ;
When thou destroy'st thy labouring steer, who till'd,
And plow'd, with pains, thy else ungrateful field?
From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke,
That neck with which the surly clods he broke;
And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman,
Who finish'd autumn, and the spring began!
Nor this alone! but Heaven itself to bribe,
We to the gods our impious acts ascribe:
First recompense with death their creatures toil,
Then call the bless'd above to share the spoil:
The fairest victim must the powers appease:
(So fatal 'tis sometimes too much to please!)
A purple fillet his broad brows adorns,
With flowery glands crown'd, and gilded horns:
He hears the murderous prayer the priest prefers,
But understands not 'tis his doom he hears:
Beholds the meal betwixt his temples cast
(The fruit and product of his labours past);
And in the water views perhaps the knife
Uplifted, to deprive him of his life;

[blood

Then broken up alive, his entrails sees
Torn out, for priests t' inspect th' gods decrees.
"From whence, O mortal men, this gust of
Have you deriv'd, and interdicted food?
Be taught by me this dire delight to shun,
Warn'd by my precepts, by my practice won:
And, when you eat the well-deserving beast,
Think, on the labourer of your field you feast!

[bring

"Now since the god inspires me to proceed,
Be that, whate'er inspiring power, obey'd.
For I will sing of mighty mysteries,
Of truths conceal'd before from human eyes,
Dark oracles unveil, and open all the skies.
Pleas'd as I am to walk along the sphere
Of shining stars, and travel with the year,
To leave the heavy Earth, and scale the height
Of Atlas, who supports the heavenly weight:
To look from upper light, and thence survey
Mistaken mortals wandering from the way,
And wanting wisdom, fearful for the state
Of future things, and trembling at their fate!
"Those I would teach; and by right reason
To think of death, as but an idle thing.
Why thus affrighted at an empty name,
A dream of darkness, and fictitious flame?
Vain themes of wit, which but in poems pass,
And fables of a world, that never was!
What feels the body when the soul expires,
By time corrupted, or consum'd by fires?
Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats
In other forms, and only changes scats.
"Ev'n I, who these mysterious truths declare,
Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war;
My name and lineage I remember well,
And how in fight by Sparta's king I fell.
[shield.
In Argive Juno's fane I late beheld
My buckler hung on high, and own'd my former
"Then death, so call'd, is but old matter dress'd
In some new figure, and a vary'd vest:
Thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies;
And here and there th' unbody'd spirit flies,
By time, or force, or sickness dispossest,
And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast;
Or hunts without, 'till ready limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind;
From tenement to tenement is toss'd;
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost:
And as the soften'd wax new seals receives,
This face assumes, and that impression leaves;
Now call'd by one, now by another name; [same:
The form is only chang'd, the wax is still the
So death, so call'd, can but the form deface,
Th' immortal soul flies out in empty space;
To seek her fortune in some other place.

"Then let not piety be put to flight,
To please the taste of glutton appetite;
But suffer inmate souls secure to dwell,
Lest from their seats your parents you expel;
With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,
Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind.

"And since, like Tiphys, parting from the shore,
In ample seas I sail, and depths untry'd before,
This let me further add, that Nature knows
No stedfast station; but, or ebbs, or flows:
Ever in motion; she destroys her old,
And casts new figures in another mould.
Ev'n times are in perpetual flux; and run,
Like rivers from their fountain, rolling on;
For Time, no more than streams, is at a stay:
The flying hour is ever on her way;

And as the fountain still supplies her store,
The wave behind impels the wave before;
Thus in successive course the minutes run,
And
urge their predecessor minutes on,
Still moving, ever new: for former things
Are set aside, like abdicated kings:
And every moment alters what is done,
And innovates some act till then unknown.
Darkness we see emerges into light,

And shining suns descend to sable night;
Ev'n Heaven itself receives another die,
When weary'd animals in slumbers lie
Of midnight ease; another, when the gray
Of morn preludes the splendour of the day.
The disk of Phoebus, when he climbs on high,
Appears at first but as a bloodshot eye;
And when his chariot downward drives to bed,
His ball is with the same suffusion red;
But mounted high in his meridian race
All bright he shines, and with a better face:
For there, pure particles of ether flow,
Far from th' infection of the world below.
"Nor equal light th' unequal Moon adorns,
Or in her wexing, or her waning horns.
For every day she wanes, her face is less,
But, gathering into globe, she fattens at increase.
"Perceiv'st thou not the process of the year,
How the four seasons in four forms appear,
Resembling human life in every shape they wear?
Spring first, like infancy, shoots out her head,
With milky juice requiring to be fed :
Helpless, though fresh, and wanting to be led.
The green stem grows in stature and in size,
But only feeds with hope the farmer's eyes;
Then laughs the childish year with flowerets
crown'd,

And lavishly perfumes the fields around,
But no substantial nourishment receives,
Infirm the stalks, unsolid are the leaves.
"Proceeding onward whence the year began,
The Summer grows adult, and ripens into man.
This season, as in men, is most replete
With kindly moisture, and prolific.heat.
"Autumn succeeds, a sober tepid age,
Not froze with fear, nor boiling into rage;
More than mature, and tending to decay,
When our brown locks repine to mix with odious

grey.

"Last, Winter creeps along with tardy pace,
Sour is his front, and furrow'd is his face.
His scalp if not dishonour'd quite of hair,
[bare.
The ragged fleece is thin, and thin is worse than
"Ev'n our own bodies daily change receive,
Some part of what was theirs before they leave;
Nor are to-day what yesterday they were;
Nor the whole same to morrow will appear.
"Time was, when we were sow'd, and just began,
From some few fruitful drops, the promise of a
Then Nature's hand (fermented as it was)
Moulded to shape the soft, coagulated mass;
[man;
And when the little man was fully form'd,
The breathless embryo with a spirit warm'd;
But when the mother's throes begin to come,
The creature, pent within the narrow room,
Breaks his blind prison, pushing to repair
His stifled breath, and draw the living air;
Cast on the margin of the world he lies,
A helpless babe, but by instinct he cries.
He next essays to walk, but downward press'd
On four feet imitates his brother beast:

By slow degrees he gathers from the ground
His legs, and to the rolling chair is bound;
Then walks alone; a horseman now become,
He rides a stick, and travels round the room:
In time he vaunts among his youthful peers,
Strong-bon'd, and strung with nerves, in pride
of years,

He runs with mettle his first merry stage,
Maintains the next, abated of his rage,
But manages his strength, and spares his age.
Heavy the third, and stiff, he sinks apace,

And, though 'tis down-hill all, but creeps along the

race.

Now sapless on the verge of death he stands,
Contemplating his former feet and hands;
And, Milo-like, his slacken'd sinews sees,
And wither'd arms, once fit to cope with Hercules,
Unable now to shake, much less to tear, the trees.
"So Helen wept, when her too faithful glass
Reflected to her eyes the ruins of her face:
Wondering what charms her ravishers could spy,
To force her twice, or ev'n but once enjoy!

"Thy teeth, devouring Time, thine, envious Age,
On things below still exercise your rage:
With venom'd grinders you corrupt your meat,
And then, at lingering meals, the morsels eat.

"Nor those, which elements we call, abide,
Nor to this figure, nor to that, are ty'd;
For this eternal world is said of old
But four prolific principles to hold,
Four different bodies; two to Heaven ascend,
And other two down to the centre tend:
Fire first with wings expanded mounts on high,
Pure, void of weight, and dwells in upper sky;
Then air, because unclog'd in empty space,
Flies after fire, and claims the second place:
But weighty water, as her nature guides, [sides.
Lies on the lap of Earth, and mother Earth sub-
"All things are mixt with these, which all con-
And into these are all resolv'd again :
Earth rarifies to dew; expanded more
The subtil dew in air begins to soar;
Spreads as she flies, and weary of her name
Extenuates still, and changes into flame;
Thus having by degrees perfection won,
Restless they soon untwist the web they spun,
And fire begins to lose her radiant hue,
Mix'd with gross air, and air descends to dew;
And dew, condensing, does her form forego,
And sinks, a heavy lump of earth, below.

[tain,

"Thus are their figures never at a stand,
But chang'd by Nature's innovating hand;
All things are alter'd, nothing is destroy'd,
The shifted scene for some new show employ'd.
"Then, to be born, is to begin to be
Some other thing we were not formerly:
And what we call to die, is not t' appear,
Or be the thing that formerly we were.
Those very elements, which we partake
Alive, when dead some other bodies make:
Translated grow, have sense, or can discourse;
But death on deathless substance has no force.
"That forms are chang'd I grant, that nothing
Continue in the figure it began:
The golden age to silver was debas'd:
To copper that; our metal came at last.
"The face of places, and their forms, decay;
And that is solid earth, that once was sea :
Seas in their turn, retreating from the shore,
Make solid land what ocean was before;

[can

Who, like their parents, haunt the fields, and bring | Seeks the Sun's city, and his sacred church,
Their honey-harvest home, and hope another
spring.