At thy approving, bids her purpose stand,
Or alters it at thy rever'd command.
From thee, my humbler awful hopes presume 915
To learn my father's, and my country's doom :
Nor think this grace to one unworthy done,
When thou shalt know me for great Pompey's son ;
With him, all fortunes am I born to share,
His ruin's partner, or his empire's heir.

92.
Let not blind chance for ever wavering stand,
And awe us with her unresolving hand :
I own my mind unequal to the weight,
Nor can I bear the pangs of doubtful fate:
Let it be certain what we have to fear,

925 And then-no.matter Let the time draw near. Oh let thy charms this truth from heaven compel, Or force the dreadful Stygian gods to tell. Call death, all pale and meagre, from below, And from herself her fatal purpose know; Constrain’d by thee, the phantom shall declare Whom she decrees to strike, and whom to spare. Nor ever can thy skill divine foresee, Through the blind maze of long futurity, Events more worthy of thy arts, and thee.

Pleas'd that her magic fame diffusely flies, Thus, with a horrid smile, the hag replies.

Hadft thou, oh noble youth, my aid implor'd, For any

less decision of the sword; The gods, unwilling, should my power confess, 94 And crown thy wishes with a full success. Had it thou desir'd some single friend to save, Long had my charms withheld him from the grave :

Om

930

}

936

T2

Or would thy hate some foe this instant doom,
He dies, though heaven decrees him. years to come. 945
But when effects are to their causes chain'd,
From everlasting, mightily, ordaind;
When all things labour for one certain end,
And on one action centre and depend :
Then far behind we own our arts are calt,

950
And magic is by fortune's power surpass’d.
Howe’er, if yet thy soul can be content,
Only to know that undisclos'd event;
My potent charms o’er nature Thall prevail,
And from a thousand mouths extort the tale :

955 This truth the fields, the floods, the rocks, Thall tell, The thunder of high heaven, or groans of hell : Though, still, more kindly oracles remain, Among the recent deaths of yonder plain. Of these a corse our myitic rites thall raise, .969 As yet unshrunk by Titan's parching blaze; So shall no maim the vocal pipes confound, But the sad shade shall breathe, distinct in human found.

While yet she spoke, a double darkness fpread, Black clouds and murky fogs involve her head, While o'er th’unbury'd heaps her footsteps tread. Wolves howl'd, and Aled where-e'er Me took her way, And hungry vultures left the mangled prey; The savage race, abalh’d, before her yield, And while she culls her prophet, quit the field. 970 To various carcases by turns the flies, And, griping with her gory fingers, tries; Till one of perfect organs can be found, And fibrous lungs uninjur'd by a wound.

Of

}

980

Of all the flitting shadows of the flain,

975
Fate doubts which ghost shall turn to life again.
At her strong bidding (such is her command)
Armies' at once had left the Stygian strand;
Hell's multitudes had waited on her charms,
And legions of the dead had ris'n to arms.
Among the dreadful carnage strew'd around,
One, for her purpose fit, at length the found;
In his pale jaws a rusty hook the hung,
And dragg’d the wretched lifeless load along :
Anon, beneath a craggy cliff the staid,

985
And in a dreary delve her burden laid;
There evermore the wicked witch delights
To do her deeds accurs’d, and practise hellish rites.

Low as the realms where Stygian Jove is crown'd,
Subsides the gloomy vale within the ground; 990
A downward grove, that never knew to rise,
Or shoot its leafy honours to the skies,
From hanging rocks declines its drooping head,
And covers in the cave with dreadful thade ;
Within dismay, and fear, and darkness dwell, 995
And filth obscene besmears the baleful cell.
There, lasting night no beamy dawning knows,
No light but such as magic flames disclose;
Heavy, as in Tænarian caverns, there
In dull ftagnation sleeps the lazy air.
There meet the boundaries of life and death,
The borders of our world, and that beneath -
Thither the rulers of th' infernal court
Permit their airy vassals to resort;

Thence

I 3

}

}

Thence with like ease the forceress could tell,

1005 As if descending down, the deeds of hell. And now the for the solemn talk prepares, A mantle patch'd with various threads the wears, And binds, with twining snakes, her wilder hairs. All pale, for dread, the dastard youth she spy'd, 1010 Heartless his mates stood quivering by his fide. Be bold: (the cries) dismiss this abject fear; Living and human shall the form appear, And breathe no founds but what ev’n you may hear. How had

your

vile, your coward souls been quell’d, Had you the livid Stygian lakes beheld ;

1016 Heard the loud floods of rolling fulphur roar, And burst in thunder on the burning shore ? Had you survey'd yon prison-house of woe, And giants bound in adamant below? Seen the vast dog with curling vipers fwell, Heard screaming Furies, at my coming, yell, Double their rage, and add new pains to hell ?

This said, she runs the mangled carcase o'er, And wipes from every wound the crusty gore ; 1025 Now with hot blood the frozen breast she warms, And with strong lunar dews confirms her charms. Anon The mingles every monstrous birth, Which nature, wayward and perverse, brings forth. Nor entrails of the spotted Lynx she lacks, 1030 Nor bony joints from fell Hyæna's backs; Nor deer's hot marrow, rich with snaky food i Nor foam of raging dogs that fly the flood. Her store the tardy Remora supplies, With stones from eagles warm, and dragons eyes;

Snake

1020

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1046

Snakes that on pinions cut their airy way, 1036
And nimbly o’er Arabian deserts prey;
The viper bred in Erythræan streams,
To guard in costly shells the growing gems;
The Tough by Libya's horned serpent cast,
With alhes by the dying Phænix plac'd
On odorous altars in the fragrant east.
To these she joins dire drugs without a name,
A thousand poisons never known to fame;
Herbs o'er whose leaves the hag her spells had sung,
And wet with cursed spittle as they sprung;
With
every

other mischief most abhorr’d, Which hell, or worse Ericho, could aiford.

At length, in murmurs hoarse her voice was heard, Her voice, beyond all plants, all magic fear'd, And by the lowest Stygian gods rever'd. Her gabbling tongue a muttering tone confounds, Discordant, and unlike to human sounds : It seem'd, of dogs the bark, of wolves the howl, The doleful skreeching of the midnight owl; 1055 The hiss of snakes, the hungry lion's roar,, The bound of billows beating on the shore;

of winds amongst the leafy wood, And burst of thunder from the rending cloud: 1059 'Twas these, all these in one. At length the breaks Thus into magic verse, and thus the gods bespeaks.

Ye Furies! and thou black accursed hell! Ye woes! in which the damn'd for ever dwell; Chaos, the world, and form's eternal fue ! And thou sole arbiter of all below,

1065 T +

Pluto!

The groan