No falsehood mocks his piercing sight,
Nor gods nor men elude the skill
Which judges in prophetic light
The open act, the secret will.
Then having known the fraud that led 55
The nymph to Ischys' foreign bed,
His sister fierce with dire intent
To Laceræa straight he sent.
The maid whose habitation rose
Where marshy Bœbias' fountain flows, [1] 60
Too soon her alter'd demon drove [2]
The ills that wait on crime to prove.
When by the cruel plague pursued
Her sin the guiltless neighbours rued— 65
Sad victims of a common tomb—
As from one fatal spark arise
The flames aspiring to the skies,
And all the crackling wood consume. 67
- ↑ Bœbias, so named from one of the nymphs, is a fountain near Laceræa, in Pelasgiotis. Catullus, (de Nupt. Pel. et Thet. 286, ed. Voss:)—
"Xyniasi et linquens Doris celebrata choreis
Bœbiados."in which passage some editions read Minosin and Nonatios for Xyniasi and Bœbiados. Doering reads Mnemonidum, and Nonvacuus instead of Bœbiados. Strabo (Geogr. lib. ix.) appears to confirm Vossius' reading.
- ↑ It is perhaps unnecessary to refer the critical reader to Bentley's Dissertation on Phalaris (p. 216–218) for an excellent elucidation of the expression δαιμων ἑτερος, which the Examiner had denied to be poetical. The scholiast explains ἑτερος by ὁ κακοποιος; and quotes a choliambic of Callimachus to confirm his interpretation. To the remarks of our admirable critic, who, if not gifted with any great talent in metrical composition, had nevertheless a very accurate perception of the niceties of poetical expression, I would add the words of Euripides: (Med. 1106:)—
ειδε κυρησει
δαιμων οὑτος:meaning death.
