As from the triple virgin's head,
By dragon locks encompass'd round,
She heard the voice, ere life had fled,
Elaborate a mournful sound;
When Perseus' valiant arm had slain15
The third part of the sister train;
And whelm'd beneath her people's grave,
Seriphus bosom'd in the wave;
Obscuring, by the foul disgrace,
Phorcys' imperishable race;20
When he to Polydectes brought
The festal gift with ruin fraught:
Who long his mother Danae held
Captive in wedlock's chain compell'd,
Bearing the head that show'd Medusa's beauteous face. 2925
He who is call'd in legends old
The offspring of self-fallen gold.
But when from each laborious deed
Her much-loved hero she had freed,
The virgin goddess made to sigh30
The flute's sonorous melody;
That soon as left the mournful note
Euryale's rapacious throat,
Her instrument's shrill sounds might flow
In tones of imitative wo.35
But when she deign'd the heavenly art
For mortal pleasure to impart,
She bade the high and glorious strain
The name of many heads retain,
Memorial of that stubborn fight40
Which roused the adverse people's might. 42
Such as with dulcet voice proceeds
uttering its separate lamentation, which was imitated in a separate strain.
