Since, aided by a hand divine, 35
Within the Graces' choicest bower,
I make their blooming treasures mine,
And cull the sweets of every flower.
For they the charms of life bestow,
While all the brave and wise to them their virtues owe. 43 40
How else could great Alcides' hand
With shaken club provoke to fight
The god who wields the trident's might,
At Pylos when he took his stand,
To drive the hero from the land? 45
How dare to challenge as a foe
The monarch of the silver bow?
Nor could stern Pluto's grasp retain
Unmoved the sceptre of his reign,
Which drives the forms devoid of breath [1] 50
Within the hollow vale of death.
No more, unhallow'd lips, assail
The mighty gods with slanderous tale.
It sounds of madness thus to rise
In impious vaunts against the skies. 55
Be contests banish'd from the strain
That celebrates th' immortal train;
And rather by the poet's tongue
Protogeneia's city sung.
- ↑ The office which is here attributed to the sceptre of Pluto, is by the poets usually described as characterizing the caduceus of Mercury.—See Homer, Il. xxiv. 213; Virg., Æn. iv. 242; Horat., Od. i, 24.—The last of which passages is thus translated by Francis:—
"Yet ne'er returns the vital heat,
The shadowy form to animate.
Soon as the ghost-compelling god
Forms his black troops with horrid rod,
He will not, lenient to the breath
Of prayer, unbar the gates of death."
