Alcmena bore to him; and who, in date
Of days forepast, through all the sea was sent,
And Earth’s inenarrable continent,
To acts that king Eurystheus had decreed;
Did many a petulant and imperious deed
Himself, and therefore suffer’d many a toil;
Yet now inhabits the illustrious soil
Of white Olympus, and delights his life
With still-young Hebe, his well-ankled wife.
Hail, King, and Son of Jove! Vouchsafe me
Virtue, and, her effect, felicity!
TO ÆSCULAPIUS
With Æsculapius, the physician,
That cur’d all sickness, and was Phœbus’ son,
My Muse makes entry; to whose life gave yield
Divine Coronis in the Dotian field,
(King Phlegius’ daughter) who much joy on men
Conferr’d, in dear ease of their irksome pain.
For which, my salutation, worthy king,
And vows to thee paid, ever when I sing!
TO CASTOR AND POLLUX
Castor and Pollux, the Tyndarides,
Sweet Muse illustrate; that their essences
Fetch from the high forms of Olympian Jove,
And were the fair fruits of bright Leda’s love,
Which she produc’d beneath the sacred shade
Of steep Taygetus, being subdu’d, and made
To serve th’ affections of the Thunderer.
And so all grace to you, whom all aver
(For skill in horses, and their manage given)
To be the bravest horsemen under heaven!
TO MERCURY
Hermes I honour, the Cyllenian Spy,
King of Cyllenia, and of Arcady
With flocks abounding; and the Messenger
Of all th’ Immortals, that doth still infer
Profits of infinite value to their store;
Whom to Saturnius bashful Maia bore,
Daughter of Atlas, and did therefore fly
Of all th’ Immortals the society,
To that dark cave, where, in the dead of night,
Jove join’d with her in love’s divine delight,
When golden sleep shut Juno’s jealous eye,
Whose arms had wrists as white as ivory,
From whom, and all, both men and Gods beside,
The fair-hair’d nymph had scape kept undescried.
Joy to the Jove-got then, and Maia’s care,
‘Twixt men and Gods the general Messenger,
Giver of good grace, gladness, and the flood
Of all that men or Gods account their good!
TO PAN
Sing, Muse, this chief of Hermes’ love-got joys,
Goat-footed, two-horn’d, amorous of noise,
That through the fair greens, all adorn’d with trees,
Together goes with Nymphs, whose nimble knees
Can every dance foot, that affect to scale
The most inaccessible tops of all
Uprightest rocks, and ever use to call
On Pan, the bright-hair’d God of pastoral;
Who yet is lean and loveless, and doth owe
By lot all loftiest mountains crown’d with snow;
All tops of hills, and cliffy highnesses,
All sylvan copses, and the fortresses
Of thorniest queaches, here and there doth rove,
And sometimes, by allurement of his love,
Will wade the wat’ry softnesses. Sometimes
(In quite oppos’d capriccios) he climbs
The hardest rocks, and highest, every way
Running their ridges. Often will convey
Himself up to a watch-tow’r’s top, where sheep
Have their observance. Oft through hills as steep
His goats he runs upon, and never rests.
Then turns he head, and flies on savage beasts,
Mad of their slaughters; so most sharp an eye
Setting upon them, as his beams let fly
Through all their thickest tapistries. And then
(When Hesp’rus calls to fold the flocks of men)
From the green clossets of his loftiest reeds
He rushes forth, and joy with song he feeds.
When, under shadow of their motions set,
He plays a verse forth so profoundly sweet,
As not the bird that in the flow’ry spring,
Amidst the leaves set, makes the thickets ring
Of her sour sorrows, sweeten’d with her song,
Runs her divisions varied so and strong.
And then the sweet-voic’d Nymphs that crown his mountains
(Flock’d round about the deep-black-water’d fountains)
Fall in with their contention of song.
To which the echoes all the hills along
Their repercussions add. Then here and there
(Plac’d in the midst) the God the guide doth bear
Of all their dances, winding in and out,
A lynce’s hide, besprinkled round about
With blood, cast on his shoulders. And thus He,
With well-made songs, maintains th’ alacrity
Of his free mind, in silken meadows crown’d
With hyacinths and saffrons, that abound
In sweet-breath’d odours, that th’ unnumber’d grass
(Besides their scents) give as through all they pass.
And these, in all their pleasures, ever raise
The blessed Gods’ and long Olympus’ praise:
Like zealous Hermes, who of all I said
Most profits up to all the Gods convey’d.
Who, likewise, came into th’ Arcadian state,
(That’s rich in fountains, and all celebrate
For nurse of flocks,) where He had vow’d a grove
(Surnam’d Cyllenius) to his Godhead’s love.
Yet even himself (although a God he were)
Clad in a squalid sheepskin, govern’d there
A mortal’s sheep. For soft love ent’ring him
Conform’d his state to his conceited trim,
And made him long, in an extreme degree,
T’ enjoy the fair-hair’d virgin Dryope.
Which ere he could, she made consummate
The flourishing rite of Hymen’s honour’d state;
And brought him such a piece of progeny
As show’d, at first sight, monstrous to the eye,
Goat-footed, two-horn’d, full of noise even then,
And (opposite quite to other childeren)
Told, in sweet laughter, he ought death no tear.
Yet straight his mother start, and fled, in fear,
The sight of so unsatisfying a thing,
In whose face put forth such a bristled spring.
Yet the most useful Mercury embrac’d,
And took into his arms, his homely-fac’d,
Beyond all measure joyful with his sight;
And up to heaven with him made instant flight,
Wrapp’d in the warm skin of a mountain hare,
Set him by Jove, and made most merry fare
To all the Deities else with his son’s sight;
Which most of all fill’d Bacchus with delight;
And Pan they call’d him, since he brought to all
Of mirth so rare and full a festival.
And thus all honour to the shepherds’ King,
For sacrifice to thee my Muse shall sing!
TO VULCAN
&n
bsp; Praise Vulcan, now Muse; whom fame gives the prize
For depth and fracture of all forge-devise;
Who, with the sky-ey’d Pallas, first did give
Men rules of buildings, that before did live
In caves and dens, and hills, like savage beasts;
But now, by art-fam’d Vulcan’s interests
In all their civil industries, ways clear
Through th’ all-things-bringing-to-their-ends (the year)
They work out to their ages’ ends, at ease
Lodg’d in safe roofs from Winter’s utmost prease.
But, Vulcan, stand propitious to me,
Virtue safe granting, and felicity!
TO PHŒBUS
O Phœbus! Even the swan from forth her wings,
Jumping her proyning-bank, thee sweetly sings,
By bright Peneus’ whirl-pit-making streams.
Thee, that thy lute mak’st sound so to thy beams,
Thee, first and last, the sweet-voic’d singer still
Sings, for thy song’s all-songs-transcending skill.
Thy pleasure, then, shall my song still supply,
And so salutes thee King of Poesy.
TO NEPTUNE
Neptune, the mighty marine God, I sing,
Earth’s mover, and the fruitless ocean’s King,
That Helicon and th’ Ægean deeps dost hold.
O thou Earth-shaker! Thy command two-fold
The Gods have sorted; making thee of horses
The awful tamer, and of naval forces
The Sure preserver. Hail, O Saturn’s birth!
Whose graceful green hair circles all the earth.
Bear a benign mind; and thy helpful hand
Lend all submitted to thy dread command.
TO JOVE
Jove now I sing, the greatest and the best
Of all these Pow’rs that are with Deity blest,
That far-off doth his dreadful voice diffuse,
And, being King of all, doth all conduce
To all their ends. Who (shut from all Gods else
With Themis, that the laws of all things tells)
Their fit composures to their times doth call,
Weds them together, and preserves this all.
Grace then, O far-heard Jove, the grace thou’st given,
Most Glorious, and most Great of Earth and Heaven!
TO VESTA
Vesta, that as a servant oversees
King Phœbus’ hallow’d house, in all degrees
Of guide about it, on the sacred shore
Of heavenly Pythos, and hast evermore
Rich balms distilling from thy odorous hair,
Grace this house with thy housewifely repair!
Enter, and bring a mind that most may move,
Conferring even, the great in counsels, Jove;
And let my verse taste of your either’s love.
TO THE MUSES AND APOLLO
The Muses, Jove, and Phœbus, now I sing;
For from the far-off-shooting Phœbus spring
All poets and musicians, and from Jove
Th’ ascents of kings. The man the Muses love,
Felicity blesses; elocution’s choice
In syrup lay’ng of sweetest breath his voice.
Hail, Seed of Jove, my song your honours give,
And so in mine shall yours and others’ live.
TO BACCHUS
Ivy-crown’d Bacchus iterate in thy praises,
O Muse; whose voice all loftiest echoes raises,
And he with all th’ illustrious Seed of Jove
Is join’d in honour, being the fruit of love
To him, and Semele the-great-in-graces;
And from the King his father’s kind embraces
By fair-hair’d Nymphs was taken to the dales
Of Nyssa, and with curious festivals.
Given his fair grought, far from his father’s view,
In caves from whence eternal odours flew,
And in high number of the Deities plac’d.
Yet when the many-hymn-given God had past
His Nurses’ cares, in ivies and in bays
All over thicketed, his varied ways
To sylvan coverts evermore He took,
With all his Nurses, whose shrill voices shook
Thickets, in which could no foot’s entry fall,
And he himself made captain of them all.
And so, O grape-abounding Bacchus, be
Ever saluted by my Muse and me!
Give us to spend with spirit our hours out here,
And every hour extend to many a year.
TO DIANA
Diana, that the golden spindle moves,
And lofty sounds as well as Bacchus loves,
A bashful virgin, and of fearful hearts
The death-affecter with delighted darts,
By sire and mother Phœbus’ sister born,
Whose thigh the golden falchion doth adorn,
I sing; who likewise over hills of shade
And promontories that vast winds invade,
Amorous of hunting, bends her all-gold bow,
And sigh-begetting arrows doth bestow
In fates so dreadful that the hill-tops quake,
And bristled woods their leafy foreheads shake,
Horrors invade earth, and [the] fishy seas
Impassion’d furies; nothing can appease
The dying brays of beasts. And her delight
In so much death affects so with affright
Even all inanimate natures; for, while she
Her sports applies, their general progeny
She all ways turns upon to all their banes.
Yet when her fiery pleasures find their wanes,
Her yielding bow unbent, to th’ ample house,
Seated in Delphos, rich and populous,
Of her dear brother, her retreats advance.
Where th’ instauration of delightsome dance
Amongst the Muses and the Graces she
Gives form; in which herself the regency
(Her unbent bow hung up, and casting on
A gracious robe) assumes, and first sets gone
The dances’ entry; to which all send forth
Their heavenly voices, and advance the worth
Of her fair-ankled mother, since to light
She children brought the far most exquisite
In counsels and performances of all
The Goddesses that grace the heavenly hall.
Hail then, Latona’s fair-hair’d Seed, and Jove’s!
My song shall ever call to mind your loves.
TO PALLAS
Pallas-Minerva’s deity, the renown’d,
My Muse in her variety must resound;
Mighty in councils; whose illustrous eyes
In all resemblance represent the skies.
A reverend maid of an inflexible mind;
In spirit and person strong; of triple kind;
Fautress of cities that just laws maintain;
Of Jove, the-great-in-councils, very brain
Took prime existence, his unbounded brows
Could not contain her, such impetuous throes
Her birth gave way to, that abroad she flew,
And stood, in gold arm’d, in her Father’s view,
Shaking her sharp lance. All Olympus shook
So terribly beneath her, that it took
Up in amazes all the Deities there.
All earth resounded with vociferous fear.
T
he sea was put up all in purple waves,
And settled suddenly her rudest raves.
Hyperion’s radiant son his swift-hov’d steeds
A mighty time stay’d, till her arming weeds,
As glorious as the Gods’, the blue-ey’d Maid
Took from her deathless shoulders; but then stay’d
All these distempers, and heaven’s counsellor, Jove,
Rejoic’d that all things else his stay could move.
So I salute thee still; and still in praise
Thy fame, and others’, shall my memory raise.
TO VESTA AND MERCURY
Vesta I sing, who, in bequest of fate,
Art sorted out an everlasting state
In all th’ Immortals’ high-built roofs, and all
Those of earth-dwelling men, as general
And ancient honours given thee for thy gift
Of free-liv’d chastity, and precious thrift.
Nor can there amongst mortals banquets be,
In which, both first and last, they give not thee
Their endless gratitudes in pour’d-out wine,
As gracious sacrifice to thy divine
And useful virtues; being invok’d by all,
Before the least taste of their festival
In wine or food affect their appetites.
And Thou, that of th’ adorn’d-with-all-delights
Art the most useful angel, born a God
Of Jove and Maia, of heaven’s golden rod
The sole sustainer, and hast pow’r to bless
With all good all men, great Argicides,
Inhabit all good houses, see’ng no wants
Of mutual minds’ love in th’ inhabitants,
Join in kind blessing with the bashful maid
And all-lov’d virgin, Vesta; either’s aid
Combin’d in every hospitable house;
Both being best seen in all the gracious
House-works of mortals. Jointly follow then,
Even from their youths, the minds of dames and men.
Hail then, old Daughter of the oldest God,
And thou Great Bearer of Heaven’s golden rod!
Yet not to you alone my vows belong,
Others as well claim th’ homage of my song.
TO EARTH, THE MOTHER OF ALL
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 174