Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams :: :: University of Virginia Library

Cease to complain of what the Gods decree,
Whether by death or (harder!) by the hand
Of one prefer'd thy loves be torn away,
For even against the bourn of Arcady
Beats the sad Styx, heaving its wave of tears,
And nought on earth so high but Care flies higher.

A maid was wooed by Boreas and by Pan,
Pitys her name, her haunt the wood and wild;
Boreas she fled from; with more placid eye
Lookt she on Pan; yet chided him, and said . .

“Ah, why should men or clearer-sighted Gods
Propose to link our hands eternally?
That which o'er raging seas is wildly sought
Perishes and is trampled on in port;
And they where all things are immutable
Beside, even they, the very Gods, are borne
Unsteadily wherever love impels;
Even he whol rules Olympus, he himself
Is lighter than the cloud beneath his feet.
Lovers are ever an uncertain race,
And they the most so who most loudly sing
Of truth and ardour, anguish and despair,
But thou above them all. Now tell me, Pan,
How thou deceivedst the chaste maid of night,
Cynthia, thou keeper of the snow-white flock!
Thy reed had crackled with thy flames, and split

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With torture after torture; thy lament
Had fill'd the hollow rocks; but when it came
To touch the sheep-fold, there it paus'd and cool'd.
Wonderest thou whence the story reacht my ear?
Why open those eyes wider? why assume
The ignorant, the innocent? prepared
For refutation, ready to conceal
The fountain of Selinos, waving here
On the low water its long even grass,
And there (thou better may'st remember this)
Paved with smooth stones, as temples are. The sheep
Who led the rest, struggled ere yet half-shorn,
And dragged thee slithering after it: thy knee
Bore long the leaves of ivy twined around
To hide the scar, and still the scar is white.
Dost thou deny the giving half thy flock
To Cynthia? hiding tho' the better half,
Then all begrimed producing it, while stood
Well-washt and fair in puffy woolliness
The baser breed, and caught the unpracticed eye.”

Pan blusht, and thus retorted.

“Who hath told
That idle fable of an age long past?
More just, perhaps more happy, hadst thou been,
Shunning the false and flighty. Heard I have
Boreas and his rude song, and seen the goats
Stamp on the rock and lick the affrighted eyes
Of their young kids; and thee too, then averse,
I also saw, O Pitys! Is thy heart,
To what was thy aversion, now inclined?
Believest thou my foe? the foe of all
I hold most dear. Had Cynthia been prefer'd
She would not thus have taunted me: unlike
Thee, Pitys, she looks down with gentle glance
On them who suffer; whether they abide
In the low cottage or the lofty tower
She tends them, and with silent step alike
And watchful eye their aching vigil soothes.
I sought not Cynthia; Cynthia lean'd to me.

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Not pleased too easily, unlovely things
She shuns, by lovely (and none else) detain'd.
Sweet, far above all birds, is philomel
To her; above all scenes the Padan glades
And their soft-whispering poplars; sweet to her
The yellow light of box-tree in full bloom
Nodding upon Cytoros. She delights
To wander thro' the twinkling olive-grove,
And where in clusters on Lycæan knolls
Redden the berries of the mountain-ash;
In glassy fountain, and grey temple-top,
And smooth sea-wave, when Hesperus hath left
The hall of Tethys, and when liquid sounds
(Uncertain whence) are wafted to the shore . .
Never in Boreas.”

“What a voice is thine!”
She said, and smiled. “More roughly not himself
Could sound with all his fury his own name.
But come, thou cunning creature! tell me how
Thou couldst inveigle Goddesses without
Thinning thy sheepfold.”

“What! again,” cried he,
“Such tart and cool twitting? She received,
Not as belov'd, but loving me, my gift.
I gave her what she askt, and more had given,
But half the flock was all that she required;
Need therefor was it to divide in twain
The different breeds, that she might make her choice.
One, ever meagre, with broad bony front,
Shone white enough, but harder than goat's hair
The wool about it; and loud bleatings fill'd
The plains it battened on . . for only plains
It trod; and smelt . . as all such coarse ones smell.
Avarice urged the Goddess: she sprang forth
And took, which many more have done, the worse.

“Why shake thy head? incredulous! Ah why,
When none believe the truth, should I confess?
Why, one who hates and scorns the lover, love?
Once thou reposedest on the words I spake,

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And, when I ceast to speak, thou didst not cease
To ponder them, but with thy cool plump palm
Unconsciously didst stroke that lynx-skin down
Which Bacchus gave me, toucht with virgin shame
If any part slipt off and bared my skin.
I then could please thee, could discourse, could pause,
Could look away from that sweet face, could hide
All consciousness that any hand of mine
Had crept where lifted knee would soon unbend.
Ah then how pleasant was it to look up
(If thou didst too) from the green glebe supine,
And drink the breath of all sweet herbs, and watch
The last rays run along the level clouds,
Until they kindle into living forms
And sweep with golden net the western sky.
Meanwhile thou notedst the dense troop of crows
Returning on one track and at one hour
In the same darkened intervals of heaven.
Then mutual faith was manifest, but glad
Of fresh avowal; then securely lay
Pleasure, reposing on the crop she reapt.

“The oleaster of the cliff; the vine
Of leaf pellucid, clusterless, untamed;
The tufts of cytisus that half-conceal'd
The craggy cavern, narrow, black, profound;
The scantier broom below it, that betray'd
Those two white fawns to us . . what now are they?
How the pine's whispers, how the simpering brook's,
How the bright vapour trembling o'er the grass
Could I enjoy, unless my Pitys took
My hand and show'd me them; unless she blew
My pipe when it was hoarse; and, when my voice
Fail'd me, took up, and so inspired, my song.”

Thus he, embracing with brown brawny arm
Her soft white neck, not far from his declined,
And with sharp finger parting her smooth hair.
He paus'd.

“Take now that pipe,” said she, “and since
Thou findest joyance in things past, run o'er

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The race-course of our pleasures: first will I
The loves . . of Boreas I abhor . . relate.
He his high spirit, his uprooted oaks,
And heaven confused with hailstones, may sing on:
How into thine own realms his breath has blown
The wasting flames, until the woods bow'd low
Their heads with heavy groans, while he alert
Shook his broad pinions and scream'd loud with joy.
He may sing on, of shattered sails, of ships
Sunk in the depths of ocean, and the sign
Of that wide empire from Jove's brother torn;
And how beneath the rocks of Ismaros
Deluded he with cruel sport the dream
That brought the lost one back again, and heard
The Manes clap their hands at her return.
Always his pastime was it, not to shake
Light dreams away, but change them into forms
Horrific; churl, from peace and truth averse.
What in such rival ever couldst thou fear?”

Boreas heard all she spoke, amid the brake
Conceal'd: rage seiz'd him: the whole mountain shook.
“Contemn'd!” said he, and as he said it, split
A rock, and from the summit with his foot
Spurn'd it on Pitys. Ever since, beneath
That rock sits Pan: her name he calls; he waits
Listening, to hear the rock repeat it; wipes
The frequent tear from his hoarse reed, and wears
Henceforth the pine, her pine, upon his brow.