EPODE XV. TO CANIDIA.
He begs of her that she would forgive him, and feigns himself
to be over-powered by her magic.
At length to scientific charms
I yield, whose force my heart alarms,
And suppliant pray thee by the reign
Of Proserpine and Dian's fane,
Whose pow'r's inexorably fierce,
And by the books of magic verse,
That make the very stars descend
From heav'n, and cite them to attend.—
No more in cursed mumblings deal,
But backward turn th'electric wheel;
The son of Thetis, when implor'd
By Telephus, the man restor'd;
Tho' he with darts oppos'd his way,
And set his Mysians in array.
The corse of Hector meant a feast,
For dogs and ev'ry bird and beast;
The Trojan matrons cou'd acquire,
For unction and the fun'ral pyre;
When Priam went, and (hard to tell!)
Before the stern Achilles fell;
The crew of
that laborious sage,
Cou'd from their bodies disengage
The bristles of the filthy swine,
Soon as sooth'd Circe gave the sign;
At which their voice and mind, and hue
She did recover and renew:
O lov'd by tars and factors, sure
Enough thou'st giv'n me to endure;
My youthful strength and colour's flown,
With ghastly skin on ev'ry bone;
My hair is with your unguents hoar,
My ceaseless toils are more and more;
Day urges night and night the day,
Nor can my gasping vitals play;
Wherefore I wretched have comply'd,
To own what I before deny'd;
That Sabine charms the breast can pain,
And Marsian dirges split the brain;
What wou'd you more, O earth and sea,
I burn to a more fierce degree
Than Hercules, what time he wore
The shirt besmear'd with Nessus' gore;
More fierce than those Sicilian fires,
Whose wrath from Etna still aspires:
For you your Colchian flames prepare,
Till, burnt to ash, I float in air.
What costs? What issue have you plann'd?
Speak out, I'll answer your demand,
Ready to give whate'er you chuse—
An hundred oxen, or my muse,
If on the lying lyre you please,
To hear such compliments as these.
“You, chaste and good, shall set and rise,
“With golden stars that range the skies:”
Castor and he, the other twin,
Tho' wroth about their sister's sin;
O'ercome by pray'r, restor'd the light
To
him they had depriv'd of sight:
And thou (for you can do the feat)
Loose me from this delirious heat.
O thou ne'er stain'd by parents mean,
And clear of the sepulchral scene;
A prudent woman, that will spare
The nine-days-buried ashes there;
You have an hospitable heart,
Pure hands—can do a mother's part;
And tho' you shou'd be brought to bed,
Preserve your strength, your white and red.
