 | Leucothoe |  |
ARGUMENT.
Leucothöe, daughter of Orchamus King of Persia, is beloved, and secretly enjoyed by the Sun; when Clytie, a former mistress of his, becomes acquainted with their amour, and, in the rage of jealousy, makes a full discovery of it to the Lady's father. Orchamus, as a punishment for his daughter's crime, orders her to be buried alive; which is accordingly executed in her lover's absence; who, coming too late to give her any assistance, first changes her body into a tree of frankincense, and then Clytie, the cause of her misfortune, into a statue.
This is the chief subject-matter of the following rhimes. In Ovid we are told that Clytie was metamorphosed into a sun-flower: but the Author hopes he need not make any apology for deviating from his original in that particular, any more than for some other trifling circumstances which he has taken the liberty to vary, and others which he has entirely omitted as foreign to his purpose.
| Leucothoe | |