Now riches hoarded by paternal care
Were sunk, the glutton swallowing up the heir.
Yet the devouring flame no stores abate,
Nor less the hunger grew with his estate.
One daughter left, as left his keen desire,
A daughter worthy of a better sire:
Her too he sold, spent nature to sustain;
She scorn’d a lord with generous disdain,
And flying, spread her hands upon the main.
The god was moved at what the fair had sued,
When she so lately by her master view’d
In her known figure, on a sudden took
A fisher’s habit, and a manly look.
To whom her owner hasted to inquire:
“O thou,” said he, “whose baits hide treacherous wire;
Whose art can manage, and experienced skill
The taper angle, and the bobbing quill,
So may the sea be ruffled with no storm,
But smooth with calms, as you the truth inform;
So your deceit may no shy fishes feel,
Till struck, and fasten’d on the bearded steel.
Did not you standing view upon the strand
A wandering maid? I’m sure I saw her stand,
Her hair disorder’d, and her homely dress
Betray’d her want, and witness’d her distress.”
“Me heedless,” she replied, “whoe’er you are,
Excuse, attentive to another care.
I settled on the deep my steady eye,
Fix’d on my float, and bent on my employ:
And that you may not doubt what I impart,
So may the ocean’s god assist my art,
If on the beach since I my sport pursued,
Or man or woman, but myself, I view’d.”
Back o’er the sands, deluded, he withdrew,
While she for her old form put off her new.
Her sire her shifting power to change perceived,
And various chapmen by her sale deceived.
A fowl with spangled plumes, a brinded steer,
Sometimes a crested mare, or antler’d deer:
Sold for a price, she parted, to maintain
Her starving parent with dishonest gain.
At last all means, as all provisions, fail’d;
For the disease by remedies prevail’d;
His muscles with a furious bite he tore,
Gorged his own tatter’d flesh, and gulf’d his gore.
Wounds were his feast, his life to life a prey,
Supporting nature by its own decay.
“But foreign stories why should I relate?
I too myself can to new forms translate;
Though the variety’s not unconfined,
But fix’d in number, and restrain’d in kind:
For often I this present shape retain,
Oft curl a snake the volumes of my train.
Sometimes my strength into my horns transferr’d,
A bull I march, the captain of the herd.
But while I once those goring weapons wore,
Vast wresting force one from my forehead tore,
Lo, my maim’d brows the injury still own.”
He ceased; his words concluding with a groan.