These some old man sees wanton in the air,
And praises the unhappy constant pair;
Then to his friend the long-neck’d cormorant shows,
The former tale reviving others’ woes.
“That sable bird,” he cries, “which cuts the flood,
With slender legs, was once of royal blood,
His ancestors from mighty Tros proceed,
The brave Laomedon, and Ganymede,
(Whose beauty tempted Jove to steal the boy,)
And Priam, hapless prince! who fell with Troy:
Himself was Hector’s brother, and (had fate
But given this hopeful youth a longer date)
Perhaps had rivall’d warlike Hector’s worth,
Though on the mother’s side of meaner birth.
Fair Alyxothoe, a country maid,
Bare Aesacus, by stealth, in Ida’s shade.
He fled the noisy town, and pompous court,
Loved the lone hills and simple rural sport,
And seldom to the city would resort;
Yet he no rustic clownishness profess’d,
Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast;
The youth had long the nymph Hesperia woo’d,
Oft through the thicket, or the mead, pursued:
Her haply on her father’s bank he spied,
While fearless she her silver tresses dried;
Away she fled; not stags with half such speed,
Before the prowling wolf, scud o’er the mead;
Not ducks, when they the safer flood forsake,
Pursued by hawks, so swift regain the lake;
As fast he follow’d in the hot career,
Desire the lover wing’d, the virgin fear,
A snake unseen now pierced her heedless foot,
Quick through the veins the venom’d juices shoot;
She fell, and ’scaped by death his fierce pursuit.
Her lifeless body, frighted, he embraced,
And cried, ‘Not this I dreaded, but thy haste;
Oh! had my love been less, or less thy fear:
The victory, thus bought, is far too dear.
Accursed snake! yet I more cursed than he:
He gave the wound; the cause was given by me.
Yet none shall say, that unrevenged you died.’
He spoke; then climb’d a cliff’s o’erhanging side,
And, resolute, leap’d on the foaming tide.
Tethys received him gently on the wave,
The death he sought denied, and feathers gave.
Debarr’d the surest remedy of grief,
And forced to live, he cursed th’ unask’d relief,
Then on his airy pinions upward flies,
And at a second fall successless tries:
The downy plume a quick descent denies.
Enraged, he often dives beneath the wave,
And there in vain expects to find a grave.
His ceaseless sorrow for the unhappy maid
Meager’d his look, and on his spirits prey’d.
Still near the sounding deep he lives: his name
From frequent diving and emerging came.”