“Then rises one of the presumptuous throng, + 

Steps rudely forth, and first begins the song; + 

=With vain address describes the giants’ wars, + 

And to the gods their fabled acts prefers. + 

She sings from earth’s dark womb how Typhon rose, + 

And struck with mortal fear his heavenly foes; + 

How the gods fled to Egypt’s slimy soil, + 

And hid their heads beneath the banks of Nile; + 

How Typhon from the conquer’d skies pursued + 

Their routed godheads to the seven-mouth’d flood: + 

Forced every god, his fury to escape, + 

Some beastly form to take, or earthly shape. + 

Jove (so she sung) was changed into a ram, + 

From whence the horns of Lybian Ammon came: + 

Bacchus a goat; Apollo was a crow; + 

Phoebe a cat; the wife of Jove a cow, + 

Whose hue was whiter than the falling snow; + 

Mercury to a nasty ibis turn’d, + 

The change obscene, afraid of Typhon mourn’d; + 

While Venus from a fish protection craves, + 

And once more plunges in her native waves. + 

“She sung, and to her harp her voice applied: + 

Then us again to match her they defied: + 

But our poor song, perhaps, for you to hear, + 

Nor leisure serves, nor is it worth your ear.” + 

“That causeless doubt remove, O muse; rehearse,” + 

The goddess cried, “your ever-grateful verse:” + 

Beneath a checker’d shade she takes her seat, + 

And bids the sister her whole song repeat. + 

The sister thus: “Calliope we chose + 

For the performance.” The sweet virgin rose, + 

With ivy crown’d; she tunes her golden strings, + 

And to her harp this composition sings: + 