Erechtheus next the Athenian sceptre sway’d
Whose rule the state with joint consent obey’d;
So mix’d his justice with his valour flow’d,
His reign one scene of princely goodness show’d.
Four hopeful youths, as many females bright,
Sprung from his loins, and sooth’d him with delight.
Two of these sisters, of a lovelier air,
Excell’d the rest, though all the rest were fair.
Procris to Cephalus in wedlock tied,
Bless’d the young sylvan with a blooming bride:
For Orithyia Boreas suffer’d pain;
For the coy maid sued long, but sued in vain;
Tereus, his neighbour, and his Thracian blood,
Against the match a main objection stood,
Which made his vows, and all his suppliant love,
Empty as air, and ineffectual, prove.
But when he found his soothing flatteries fail,
Nor saw his soft addresses could avail,
Blustering with ire, he quickly has recourse
To rougher arts, and his own native force.
“ ’Tis well,” he said; “such usage is my due,
When thus disguised by foreign ways I sue;
When my stern airs and fierceness I disclaim,
And sigh for love, ridiculously tame;
When soft addresses foolishly I try,
Nor my own stronger remedies apply.
By force and violence I chiefly live,
By them the low’ring stormy tempests drive,
In foaming billows raise the hoary deep,
Writhe knotted oaks, and sandy deserts sweep,
Congeal the falling flakes of fleecy snow,
And bruise with rattling hail the plain below.
I and my brother winds, when join’d above,
Through the waste champaign of the skies we rove,
With such a boisterous full career engage,
That heaven’s whole concave thunders at our rage.
While, struck from nitrous clouds, fierce lightnings play,
Dart through the storm, and gild the gloomy day:
Or when, in subterraneous caverns pent,
My breath against the hollow earth is bent,
The quaking world above, and ghosts below,
My mighty power, by dear experience, know,
Tremble with fear, and dread the fatal blow.
This is the only cure to be applied,
Thus to Erechtheus I should be allied;
And thus the scornful virgin should be woo’d,
Not by entreaty, but by force subdued.”
Boreas, in passion, spoke these huffing things,
And, as he spoke, he shook his dreadful wings,
At which, afar the shivering sea was fann’d,
And the wide surface of the distant land:
His dusty mantle o’er the hills he drew,
And swept the lowly valleys as he flew;
Then, with his yellow wings, embraced the maid,
And, wrapp’d in dusky clouds, far off convey’d.
The sparkling blaze of love’s prevailing fire
Shone brighter as he flew, and flamed the higher
And now the god, possess’d of his delight,
To northern Thrace pursued his airy flight.
Two lovely twins, the effect of this embrace,
Crown their soft labours, and their nuptials grace,
Who, like their mother, beautiful and fair,
Their father’s strength, and feather’d pinions, share:
Yet these at first were wanting, as ’tis said,
And after, as they grew, their shoulders spread.
Zethes and Calais, the pretty twins,
Remain’d unfledg’d, while smooth their beardless chins:
But when, in time, the budding silver down
Shaded their face, and on their cheeks was grown,
Two sprouting wings upon their shoulders sprung,
Like those in birds, that veil the callow young.
Then, as their age advanced, and they began
From greener youth to ripen into man,
With Jason’s Argonauts they cross’d the seas,
Embark’d in quest of the fam’d golden fleece;
There, with the rest, the first frail vessel tried,
And boldly ventured on the swelling tide.