Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,
Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.
His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore
The nymph Chariclo to the centaur bore,
With hair dishevell’d on her shoulders, came
To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name;
She knew her father’s arts, and could rehearse
The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.
Once as the sacred infant she survey’d,
The god was kindled in the raving maid,
And thus she utter’d her prophetic tale:
“Hail! great physician of the world, all hail!
Hail! mighty infant! who in years to come
Shalt heal the nations and defraud the tomb.
Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfined!
Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.
Thy daring art shall animate the dead,
And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:
Then shalt thou die; but from the dark abode
Rise up victorious, and be twice a god.
And thou, my sire, not destined by thy birth
To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,
How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to die,
And quit thy claim to immortality,
When thou shalt feel, enraged with inward pains,
The Hydra’s venom rankling in thy veins!
The gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,
And give thee over to the power of Fate.”
Thus, entering into destiny, the maid
The secrets of offended Jove betray’d:
More had she still to say; but now appears
Qppress’d with sobs and sighs, and drown’d in tears:
“My voice,” says she, “is gone, my language fails,
Through every limb my kindred shape prevails:
Why did the god this fatal gift impart,
And with prophetic raptures swell my heart?
What new desires are these? I long to pace
O’er flowery meadows, and to feed on grass;
I hasten to a brute, a maid no more:
But why, alas! am I transform’d all o’er?
My sire does half a human shape retain,
And in his upper parts preserves the man.”
Her tongue no more distinct complaints affords,
But in shrill accents and misshapen words
Pours forth such hideous wailings, as declare
The human form confounded in the mare,
Till by degrees accomplish’d in the beast,
She neigh’d outright, and all the steed expressed;
Her stooping body on her hands is borne,
Her hands are turn’d to hoofs and shod in horn;
Her yellow tresses ruffle in a mane,
And in a flowing tail she frisks her train.
The mare was finish’d in her voice and look,
And a new name from the new figure took.