The day was settled in its course, and Jove
Walk’d the wide circuit of the heavens above.
To search if any cracks or flaws were made;
But all was safe: the earth he then survey’d,
And cast an eye on ev’ry different coast,
And ev’ry land, but on Arcadia most.
Her fields he clothed, and cheer’d her blasted face
With running fountains and with springing grass.
No tracks of heaven’s destructive fire remain,
The fields and woods revive, and nature smiles again.
But as the god walk’d to and fro the earth,
And raised the plants, and gave the spring its birth,
By chance a fair Arcadian nymph he view’d,
And felt the lovely charmer in his blood.
The nymph nor spun nor dress’d with artful pride.
Her vest was gather’d up, her hair was tied:
Now in her hand a slender spear she bore,
Now a light quiver on her shoulders wore;
To chaste Diana from her youth inclined,
The sprightly warriors of the wood she join’d.
Diana too the gentle huntress loved,
Nor was there one of all the nymphs that roved
O’er Maenalus, amid the maiden throng,
More favour’d once; but favour lasts not long.
The sun now shone in all its strength, and drove
The heated virgin panting to the grove:
The grove around a grateful shadow cast:
She dropp’d her arrows, and her bow unbraced;
She flung herself on the cool grassy bed,
And on the painted quiver raised her head.
Jove saw the charming huntress unprepared,
Stretch’d on the verdant turf, without a guard.
“Here I am safe,” he cries, “from Juno’s eye:
Or should my jealous queen the theft descry,
Yet I would venture on a theft like this,
And stand her rage, for such, for such a bliss!”
Diana’s shape and habit straight he took,
Soften’d his brows, and smooth’d his awful look,
And mildly in a female accent spoke:
“How fares my girl? how went the morning chase?”
To whom the virgin, starting from the grass,
“All hail! bright deity, whom I prefer
To Jove himself, though Jove himself were here.”
The god was nearer than she thought, and heard,
Well pleased, himself before himself preferr’d.
He then salutes her with a warm embrace;
And, ere she half had told the morning chase,
With love inflamed, and eager on his bliss:
Smother’d her words, and stopp’d her with a kiss:
His kisses with unwonted ardour glow’d,
Nor could Diana’s shape conceal the god.
Possess’d at length of what his heart desired,
Back to his heavens the exulting god retired.
But now Diana, with a sprightly train
Of quiver’d virgins, bounding o’er the plain,
Call’d to the nymph; the nymph began to fear
A second fraud, a Jove disguised in her;
But when she saw the sister nymphs, suppress’d
Her rising fears, and mingled with the rest.
How in the look does conscious guilt appear!
Slowly she moved, and loiter’d in the rear;
Nor lightly tripp’d, nor by the goddess ran,
As once she used, the foremost of the train;
Her looks were fush’d, and sullen was her mien,
That sure the virgin goddess (had she been
Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen.
’Tis said the nymphs saw all, and guess’d aright.
And now the moon had nine times lost her light,
When Dian, fainting in the midday beams,
Found a cool covert and refreshing streams,
That in soft murmurs through the forest flow’d,
And a smooth bed of shining gravel show’d.
A covert so obscure and streams so clear
The goddess praised: “And now no spies are near;
Let’s strip, my gentle maids, and wash,” she cries.
Pleased with the motion, every maid complies;
Only the blushing huntress stood confused,
And form’d delays, and her delays excused:
In vain excused; her fellows round her press’d,
And the reluctant nymph by force undress’d.
The naked huntress all her shame reveal’d,
In vain her hands her pregnancy conceal’d;
“Begone!” the goddess cries, with stern disdain,
“Begone! nor dare the hallow’d stream to stain.”
She fled, for ever banish’d from the train.
This Juno heard, who long had watch’d her time
To punish the detested rival’s crime;
The time was come; for, to enrage her more,
A lovely boy the teeming rival bore.
The goddess cast a furious look, and cried,
“It is enough! I’m fully satisfied!
This boy shall stand a living mark, to prove
My husband’s baseness and the harlot’s love:
But vengeance shall awake: those guilty charms,
That drew the Thunderer from Juno’s arms,
No longer shall their wonted force retain,
Nor please the god, nor make the mortal vain.”
This said, her hand within her hair she wound,
Swung her to earth, and dragg’d her on the ground.
The prostrate wretch lifts up her arms in prayer;
Her arms grow shaggy and deform’d with hair,
Her nails are sharpen’d into pointed claws,
Her hands bear balf her weight and turn to paws,
Her lips, that once could tempt a god, begin
To grow distorted in an ugly grin;
And, lest the supplicating brute might reach
The cars of Jove, she was deprived of speech;
Her surly voice through a hoarse passage came
In savage sounds, her mind was still the same.
The furry monster fix’d her eyes above,
And heaved her new unwieldy paws to Jove,
And begg’d his aid with inward groans; and though
She could not call him false she thought him so.
How did she fear to lodge in woods alone,
And haunt the fields and meadows once her own!
How often would the deep-mouth’d dogs pursue,
While from her hounds the frighted huntress flew!
How did she fear her fellow brutes, and shun
The shaggy bear, though now herself was one!
How from the sight of rugged wolves retire,
Although the grim Lycaon was her sire!
But now her son had fifteen summers told,
Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold;
When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,
He chanced to rouse his mother where she lay.
She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,
And fondly gazed. The boy was in a fright,
And aim’d a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbade, and snatch’d them through the air
In whirlwinds up to heaven, and fix’d them there;
Where the new constellations nightly rise,
And add a lustre to the northern skies.
When Juno saw the rival in her height,
Spangled with stars and circled round with light,
She sought old Ocean in his deep abodes,
And Tethys, both revered among the gods.
They ask what brings her there. “Ne’er ask,” says she,
“What brings me here, heaven is no place for me.
You’ll see, when all things are obscured by night,
Jove’s starry mistress with resplendent light
Usurp the heavens; you’ll see her proudly roll
In her new orb, and brighten all the pole.
And who shall now on Juno’s altars wait,
When those she hates grow greater by her hate?
I on the nymph a brutal form impress’d,
Jove to a goddess has transform’d the beast.
This, this was all my weak revenge could do;
But let the god his chaste amours pursue,
And, as he acted after Io’s rape,
Restore the adultress to her former shape;
Then may he cast his Juno off, and lead
The great Lycaon’s offspring to his bed.
But you, ye venerable powers, be kind,
And, if my wrongs a due resentment find,
Receive not in your waves their setting beams,
Nor let the glaring harlot taint your streams.”
The goddess ended, and her wish was given
Back she return’d in triumph up to heaven;
Her gaudy peacocks drew her through the skies;
Their tails were spotted with a thousand eyes;
The eyes of Argus on their tails were ranged,
At the same time the raven’s colour changed.