ly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or see his face no more,
But live an exile in a foreign clime:
Thus was the father pious to a crime.
The restless youth searched all the world around;
But how can Jove in his amours be found?
When tired at length with unsuccessful toil,
To shun his angry sire and native soil,
_10
He goes a suppliant to the Delphic dome;
There asks the god what new-appointed home
Should end his wanderings and his toils relieve.
The Delphic oracles this answer give:
'Behold among the fields a lonely cow,
Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plough;
Mark well the place where first she lays her down,
There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,
And from thy guide, Boetia call the land,
In which the destined walls and town shall stand.'
_20
No sooner had he left the dark abode,
Big with the promise of the Delphic god,
When in the fields the fatal cow he viewed,
Nor galled with yokes, nor worn with servitude:
Her gently at a distance he pursued;
And, as he walked aloof, in silence prayed
To the great power whose counsels he obeyed.
Her way through flowery Panope she took,
And now, Cephisus, crossed thy silver brook;
When to the heavens her spacious front she raised,
_30
And bellowed thrice, then backward turning, gazed
On those behind, till on the destined place
She stooped, and couched amid the rising grass.
Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails
The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,
And thanks the gods, and turns about his eye
To see his new dominions round him lie;
Then sends his servants to a neighbouring grove
For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove.
O'er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
_40
Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
O'errun with brambles, and perplexed with thorn:
Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,
With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.
Deep in the dreary den, concealed from day,
Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
Fire broke in flashes when he glanced his eyes;
His towering crest was glorious to behold,
_50
His shoulders and his sides were scaled with gold;
Three tongues he brandished when he charged his foes;
His teeth stood jagy in three dreadful rows.
The Tyrians in the den for water sought,
And with their urns explored th