various-mark'd;
He who the voice suppresses, and directs
To silence with his finger; timbrels loud;
Osiris never sought enough; and snakes
Of foreign lands full of somniferous gall.
To her the goddess thus, as rais'd from sleep
She seem'd, and manifest each object stood:--
"O vot'ry, Telethusa! fling aside
"Thy weighty cares; thy husband's mandates cheat;
"Nor waver, when Lucina helps thy pains:
"Save it whate'er it be. A goddess I,
"Assisting, still give aid when rightly claim'd:
"Nor will it e'er thee grieve to have ador'd
"An ingrate goddess."--Thus as she advis'd,
She vanish'd from the bed. The Cretan dame
Rose from the couch o'erjoy'd; and raising high
To heaven her guiltless hands, pray'd that her dream
On truth was founded. Now her pains increas'd;
And now her burthen forc'd itself to air:
A daughter came, but to the sire unknown.
The mother bade them rear it as a boy,
And all a boy believ'd it; none the truth,
The nurse excepted, knew. Glad prayers the sire
Offers, and from its grandsire is it nam'd:
(Iphis, the grandsire's appellation.) Joy'd
The mother hears the name, which either sex
May claim; and none, in that at least, deceiv'd;
The lie lay hid beneath a pious fraud.
The robes were masculine, the face was such
As beauteous boy, or beauteous girl might own.

And now three annual suns the tenth had pass'd,
Thy father, Iphis, had to thee betroth'd
Iaenthe, yellow-hair'd; nymph most admir'd
'Mongst all the Phestians, for her beauteous charms:
Telestes of Dictaea was her sire.
Equal in age, and equal in fair form;
The self-same masters taught the early arts,
Suiting their years. Their unsuspecting minds
Were both by love thus touch'd, in both was fix'd
An equal wound: but far unlike their hopes.
Iaenthe, for a spouse impatient looks,
With nuptial torches. Whom a man she thinks,
That spouse she hopes will be. Iphis too loves,
Despairing what she loves e'er to enjoy:
This still the more her love augments, and burns
A virgin for a virgin. Scarce from tears
Refraining;--"What,"--she cries,--"for me remains?
"What will the issue be? What cure for this
"New love, unknown to all, who prodigies
"Possess in this desire? If the high gods
"Me wish to spare, straight should they me destroy.
"Yet would they me destroy, they should have given
"A curse more natural; a more usual fate.
"Love for an heife