d remained the ruler of the sky,
And from his throne returned this stern reply:
"'Twas thus I deemed thy haughty soul would bear }
The dire, though just, revenge which I prepare } 405
Against a nation thy peculiar care: }
No less Dione might for Thebes contend,
Nor Bacchus less his native town defend;
Yet these in silence see the fates fulfil
Their work, and rev'rence our superior will. 410
For by the black infernal Styx I swear,
(That dreadful oath which binds the thunderer)
'Tis fixed; th' irrevocable doom of Jove;
No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
Haste then, Cyllenius,[75] through the liquid air; 415
Go, mount the winds, and to the shades repair;
Bid hell's black monarch my commands obey,
And give up Laius to the realms of day,
Whose ghost yet shiv'ring on Cocytus' sand,
Expects its passage to the further strand: 420
Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear
These pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear;[76]
That from his exiled brother, swelled with pride
Of foreign forces, and his Argive bride,
Almighty Jove commands him to detain 425
The promised empire, and alternate reign:
Be this the cause of more than mortal hate:
The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into fate."
The god obeys, and to his feet applies
Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies. 430
His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread,
And veiled the starry glories of his head.
He seized the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye;
That drives the dead to dark Tartarean coasts, 435
Or back to life compels the wand'ring ghosts.
Thus, through the parting clouds, the son of May
Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way;
Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight,
Now springs aloft, and tow'rs th' ethereal height; 440
Then wheeling down the steep of heav'n he flies,
And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.
Meantime the banished Polynices roves
(His Thebes abandoned) through th' Aonian groves,
While future realms his wand'ring thoughts delight, 445
His daily vision and his dream by night;
Forbidden Thebes appears