This rural prince one only daughter blest, 670
That all the charms of blooming youth possessed;
Fair was her face, and spotless was her mind,
Where filial love with virgin sweetness joined.
Happy! and happy still she might have proved,
Were she less beautiful, or less beloved! 675
But Phoebus loved, and on the flow'ry side
Of Nemea's stream, the yielding fair enjoyed:
Now, ere ten moons their orb with light adorn,
Th' illustrious offspring of the god was born;
The nymph, her father's anger to evade, 680
Retires from Argos to the sylvan shade;
To woods and wilds the pleasing burden bears,
And trusts her infant to a shepherd's cares.
"How mean a fate, unhappy child! is thine?
Ah how unworthy those of race divine? 685
On flow'ry herbs in some green covert laid,
His bed the ground, his canopy the shade,[112]
He mixes with the bleating lambs his cries, }
While the rude swain his rural music tries }
To call soft slumbers on his infant eyes. } 690
Yet ev'n in those obscure abodes to live,
Was more, alas! than cruel fate would give,
For on the grassy verdure as he lay,
And breathed the freshness of the early day,
Devouring dogs the helpless infant tore, 695
Fed on his trembling limbs, and lapped the gore.
Th' astonished mother, when the rumour came,
Forgets her father, and neglects her fame;
With loud complaints she fills the yielding air,
And beats her breast, and rends her flowing hair; 700
Then wild with anguish to her sire she flies:
Demands the sentence, and contented dies.
"But touched with sorrow for the dead too late,
The raging god prepares t' avenge her fate.
He sends a monster, horrible and fell,[113] 705
Begot by furies in the depths of hell.[114]
The pest a virgin's face and bosom bears; }
High on a crown a rising snake appears, }
Guards her black front, and hisses in her hairs: }
About the realm she walks her dreadful round, 710
When night with sable wings o'erspreads the ground,
Devours young babes before their parents' eyes,
And feeds and thrives on public miseries.[115]
"But g