e;[127]
Thy hand slew Python, and the dame who lost
Her num'rous offspring for a fatal boast.[128] 850
In Phlegyas' doom thy just revenge appears,
Condemned to furies and eternal fears;
He views his food, but dreads, with lifted eye,
The mould'ring rock that trembles from on high.[129]
"Propitious hear our prayer, O pow'r divine! 855
And on thy hospitable Argos shine;
Whether the style of Titan[130] please thee more,
Whose purple rays th' Achaemenes adore;
Or great Osiris,[131] who first taught the swain
In Pharian fields to sow the golden grain; 860
Or Mitra, to whose beams the Persian bows,
And pays, in hollow rocks, his awful vows;
Mitra, whose head the blaze of light adorns,
Who grasps the struggling heifer's lunar horns."[132]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Dire," in the Latin sense of ill-omened.]

[Footnote 2: When Jupiter had carried off Europa, her father, Agenor,
sent her brother Cadmus to seek her, and commanded him not to return
without his sister. Unable to find her he settled at Thebes, and built
the city. He slew the dragon, which guarded a neighbouring well, and a
portion of the armed men, who sprung up from its teeth, were reputed to
be the ancestors of the Thebans.]

[Footnote 3: A second legend ascribed the building of the city to the
wonder-working music of Amphion, which caused the stones to pile
themselves together. Both legends were subsequently blended, and Cadmus
had the credit of the upper part of the city, and Amphion of the lower.]

[Footnote 4: Juno visited Athamas, king of Thebes, with madness, and in
his frenzy he shot his own son, Learchus, whom he took for a young lion.
Upon this his wife, Ino, who was a daughter of Cadmus, fled with her
second son, Melicertes, and threw herself and her boy into the sea.]

[Footnote 5: Domitian. The panegyric on this timid and cruel tyrant was
disgraceful flattery. The boasted victories over the Dacian's were in
reality defeats. They compelled the emperor to sue for an inglorious
peace which was only purchased by the promise of an immediate ransom and
an annual tribute. Most of his pretended triumphs were of a similar
character, and led Pliny the younger to remark, that they were always
the token of some advantage obtained by the enemies of Rome.]

[Footnote 6: During the contest between Vespasian and Vitellius for