The fair-hair’d Dryads of the shady wood;

Or azure daughters of the silver flood;

Or human voice? but issuing from the shades,

Why cease I straight to learn what sound invades?”


Then, where the grove with leaves umbrageous bends,

With forceful strength a branch the hero rends;

Around his loins the verdant cincture spreads

A wreathy foliage and concealing shades.

As when a lion in the midnight hours,

Beat by rude blasts, and wet with wintry showers,

Descends terrific from the mountains brow;

With living flames his rolling eye balls glow;

With conscious strength elate, he bends his way,

Majestically fierce, to seize his prey

(The steer or stag;) or, with keen hunger bold,

Spring o’er the fence and dissipates the fold.

No less a terror, from the neighbouring groves

(Rough from the tossing surge) Ulysses moves;

Urged on by want, and recent from the storms;

The brackish ooze his manly grace deforms.

Wide o’er the shore with many a piercing cry

To rocks, to caves, the frightened virgins fly;

All but the nymph; the nymph stood fix’d alone,

By Pallas arm’d with boldness not her own.

Meantime in dubious thought the king awaits,

And, self-considering, as he stands, debates;

Distant his mournful story to declare,

Or prostrate at her knee address the prayer.

But fearful to offend, by wisdom sway’d,

At awful distance he accosts the maid:


“If from the skies a goddess, or if earth

(Imperial virgin) boast thy glorious birth,

To thee I bend! If in that bright disguise

Thou visit earth, a daughter of the skies,

Hail, Dian, hail! the huntress of the groves

So shines majestic, and so stately moves,

So breathes an air divine! But if thy race

Be mortal, and this earth thy native place,

Blest is the father from whose loins you sprung,

Blest is the mother at whose breast you hung.

Blest are the brethren who thy blood divide,

To such a miracle of charms allied:

Joyful they see applauding princes gaze,