‘O goddess! on thy aid my hopes rely;

Dictate propitious to my duteous ear,

What arts can captivate the changeful seer;

For perilous the assay, unheard the toil,

To elude the prescience of a god by guile.’


“Thus to the goddess mild my suit I end.

Then she: ‘Obedient to my rule attend:

When through the zone of heaven the mounted sun

Hath journeyed half, and half remains to run;

The seer, while zephyrs curl the swelling deep,

Basks on the breezy shore, in grateful sleep,

His oozy limbs. Emerging from the wave,

The Phocas swift surround his rocky cave,

Frequent and full; the consecrated train

Of her, whose azure trident awes the main;

There wallowing warm, the enormous herd exhales

An oily steam, and taints the noontide gales.

To that recess, commodious for surprise,

When purple light shall next suffuse the skies,

With me repair; and from thy warrior-band

Three chosen chiefs of dauntless soul command;

Let their auxiliar force befriend the toil;

For strong the god, and perfected in guile.

Stretch’d on the shelly shore, he first surveys

The flouncing herd ascending from the seas;

Their number summ’d, reposed in sleep profound

The scaly charge their guardian god surround;

So with his battening flocks the careful swain

Abides pavilion’d on the grassy plain.

With powers united, obstinately bold,

Invade him, couch’d amid the scaly fold;

Instant he wears, elusive of the rape,

The mimic force of every savage shape;

Or glides with liquid lapse a murmuring stream,

Or, wrapp’d in flame, he glows at every limb.

Yet, still retentive, with redoubled might,

Through each vain passive form constrain his flight

But when, his native shape renamed, he stands

Patient of conquest, and your cause demands;

The cause that urged the bold attempt declare,

And soothe the vanquish’d with a victor’s prayer.

The bands releas’d, implore the seer to say

What godhead interdicts the watery way.