But hid within a covert's neighbouring green,
She kept him ftill in fight, her felf unseen.
The Boy now fancies all the danger o'er,
And innocently sports about the fhore,
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and shivers, as he dips.
The coolness pleas'd him, and with eager hafte
His airy garments on the banks he caft;

His godlike features, and his heavenly huc,
And all his beauties were expos'd to view.

His naked limbs the Nymph with rapture spies,
While hotter paffions in her bofom rise,

Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.
She longs, fhe burns to clasp him in her arms,
And looks, and fighs, and kindles at his charms.

Now all undrest upon the banks he stood,
And clapt his fides, and leapt into the flood:
His lovely limbs the filver waves divide,
His limbs appear more lovely through the tide;
As Lilies fhut within a chrystal cafe,

Receive a gloffy luftre from the glass.

"He's mine, he's all my own, the Naïad cries,
And flings off all, and after him she flies.
And now the faftens on him as he swims,
And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs.
The more the Boy refifted, and was coy,
The more the clipt, and kift the ftrugling Boy.

So when the wrigling Snake is fnateht on high

In Eagle's claws, and hiffes in the Sky,
Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,

And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings.

The restless Boy ftill obftinately ftrove To free himself, and ftill refus'd her love.

Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs intwin'd,

"And why, coy youth, fhe cries, why thus unkind!
"Oh may the Gods thus keep us ever Join'd!
"Oh may we never, never Part again!

So pray'd the Nymph, nor did she pray in vain;
For now the finds him, as his limbs fhe prest,
Grow nearer ftill, and nearer to her breaft;
'Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in One:

Laft in one face are both their faces join'd,
As when the flock and grafted twig combin'd
Shoot up the fame, aad wear a common rind:
Both bodies in a fingle body mix,

A fingle body with a double fex.

The Boy, thus loft in Woman, now furvey'd
The river's guilty stream, and thus he pray'd.
(He pray'd, but wonder'd at his softer tone,
Surpriz'd to hear a voice but half his own).
You Parent-Gods, whofe heavenly names I bear,
Hear your Hermaphrodite, and grant my prayer;

Oh

}

Oh grant, that whomfoe'er these streams contain,
If Man he enter'd, he may rife again

Supple, unfinew'd, and but Half a Man!

The heavenly Parents anfwer'd, from on high,
Their two shap'd son, the double votary;
Then gave a fecret virtue to the flood,
And ting'd its fource to make his wishes good,

NOTES

NOTES

ON

Some of the foregoing STORIES in OVID's Metamorphofes.

On the Story of PHAETON, page 148.

THE

HE Story of Phaeton is told with a greater air of majesty and grandeur than any other in all Ovid. It is indeed the most important fubject he treats of, except the Deluge; and I cannot but believe that this is the Conflagration he hints at in the firft Book;

Effe quoque in fatis reminifcitur affore tempus
Quo mare, quo tellus, Correptaque Regia cœli
Ardeat et mundi moles operofa laboret.

(tho' the learned apply thofe verfes to the future burning of the world) for it fully anfwers that defcription, if

the

Cali miferere tui, circumfpica utrumque,

Fumat uterque polus.

Fumat

Fumat uterque polus

cœli

comes up to Correptaque Regia

-Befides it is Ovid's cuftom to prepare the reader for a following story, by giving fome intimations of it in a foregoing one, which was more particularly neceffary to be done before he led us into fo ftrange a story as this he is now upon.

P. 148. 1. 7: For in the portal, &c.] We have here the picture of the univerfe drawn in little.

Balanarumque prementem

geona fuis immunia terga lacertis.

Egeon makes a diverting figure in it.

·Facies non omnibus Una

Nec Diverfa tamen: qualem decet effe fororum.

The thought is very pretty, of giving Doris and her daughters fuch a difference in their looks as is natural to different perfons, and yet fuch a likeness as fhow'd their affinity.

Terra viros, urbefque gerit, fylvafque, ferafque,
Fluminaque, et Nymphas, et catera numina Ruris.

The lefs important figures are well huddled together in the promifcuous defcription at the end, which very well re prefents what the Painters call a Grouppe.

·Circum caput omne micantes

Depofuit radios; propiufque accedere juffit.

t

P. 150. l. 11. And flung the blaze, &c.] It gives us a great image of Phoebus, that the youth wa forc'd to look on him at a distance,and not able approach him 'till he

had