THE FABLE OF DRYOPE.'

FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

SHE' said, and for her lost Galanthis sighs,
When the fair consort of her son' replies:
Since you a servant's ravished form bemoan,"
And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own,
Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate
A nearer woe, a sister's stranger fate.
No nymph of all Echalia could compare
For beauteous form with Dryope the fair,"
Her tender mother's only hope and pride,
(Myself the offspring of a second bride.)
This nymph compressed by him who rules the day,
Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey,
Andræmon loved; and, blessed in all those charms
That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms."

A lake there was, with shelving banks around,
Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crowned.

1 Upon occasion of the death of Hercules, his mother Alcmena recounts her misfortunes to Iole, who answers with a relation of those of her own family, in particular the transformation of her sister Dryope, which is the subject of the ensuing fable.-POPE.

Alcmena. Galanthis was one of her female servants.

3 Iole was not the consort of Alcmena's son, Hercules, but of her grandson, Hyllus.

Out of jealousy that Alcmena

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should bear a child to Jupiter, Juno employed Lucina to hinder the birth of Hercules. The malevolence of the goddess was defeated through the ingenuity of Galanthis, who was straightway turned into a weasel by the baffled and irritated Lucina. Sandys' translation :

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Of all the chalides For form few might with Dryope compare.

This flowing couplet he has transferred into more places than one of his version of Homer.-WAKEFIELD.

These shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought,
And to the naiads flow'ry garlands brought;

Her smiling babe (a pleasing charge) she pressed
Within her arms, and nourished at her breast.
Nor distant far a wat'ry lotos grows,

The spring was new, and all the verdant boughs,
Adorned with blossoms, promised fruits that vie
In glowing colours with the Tyrian dye:
Of these she cropped to please her infant son,
And I myself the same rash act had done:
But lo! I saw (as near her side I stood,)
The violated blossoms' drop with blood;
Upon the tree I cast a frightful look;

The trembling tree with sudden horror shook.
Lotis the nymph (if rural tales be true)
As from Priapus' lawless lust she flew,
Forsook her form; and fixing here, became
A flow'ry plant, which still preserves her name.
This change unknown, astonished at the sight,
My trembling sister strove to urge her flight:
And first the pardon of the nymphs implored,
And those offended sylvan pow'rs adored:

But when she backward would have fled, she found
Her stiff'ning feet were rooted in the ground:

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In vain to free her fastened feet she strove,

And, as she struggles, only moves above;
She feels th' encroaching bark around her grow
By quick degrees, and cover all below:

Surprized at this, her trembling hand she heaves
To rend her hair; her hand is filled with leaves:
Where late was hair the shooting leaves are seen
To rise, and shade her with a sudden green.
The child Amphissus, to her bosom pressed,
Perceived a colder and a harder breast,

1 Dryden, Æn. iii. 54:

The violated myrtle ran with gore.-WAKEFIELD,

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And found the springs, that ne'er till then denied
Their milky moisture, on a sudden dried.

I saw, unhappy! what I now relate,

And stood the helpless witness of thy fate,
Embraced thy boughs, thy rising bark delayed,
There wished to grow, and mingle shade with shade.
Behold Andræmon and th' unhappy sire
Appear, and for their Dryope inquire:

A springing tree for Dryope they find,
And print warm kisses on the panting rind;
Prostrate, with tears their kindred plant bedew,
And close embrace, as to the roots they grew.
The face was all that now remained of thee,
No more a woman, nor yet quite a tree;'
Thy branches hung with humid pearls appear,'
From ev'ry leaf distils a trickling tear,

And straight a voice, while yet a voice remains,

Thus through the trembling boughs in sighs complains.
If to the wretched any faith be giv'n,

I swear by all th' unpitying pow'rs of heav'n,'

No wilful crime this heavy vengeance bred;

In mutual innocence' our lives we led:
If this be false, let these new greens decay,
Let sounding axes lop my limbs away,
And crackling flames on all my honours prey.

1 "As" is put for "as though." Cowley's transformation of Lot's wife, Davideis, iii. 254:

No more a woman, nor yet quite a stone.-
WAKEFIELD.

3 Dryden's Virg. Ecl. x. 20:
And hung with humid pearls the lowly
shrub appears.—WAKEFIELD.

4 Sandys' translation:

If credit to the wretched may be giv'n,
I swear by all the pow'rs embowered in
heav'n.

5 This translation is faulty. "Patior sine crimine, et viximus innocuæ,"

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-a

is but one and the same person,testimony of her own innocence, but not of the mutual concord between her relations. - BOWYER.

6 "New greens," from its equivocal meaning, is a burlesque expression. 'Sounding" is a feeble epithet to be applied to the axe by Dryope, who was thinking of the wounds it would inflict upon her; and it is still more inappropriate to make her call her transformation, "my honours," when she regarded the metamorphose with dismay. How superior to Pope's di

But from my branching arms this infant bear,
Let some kind nurse supply a mother's care:
And to his mother let him oft be led,

Sport in her shades, and in her shades be fed;
Teach him, when first his infant voice shall fram
Imperfect words, and lisp his mother's name,
To hail this tree, and say with weeping eyes,
Within this plant my helpless parent lies;
And when in youth he seeks the shady woods,
Oh! let him fly the crystal lakes and floods,
Nor touch the fatal flow'rs; but, warned by me,
Believe a goddess shrined in ev'ry tree.
My sire, my sister, and my spouse, farewell!'
If in your breasts or love or pity dwell,
Protect your plant, nor let my branches feel
The browzing cattle or the piercing steel.
Farewell! and since I cannot bend to join
My lips to yours, advance at least to mine.
My son, thy mother's parting kiss receive,
While yet thy mother has a kiss to give.
I can no more; the creeping rind invades
My closing lips, and hides my head in shades;
Remove your hands, the bark shall soon suffice
Without their aid to seal these dying eyes.

She ceased at once to speak, and ceased to be;
And all the nymph was lost within the tree;
Yet latent life through her new branches reigned,
And long the plant a human heat retained.

luted version is the brief and simple
language of the original,--" et cæsa
securibus urar." Sandys is better
than Pope in the same proportion
that he is more literal:

Or if I lie, may my green branches fade;
And felled with axes on the fire be laid.

It is worth quoting the parallel line of Sandys, to show how much

more touching are the household words "husband" and "father" than the "sire" and "spouse" substituted by Pope:

Dear husband, sister, father, all farowell. 2 Dryden's version of Ovid, Met. viii.:

At once th' encroaching rinds their closing lips invade.-WAKEFIELD.

VERTUMNUS AND POMONA.'

FROM THE FOURTEENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

THE fair Pomona flourished in his reign;"

Of all the virgins of the sylvan train,
None taught the trees a nobler race to bear,
Or more improved the vegetable care.'
To her the shady grove, the flow'ry field,

The streams and fountains no delights could yield;
"Twas all her joy the ripening fruits to tend,
And see the boughs with happy burthens bend.
The hook she bore instead of Cynthia's spear,
To lop the growth of the luxuriant year,
To decent form the lawless shoots to bring,
And teach th' obedient branches where to spring.
Now the cleft rind inserted graffs receives,

And yields an offspring more than nature gives;
Now sliding streams' the thirsty plants renew,
And feed their fibres with reviving dew.

These cares alone her virgin breast employ,
Averse from Venus and the nuptial joy.

This fragment was first published in 1712, in Lintot's Miscellany.

2 The reign of Procas, one of the fabulous kings of Alba Longa.

3 Pope, in his youth, was not averse to affected phrases; but it is surprising that he could bring him

self to call a garden "the vegetable care."

"Sliding" is a very happy expression.-BOWLES.

Pope borrowed it from the corresponding passage of Sandys-"Softsliding springs."