In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged,
Tremendous war against the gods I waged:
Yet not to reach the throne of heaven I try,
With mountain piled on mountain to the sky;
To me the conquest of the seas befel,
In his green realm the second Jove to quell.
Nor did ambition all my passions hold,
'Twas love that prompted an attempt so bold.
Ah me, one summer in the cool of day
I saw the Nereids on the sandy bay
With lovely Thetis from the wave advance
In mirthful frolic, and the naked dance.
In all her charms reveal'd the goddess trode;
With fiercest fires my struggling bosom glow'd;
Yet, yet I feel them burning in my heart,
And hopeless languish with the raging smart.
For her, each goddess of the heavens I scorn'd,
For her alone my fervent ardour burn'd.
In vain I woo'd her to the lover's bed;
From my grim form, with horror mute she fled.
Madning with love, by force I ween to gain
The silver goddess of the blue domain:
To the hoar mother of the Nereid band[1]
I tell my purpose, and her aid command:
- ↑ The hoar mother of the Nereid band.—Doris, the sister and spouse of Nereus. By Nereus, in the physical sense of the fable, is understood the water of the sea, and by Doris, the bitterness or salt, the supposed cause of its prolific quality in the generation of fishes.
