Hostile to men, stretch o'er the plain; whose troops
In after times shall near Thermodon's banks
Fix in Themiscyra's tow'rs their martial rule,
Where Salmydesia points her cruel rocks,
And glories in her wrecks: this female train
With courteous zeal shall guide thee in thy way.
Arriving where the dark Cimmerian lake
Spreads from its narrow mouth its vast expanse,
Leave it, and boldly plunge thy vent'rous foot
In the Mæotic straits; the voice of fame
Shall eternize thy passage, and from thee
Call it the Bosphorus[1]: there shalt thou quit
The shores of Europe, and intrepid reach
The continent of Asia.—Seems he now,
This tyrant of the skies, seems he in all[2].
Of fierce and headlong violence, when his love
Plunges a mortal in such deep distresses?
A rugged wooer, virgin, have thy charms
Won thee; for be assur'd what I have told thee
Is but a prelude to the woes untold,
IO. Ah miserable me!
F
- ↑ Bospherus, the passage of the heifer.
- ↑ The Chorus had declared themselves to be deeply affected at the narrative of Iö; Prometheus therefore, having enumerated more and greater woes which yet awaited her, addresses them thus: Think you that this tyrant of the skies is of a fierce and headlong violence, when be has thus driven a mortal, even whilst he is a suiter for her love, to these wanderings? Then turning to the unhappy sufferer, he says,
A rugged wooer, virgin, have thy charms
Won thee.There is in this a malignant triumph, well suited to the implacable resentment of the speaker, which would not allow him to acknowledge that Jupiter did not voluntarily inflict these miseries on his favourite fair, but that with great reluctance he was obliged to make this sacrifice to the jealous and enraged Juno.
