Now was their time—both had been cheated long
By the sly god with promise of a song;
They tied him fast—fit bonds his garland made—
And lo! a fair accomplice comes to aid:
Loveliest of Naiad-nymphs, and merriest too,
Æglè[1] did what they scarce had dared to do;
Just as the god unclosed his sleepy eyes,
She daubed his face with blood of mulberries.
He saw their joke, and laughed—'Now loose me, lad!
Enough—you've caught me—tying is too bad.
A song you want?—Here goes. For Æglè, mind,
I warrant me I'll pay her out in kind.'
So he began. The listening Fauns drew near,
The beasts beat time, the stout oaks danced to hear.
So joys Parnassus when Apollo sings—
So through the dancing hills the lyre of Orpheus rings.'
Silenus's strain is a poetical lecture on natural philosophy. He is as didactic in his waking soberness as some of his disciples are in their cups. He describes how the world sprang from the four original elements, and narrates the old fables of the cosmogonists—the Deluge of Deucalion, the new race of men who sprang from the stones which he and Pyrrha cast behind them, the golden reign of Saturn, the theft of fire by Prometheus, and a long series of other legends, with which he charms his listeners until the falling shadows warn them to count their flocks, and the evening-star comes out, as the poet phrases it, "over the unwilling heights of Olympus"—loath yet to lose the fascinating strain.
Besides this Pastoral addressed to Varus, there are
- ↑ Anglicè, "Bright-eyes."
