s my example dread.
"Banish'd, an exile from each spot of earth,--
"Crete only open lies. Thence dost thou drive
"Me also? Ingrate! dost thou fly me so?
"Europa never bore thee, but some Syrt'
"Inhospitable; or some tigress fell
"Bred in Armenia; or Charybdis vext
"With tempests: Jove was ne'er thy sire, nor feign'd
"A bull's resemblance to delude her, false
"That fable of thy origin. A bull,
"Real and savage thee begot, whose love
"No heifer mov'd. O father Nisus! now
"Exact thy vengeance. Joy, O town! betray'd
"By my transgression; for the woes I feel
"Most merited I grant; guilty I die:
"Yet should the deadly blow be given by one
"My impious fault has injur'd; not by thee,
"Victor through crimes thou with avenging hate
"Now persecutest. This flagitious deed
"Against my country, and against my sire,
"Was all for thee. Th' adultress who beguil'd
"In wooden cavity the furious bull;
"Whose womb an ill-assorted birth produc'd;
"Well for a spouse befits thee. Do my words
"Reach to thine ears, or no? Do the brisk winds,
"Thou ingrate! waft my bootless plainings on,
"And waft thy vessels? Wondrous now no more,
"Pasiphae, to thy embrace a bull
"Preferr'd; for more unpitying is thy soul.
"Joyful, ah! hapless me,--away thou fly'st;
"Thy cleaving oars dash on the sounding waves:
"Me, and my country far from thee recede.
"O wretch! forgetful of my favoring aid,
"Thou striv'st in vain to fly me. 'Gainst thy wish
"Thee will I follow; on thy crooked ship
"Hanging, embracing, dragg'd through drenching seas.'
Scarce ending, in the waves she furious leaped,
Vigorous by love, and gain'd the flying fleet;
And clasp'd, unwelcome guest, the Gnossian poop.
Here soon her father spy'd her (in the air
He wing'd his way, now cloth'd with yellow plumes
A falcon) and down darted; with his beak
So curv'd, to wound her as she clung. In dread
Her grasp she loos'd, and as she seem'd to fall,
The light air bore her from the waves below:
Plum'd she became, and form'd a feather'd bird,
Ciris they call'd her from the ravish'd lock.

To Jove now Minos all his vows performs,
An hecatomb of bulls; as from the fleet
He lands on Gnossus' shores: his royal hall
With all his spoils, on high uphung, adorn'd.

Meantime th' opprobrium of his bed increas'd:
The two-formed monster in a novel birth,
At length the mother's beastly crime procl