}
Let sounding axes lop my limbs away, }
And crackling flames on all my honours prey.[13] } 75
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 frame 80
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, 85
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![14]
If in your breasts or love or pity dwell,
Protect your plant, nor let my branches feel 90
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. 95
I can no more; the creeping rind invades
My closing lips,[15] 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; 100
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.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 2: Alcmena. Galanthis was one of her female servants.]

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

[Footnote 4: Out of jealousy that Alcmena 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.]

[Footnote 5: Sandys' translation:

Of all the Oechalides