ored it to its original shape as it had been given at Cannons.
It is now generally performed in two parts with the three characters
Galatea, Acis, and Polyphemus, and choruses of nymphs and shepherds.

The pretty pastoral will always possess more than ordinary interest, as
four celebrated poets are represented in the construction of the poem.
Gay wrote the most of it. It also contains a strophe by Hughes, a verse
by Pope,[24] and an extract from Dryden's translation of the Galatea myth
in the Metamorphoses of Ovid.[25] The story is based on the seventh fable
in the thirteenth book of the Metamorphoses,--the sad story which
Galatea, daughter of Nereus, tells to Scylla. The nymph was passionately
in love with the shepherd Acis, son of Faunus and of the nymph Symoethis,
and pursued him incessantly. She too was pursued by Polyphemus, the
one-eyed Cyclops of AEtna, contemner of the gods. One day, reclining upon
the breast of Acis, concealed behind a rock, she hears the giant pouring
out to the woods and mountains his story of love and despair: "I, who
despise Jove and the heavens and the piercing lightnings, dread thee,
daughter of Nereus; than the lightnings is thy wrath more dreadful to me.
But I should be more patient under these slights if thou didst avoid all
men. For why, rejecting the Cyclop, dost thou love Acis? And why prefer
Acis to my embraces?" As he utters these last complaints, he espies the
lovers. Then, raging and roaring so that the mountains shook and the sea
trembled, he hurled a huge rock at Acis and crushed him. The shepherd's
blood gushing forth from beneath the rock was changed into a river; and
Galatea, who had fled to the sea, was consoled.

The overture to the work, consisting of one movement, is thoroughly
pastoral in its style and marked by all that grace and delicacy which
characterize the composer's treatment of movements of this kind. It
introduces a chorus ("O the Pleasures of the Plains!") in which the easy,
careless life of the shepherds and their swains is pictured. Galatea
enters seeking her lover, and after the recitative, "Ye verdant Plains
and woody Mountains," relieves her heart with an outburst of melodious
beauty:--

"Hush, ye pretty warbling choir!
Your thrilling strains
Awake my pains
And kindle fierce desire.
Cease your song and take your flight;
Bring back my Acis to my sight."

Acis answers her, after a short recitative, with another aria equal