The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 156

The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power _20 Mingled in love and sleep--to whom she bore Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare Among the G.o.ds, whose lives eternal are.

Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity, Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee _25 My song beginning, by its music sweet Shall make immortal many a glorious feat Of demiG.o.ds, with lovely lips, so well Which minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell.

HOMER'S HYMN TO THE SUN.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]

Offspring of Jove, Calliope, once more To the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour; Whom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth Euryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth; Euryphaessa, the famed sister fair _5 Of great Hyperion, who to him did bear A race of loveliest children; the young Morn, Whose arms are like twin roses newly born, The fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun, Who borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run _10 Unconquerably, illuming the abodes Of mortal Men and the eternal G.o.ds.

Fiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes, Beneath his golden helmet, whence arise And are shot forth afar, clear beams of light; _15 His countenance, with radiant glory bright, Beneath his graceful locks far s.h.i.+nes around, And the light vest with which his limbs are bound, Of woof aethereal delicately twined, Glows in the stream of the uplifting wind. _20 His rapid steeds soon bear him to the West; Where their steep flight his hands divine arrest, And the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he Sends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea.

HOMER'S HYMN TO THE EARTH: MOTHER OF ALL.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]

O universal Mother, who dost keep From everlasting thy foundations deep, Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!

All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea, All things that fly, or on the ground divine _5 Live, move, and there are nourished--these are thine; These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!

The life of mortal men beneath thy sway _10 Is held; thy power both gives and takes away!

Happy are they whom thy mild favours nourish; All things unstinted round them grow and flourish.

For them, endures the life-sustaining field Its load of harvest, and their cattle yield _15 Large increase, and their house with wealth is filled.

Such honoured dwell in cities fair and free, The homes of lovely women, prosperously; Their sons exult in youth's new budding gladness, And their fresh daughters free from care or sadness, _20 With bloom-inwoven dance and happy song, On the soft flowers the meadow-gra.s.s among, Leap round them sporting--such delights by thee Are given, rich Power, revered Divinity.

Mother of G.o.ds, thou Wife of starry Heaven, _25 Farewell! be thou propitious, and be given A happy life for this brief melody, Nor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be.

HOMER'S HYMN TO MINERVA.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]

I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes, Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise, Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid, Revered and mighty; from his awful head Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed, _5 Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed The everlasting G.o.ds that Shape to see, Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove; Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move _10 Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed; Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide; And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high In purple billows, the tide suddenly Stood still, and great Hyperion's son long time _15 Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime, Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view.

Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee, Nor thine nor others' praise shall unremembered be. _20

HOMER'S HYMN TO VENUS.

[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Sh.e.l.ley", 1862; dated 1818.]

[VERSES 1-55, WITH SOME OMISSIONS.]

Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite, Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things That fleet along the air, or whom the sea, _5 Or earth, with her maternal ministry, Nourish innumerable, thy delight All seek ... O crowned Aphrodite!

Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:-- Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well _10 Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame.

Diana ... golden-shafted queen, Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green Of the wild woods, the bow, the... _15 And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit Of beasts among waste mountains,--such delight Is hers, and men who know and do the right.

Nor Saturn's first-born daughter, Vesta chaste, Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last, _20 Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove; But sternly she refused the ills of Love, And by her mighty Father's head she swore An oath not unperformed, that evermore A virgin she would live mid deities _25 Divine: her father, for such gentle ties Renounced, gave glorious gifts--thus in his hall She sits and feeds luxuriously. O'er all In every fane, her honours first arise From men--the eldest of Divinities. _30

These spirits she persuades not, nor deceives, But none beside escape, so well she weaves Her unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor G.o.ds Who live secure in their unseen abodes.

She won the soul of him whose fierce delight _35 Is thunder--first in glory and in might.

And, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving, With mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving, Concealed him from his spouse and sister fair, Whom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare. _40 but in return, In Venus Jove did soft desire awaken, That by her own enchantments overtaken, She might, no more from human union free, Burn for a nursling of mortality. _45 For once amid the a.s.sembled Deities, The laughter-loving Venus from her eyes

Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile, And boasting said, that she, secure the while, Could bring at Will to the a.s.sembled G.o.ds _50 The mortal tenants of earth's dark abodes, And mortal offspring from a deathless stem She could produce in scorn and spite of them.

Therefore he poured desire into her breast Of young Anchises, _55 Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains Of the wide Ida's many-folded mountains,-- Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung Like wasting fire her senses wild among.

THE CYCLOPS.

A SATYRIC DRAMA TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824; dated 1819.

Amongst the Sh.e.l.ley ma.n.u.scripts at the Bodleian there is a copy, 'practically complete,' which has been collated by Mr. C.D. Loc.o.c.k. See "Examination", etc., 1903, pages 64-70. 'Though legible throughout, and comparatively free from corrections, it has the appearance of being a first draft' (Loc.o.c.k).]

SILENUS.

ULYSSES.

CHORUS OF SATYRS.

THE CYCLOPS.

SILENUS: O Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now And ere these limbs were overworn with age, Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled'st The mountain-nymphs who nursed thee, driven afar By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee; _5 Then in the battle of the Sons of Earth, When I stood foot by foot close to thy side, No unpropitious fellow-combatant, And, driving through his s.h.i.+eld my winged spear, Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now, _10 Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?

By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!

And now I suffer more than all before.

For when I heard that Juno had devised A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea _15 With all my children quaint in search of you, And I myself stood on the beaked prow And fixed the naked mast; and all my boys Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain Made white with foam the green and purple sea,-- _20 And so we sought you, king. We were sailing Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose, And drove us to this waste Aetnean rock; The one-eyed children of the Ocean G.o.d, The man-destroying Cyclopses, inhabit, _25 On this wild sh.o.r.e, their solitary caves, And one of these, named Polypheme. has caught us To be his slaves; and so, for all delight Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody, We keep this lawless giant's wandering flocks. _30 My sons indeed on far declivities, Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep, But I remain to fill the water-casks, Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering Some impious and abominable meal _35 To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!

And now I must sc.r.a.pe up the littered floor With this great iron rake, so to receive My absent master and his evening sheep In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see _40 My children tending the flocks. .h.i.therward.

Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures Even now the same, as when with dance and song You brought young Bacchus to Althaea's halls?

NOTE: _23 waste B.; wild 1824; 'cf. 26, where waste is cancelled for wild'

(Loc.o.c.k).

CHORUS OF SATYRS:

STROPHE: Where has he of race divine _45 Wandered in the winding rocks?

Here the air is calm and fine For the father of the flocks;-- Here the gra.s.s is soft and sweet, And the river-eddies meet _50 In the trough beside the cave, Bright as in their fountain wave.-- Neither here, nor on the dew Of the lawny uplands feeding?

Oh, you come!--a stone at you _55 Will I throw to mend your breeding;-- Get along, you horned thing, Wild, seditious, rambling!

EPODE: An Iacchic melody To the golden Aphrodite _60 Will I lift, as erst did I Seeking her and her delight With the Maenads, whose white feet To the music glance and fleet.

Bacchus, O beloved, where, _65 Shaking wide thy yellow hair, Wanderest thou alone, afar?

To the one-eyed Cyclops, we, Who by right thy servants are, Minister in misery, _70 In these wretched goat-skins clad, Far from thy delights and thee.

SILENUS: Be silent, sons; command the slaves to drive The gathered flocks into the rock-roofed cave.