Thus in reproach and prayer the queen express'd 400 The rage and grief contending in her breast; Unmoved remain'd the ruler of the sky, And from his throne return'd this stern reply: ''Twas thus I deem'd thy haughty soul would bear The dire, though just revenge which I prepare Against a nation thy peculiar care: No less Dione might for Thebes contend. Nor Bacchus less his native town defend; Yet these in silence see the Fates fulfil Their work, and reverence our superior will: 410 For by the black infernal Styx I swear, (That dreadful oath which binds the Thunderer) 'Tis fix'd, th' irrevocable doom of Jove; No force can bend me, no persuasion more. Haste then, Cyllenius, through the liquid air; Go, mount the winds, and to the shades repair; Bid hell's black monarch my commands obey, And give up Laius to the realms of day, Whose ghost yet shivering on Cocytus' sand Expects its passage to the further strand: 420 Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear These pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear; That, from his exiled brother, swell'd with pride Of foreign forces and his Argive bride, Almighty Jove commands him to detain The promised empire, and alternate reign: Be this the cause of more than mortal hate; The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into fate.' The god obeys, and to his feet applies Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies; 430 His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread, And veil'd the starry glories of his head. He seized the wand that causes sleep to fly, Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye; That drives the dead to dark Tartarean coasts, Or back to life compels the wandering ghosts. Thus through the parting clouds the son of May Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way; Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight, Now springs aloft, and towers th' ethereal height: 440 Then wheeling down the steep of heaven he flies, And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies. Meantime the banish'd Polynices roves (His Thebes abandon'd) through the Aonian groves, While future realms his wandering thoughts delight, His daily vision, and his dream by night; Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye, From whence he sees his absent brother fly, With transport views the airy rule his own, And swells on an imaginary throne. 450 Fain would he cast a tedious age away, And live out all in one triumphant day. He chides the lazy progress of the sun, And bids the year with swifter motion run: With anxious hopes his craving mind is toss'd And all his joys in length of wishes lost.