Blind is the rage of passion's fire, Will not be governed, brooks no reins, And scoffs at death; nay, hostile swords It gladly courts. Spare, O ye gods, be merciful, 595 That he who tamed the sea may live. But much we fear, for the lord of the deep Is wroth that his realm of the second lot Should be subdued. The thoughtless youth who dared to drive His father's sacred chariot, Was by those fires, which o'er the heavens 600 He scattered in his mad career, Himself consumed. The beaten path has never proved The way of danger. Walk ye then Where your forefathers safely trod, And keep great nature's holy laws 605 Inviolate. Whoever dipped the famous oars Of that bold bark in the rushing sea; Whoe'er despoiled old Pelion Of the thick, dark shade of his sacred groves; Whoever dared the clashing rocks, 610 And, after countless perils passed, His vessel moored on a barbarous shore, Hoping to fare on his homeward way The master of the golden fleece, All by a fearful end appeased 615 The offended sea. First Tiphys, tamer of the deep, Abandoned to an untrained hand His vessel's helm. On a foreign shore, Far from his native land he died; And now within a common tomb, 620 'Midst unknown ghosts, he lies at rest. In wrathful memory of her king Lost on the sea, did Aulis then Within her sluggish harbor hold The impatient ships. Then he, the tuneful Muse's son, 625 At whose sweet strains the streams stood still, The winds were silent, and the birds, Their songs forgotten, flocked to him,[12] The whole wood following after--he, Over the Thracian fields was hurled 630 In scattered fragments; but his head Down Hebrus' grieving stream was borne. The well-remembered Styx he reached, And Tartarus, whence ne'er again Would he return. The wingéd sons of Boreas Alcides slew, and Neptune's son 635 Who in a thousand changing forms Could clothe himself. But after peace On land and sea had been proclaimed, And after savage Pluto's realm Had been revealed to mortal eyes, Then did Alcides' self, alive, On burning Oeta's top lie down, And give his body to the flames; 640 For sore distressed was he, consumed By Deianira's deadly gift, The double blood.