His hounds, unknowing of his change, pursue The chace, and their mistaken master slew. Peneian Daphne too was there, to see Apollo's love before, and now his tree. The adjoining fane the assembled Greeks expressed, And hunting of the Caledonian beast. Oenides' valour, and his envied prize; The fatal power of Atalanta's eyes; Diana's vengeance on the victor shown, The murdress mother, and consuming son; The Volscian queen extended on the plain; The treason punished, and the traitor slain. The rest were various huntings, well designed, And savage beasts destroyed, of every kind. The graceful goddess was arrayed in green; } About her feet were little beagles seen, } That watched, with upward eyes, the motions of their queen. } Her legs were buskined, and the left before, } In act to shoot, a silver bow she bore, } And at her back a painted quiver wore. } She trod a wexing moon, that soon would wane, And, drinking borrowed light, be filled again; With downcast eyes, as seeming to survey The dark dominions, her alternate sway. Before her stood a woman in her throes, And called Lucina's aid, her burden to disclose. All these the painter drew with such command, That Nature snatched the pencil from his hand, Ashamed and angry that his art could feign, And mend the tortures of a mother's pain. Theseus beheld the fanes of every God, And thought his mighty cost was well bestowed. So princes now their poets should regard; But few can write, and fewer can reward. The theatre thus raised, the lists enclosed, And all with vast magnificence disposed, We leave the monarch pleased, and haste to bring The knights to combat, and their arms to sing. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 151: Juno.] [Footnote 152: Here Dryden mistakes his author's meaning, though he employs his word. Chaucer says, "Pity renneth sone in gentel herte:" That is, in the heart of a man of gentle, or noble birth.] [Footnote 153: The bars were the palisades of the lists. Upon one occasion, when a challenger, in a cause of treason, had died before the day of combat, a court of chivalry appointed his dead body to be brought into the lists, completely armed, and adjudged that the defendant should be held conqueror, if he could throw it over the bars. But the corpse and arms being weighty, the sun set before he could accomplish this, and he was condemned for treason as conquered in the trial by combat. See Sir David Lindsay on Heraldry, MS. Advocates' Library.] [Footnote 154: This strange association of persons did not shock the times of Chaucer.] [Footnote 155: Chaucer reads more appropriately, "under a bent."] [Footnote 156: Rubeus and Puella.--DRYDEN.] [Footnote 157: Dryden has here omitted a striking circumstance: A wolf there stood before him at his feet, With eyen red, and of a man he eat. ] PALAMON AND ARCITE; OR,