Priam, to whom the story was unknown, As dead, deplored his metamorphosed son; A Cenotaph his name and title kept, And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers, wept. This pious office Paris did not share; Absent alone, and author of the war, Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue. A thousand ships were manned, to sail the sea; } Nor had their just resentments found delay, } Had not the winds and waves opposed their way. } At Aulis, with united powers, they meet, But there, cross winds or calms detained the fleet. Now, while they raise an altar on the shore, And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore, A boding sign the priests and people see: A snake of size immense ascends a tree, And in the leafy summit spied a nest, Which, o'er her callow young, a sparrow pressed. Eight were the birds unfledged; their mother flew, And hovered round her care, but still in view; Till the fierce reptile first devoured the brood, Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her blood. This dire ostent the fearful people view; Calchas alone, by Phœbus taught, foreknew What heaven decreed; and, with a smiling glance, Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance. O Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours, But long delays shall first afflict our powers; Nine years of labour the nine birds portend, The tenth shall in the town's destruction end. The serpent, who his maw obscene had filled, The branches in his curled embraces held; But as in spires he stood, he turned to stone; The stony snake retained the figure still his own. Yet not for this the wind-bound navy weighed; Slack were their sails, and Neptune disobeyed. Some thought him loth the town should be destroyed, Whose building had his hands divine employed; Not so the seer, who knew, and known foreshowed, The virgin Phœbe, with a virgin's blood, Must first be reconciled; the common cause Prevailed; and pity yielding to the laws, Fair Iphigenia, the devoted maid, Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes arrayed. All mourn her fate, but no relief appeared; The royal victim bound, the knife already reared; When that offended Power, who caused their woe, Relenting ceased her wrath, and stopped the coming blow. A mist before the ministers she cast, And in the virgin's room a hind she placed. The oblation slain, and Phœbe reconciled, The storm was hushed, and dimpled ocean smiled; A favourable gale arose from shore, Which to the port desired the Grecian gallies bore. Full in the midst of this created space, Betwixt heaven, earth, and skies, there stands a place Confining on all three, with triple bound; } Whence all things, though remote, are viewed around, }