OLET me breathe what all men pray! Would Chiron were alive, whom Philyra bore To Cronus, Heaven's own son, in years of yore, Long-vanished chief of widely-ruling sway. O that neath Pelion's lofty brow His uncouth form were reigning now; For human pains his pity moved, And dearly all mankind he loved. He too the wise Asclepius taught, Who many a balm in mercy sought The bruised and broken frame to stay, And like a hero strove all suffering to allay. For lo! before her babe was born Proud Phlegyas' daughter, as Apollo bade, By golden arrows of the Huntress Maid Fell stricken in her room, and passed forlorn Adown the grey and ghostly path; So stern is an Immortal's wrath, Which in her folly she defied, For she who once had been the bride Of flowing-haired Apollo's bed Without her father's knowledge wed Another spouse, of mortal earth, While in her womb she bare the seed of heavenly birth. She for no marriage banquetings would bide, Nor wait the chime of hymeneal lays, Such as the girl companions of a bride With merry voices in the evening raise: For she like many others held most dear What lay beyond her own familiar ways, As mortals oft who scorn their homely sphere On things far distant bend a foolish gaze, Pursuing idle dreams and hopes unsatisfied. And richly-robed Coronis then Such madness seized, who letting fancy rove To some Arcadian stranger gave her love, Yet 'scaped not so the Loxian watcher's ken. For though at Pytho he abode, The royal shrine's all-knowing god By his unerring Father taught Saw for himself the wrong she wrought; For one who scorns to use deceit On others, none may hope to cheat; Nor man nor god, in thought nor deed, Apollo's guileless mind can e'er by guile mislead. But when her treachery he knew And traffic base with one of strangers' blood, Ischys, the son of Elatus, -- the god Bade his own sister wreak the vengeance due. Then Artemis in awful might To Lacereia sped forthright, (For by the Boebian mere she dwelt), Whose lawless soul her ruin dealt), And there her shafts the sinner slew; And many with her perished too, As sometimes on a mountain's side A single spark lays low great forests far and wide. But when her kin had placed her on the pyre, And the fierce flames ran round, Apollo said: 'No more can I endure by cruel fire To burn my offspring with its mother dead.' And with one stride he ripped the babe away, For cloven apart for him the burning bier Left a clear path to where the body lay. To Chiron then he gave his child to rear, And teach him how to heal all ills that men acquire. And all who came Asclepius cured; Those whom some taint of nature had laid low, And those whose limbs were wounded by the blow Of far-flung stone or bronzen-gleaming sword, Whom summer suns too fiercely smite, And whom the freezing winters bite; Relieving each peculiar pain, And cleansing all from scar and blane. And one he healed with spells benign, And one with soothing anodyne. With simples too their flesh he bound, Or with the keen-edged knife restored the festering wound. Yet wisdom too is thrall to gain; And even he, beguiled by glittering gold, To work forbidden arts his knowledge sold, And raised from death a man already slain. But Zeus with thunder-blast of fire Struck through them both in sudden ire, From both their bosoms drove the breath, And with bright lightning wrought their death. O mortals, seek no more from Heaven Than God to mortal man hath given; Know what a course is ours to run, And what we are, and how our destiny is spun! |