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Milton's Style imitated, in a Translation of a Story out of the Third Eneid.

L

OST in the gloomy terror of the night
We ftruck upon the coast where Ætna lies,
Horrid and wafte, its entrails fraught with fire,
That now cafts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds,
Vast showers of ashes hov'ring in the smoke;
Now belches molten stones and ruddy flame
Incens'd, or tears up mountains by the roots,
Or flings a broken rock aloft in air.
The bottom works with smother'd fire, involv'd
In peftilential vapours, stench and smoke.

'Tis faid, that thunder-struck Enceladus
Groveling beneath th' incumbent mountain's weight
Lies stretch'd fupine, eternal prey of flames;
And when he heaves against the burning load,
Reluctant, to invert his broiling limbs,
A fudden earthquake shoots through all the ifle,
And Ætna thunders dreadful under ground,
Then pours out smoke in wreathing curls convolv'd,
And shades the fun's bright orb, and blots out day.

Here

Here in the shelter of the woods we lodg'd,
And frighted heard strange sounds and dismal yells,
Nor faw from whence they came; for all the night
A murky storm deep louring o'er our heads
Hung imminent, that with impervious gloom
Oppos'd itself to Cynthia's filver ray,
And shaded all beneath. But now the fun
With orient beams had chas'd the dewy night
From earth and heav'n; all nature ftood difclos'd:
When looking on the neighbouring woods we faw
The ghaftly figure of a man unknown,
An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay
Sat in looks, his face impair'd and worn
With marks of famine, speaking fore distress;
His locks were tangled, and his shaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.
He first advanc'd in hafte; but when he faw
Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career
Stopt short, he back recoil'd as one surpris'd:
But foon recovering speed, he ran, he flew
Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries

Our ears affail'd: " By heav'n's eternal fires,

:

" By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn,

" And bear me hence to any distant shore,

So I may shun this savage race accurst.

" "Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late
"With sword and fire o'erturn'd Neptunian Troy,
"And laid the labour of the Gods in duft;
For which if so the sad offence deferves,

Plung'd in the deep, for ever let me lie Whelm'd under seas; if death must be my doom, "Let man inflict it, and I die well-pleas'd."

He ended here, and now profufe of tears In fuppliant mood fell proftrate at our feet; We bade him speak from whence, and what he was, And how by stress of fortune sunk thus low; Anchises too with friendly aspect mild Gave him his hand, sure pledge of amity, When, thus encourag'd, he began his tale. I'm one, says he, of poor defcent, my name Is Achæmenides, my country Greece, Ulyffes' fad compeer, who, whilft he fled The raging Cyclops, left me here behind Disconsolate, forlorn; within the cave He left me, giant Polypheme's dark cave; A dungeon wide and horrible, the walls On all fides furr'd with mouldy damps, and hung With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs, His dire repast: himself of mighty size, Hoarse in his voice, and in his visage grim, Intractable, that riots on the flesh

Of

Of mortal men, and swills the vital blood. Him did I see snatch up with horrid grafp Two sprawling Greeks, in either hand a man: I saw him when with huge tempestuous sway He dash'd and broke 'em on the grundfil edge; The pavement swam in blood, the walls around Were spatter'd o'er with brains. He lapt the blood,, And chew'd the tender flesh still warm with life, That fwell'd and heav'd itself amidst his teeth. As sensible of pain. Not less mean while Our chief incens'd, and studious of revenge,. Plots his deftruction, which he thus effects. The giant, gorg'd with flesh, and wine, and blood,, Lay stretch'd at length and snoring in his den, Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'er-charged With purple wine and cruddled gore confused. We gather'd round, and to his single eye,. The single eye that in his forehead glar'd Like a full moon, or a broad burnish'd shield,, A forky staff we dextrously apply'd, Which, in the spacious socket turning round,, Scoop'd out the big round gelly from its orb.. But let me not thus interpose delays; Fly, mortals, fly this curst detested race: A hundred of the same stupendous size, A hundred Cyclops live among the hills,

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1...

Gigantic

Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along
With horrid strides o'er the high mountains tops,
Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard
Their voice and tread, oft seen 'em as they past,
Sculking and scowring down, half dead with fear.
Thrice has the moon wash'd all her orb in light,
Thrice travell'd o'er, in her obscure sojourn,
The realms of night inglorious, since I've liv'd
Amidft these woods, gleaning from thornsand shrubs
A wretched sustenance. As thus he spoke,
We saw descending from a neighb'ring hill
Blind Polypheme; by weary steps and flow
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explor'd his way: around, his woolly flocks
Attended grazing; to the well-known shore
He bent his course, and on the margin stood,
A hideous monster, terrible, deform'd;
Full in the midst of his high front there gap'd
The spacious hollow where his eye-ball roll'd,
A ghaftly orifice; he rins'd the wound,
And wash'd away the strings and clotted blood
That cak'd within; then stalking through the deep
He fords the ocean, while the topmost wave

Scarce reaches up his middle fide; we stood

Amaz'd be sure, a sudden horror chill

Ran through each nerve, and thrill'd in ev'ry vein,