Then tells the youth how to his wondering eyes
  Embattled armies from the field should rise. 
     He sows the teeth at Pallas’s command,
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  And flings the future people from his hand. 
  The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows;
  And now the pointed spears advance in rows;
  Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,
  Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts: 
  O’er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,
  A growing host, a crop of men and arms. 
     So through the parting stage a figure rears
  Its body up, and limb by limb appears
  By just degrees; till all the man arise,
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  And in his full proportion strikes the eyes. 
     Cadmus surprised, and startled at the sight
  Of his new foes, prepared himself for fight: 
  When one cried out, ’Forbear, fond man, forbear
  To mingle in a blind, promiscuous war.’ 
  This said, he struck his brother to the ground,
  Himself expiring by another’s wound;
  Nor did the third his conquest long survive,
  Dying ere scarce he had begun to live. 
     The dire example ran through all the field,
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  Till heaps of brothers were by brothers killed;
  The furrows swam in blood:  and only five
  Of all the vast increase were left alive. 
  Echion one, at Pallas’s command,
  Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand;
  And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,
  Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners takes: 
  So founds a city on the promised earth,
  And gives his new Boeotian empire birth. 
     Here Cadmus reigned; and now one would have guessed
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  The royal founder in his exile blessed: 
  Long did he live within his new abodes,
  Allied by marriage to the deathless gods;
  And, in a fruitful wife’s embraces old,
  A long increase of children’s children told: 
  But no frail man, however great or high,
  Can be concluded blessed before he die. 
  Actaeon was the first of all his race,
  Who grieved his grandsire in his borrowed face;
  Condemned by stern Diana to bemoan
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  The branching horns, and visage not his own;
  To shun his once-loved dogs, to bound away,
  And from their huntsman to become their prey. 
  And yet consider why the change was wrought,
  You’ll find it his misfortune, not his fault;
  Or if a fault, it was the fault of chance: 
  For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?

  THE TRANSFORMATION OF ACTAEON INTO A STAG.

     In a fair chase a shady mountain stood,
  Well stored with game, and marked with trails of blood. 
  Here did the huntsmen till the heat of day
  Pursue the stag, and load themselves with prey;
  When thus Actaeon calling to the rest: 
  ‘My friends,’ says he, ’our sport is at the best. 
  The sun is high advanced, and downward sheds
  His burning beams directly on our heads;