sound;
  Transported thus he heard the frantic rout,
  And raved and maddened at the distant shout. 
     A spacious circuit on the hill there stood,
  Level and wide, and skirted round with wood;
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  Here the rash Pentheus, with unhallowed eyes,
  The howling dames and mystic orgies spies. 
  His mother sternly viewed him where he stood,
  And kindled into madness as she viewed: 
  Her leafy javelin at her son she cast,
  And cries, ’The boar that lays our country waste! 
  The boar, my sisters! aim the fatal dart,
  And strike the brindled monster to the heart.’ 
     Pentheus astonished heard the dismal sound,
  And sees the yelling matrons gathering round: 
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  He sees, and weeps at his approaching fate,
  And begs for mercy, and repents too late. 
  ‘Help, help! my aunt Autonoee,’ he cried;
  ‘Remember how your own Actaeon died.’ 
  Deaf to his cries, the frantic matron crops
  One stretched-out arm, the other Ino lops. 
  In vain does Pentheus to his mother sue,
  And the raw bleeding stumps presents to view: 
  His mother howled; and heedless of his prayer,
  Her trembling hand she twisted in his hair,
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  ‘And this,’ she cried, ‘shall be Agave’s share,’
  When from the neck his struggling head she tore,
  And in her hands the ghastly visage bore,
  With pleasure all the hideous trunk survey;
  Then pulled and tore the mangled limbs away,
  As starting in the pangs of death it lay. 
  Soon as the wood its leafy honours casts,
  Blown off and scattered by autumnal blasts,
  With such a sudden death lay Pentheus slain,
  And in a thousand pieces strowed the plain.
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     By so distinguishing a judgment awed,
  The Thebans tremble, and confess the god.

BOOK IV.

THE STORY OF SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITES.

  How Salmacis, with weak enfeebling streams
  Softens the body, and unnerves the limbs,
  And what the secret cause, shall here be shown;
  The cause is secret, but the effect is known. 
     The Naiads nursed an infant heretofore,
  That Cytherea once to Hermes bore: 
  From both the illustrious authors of his race
  The child was named; nor was it hard to trace
  Both the bright parents through the infant’s face. 
  When fifteen years, in Ida’s cool retreat,
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  The boy had told, he left his native seat,
  And sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil;
  The pleasure lessened the attending toil. 
  With eager steps the Lycian fields he crossed,
  And fields that border on the Lycian coast;
  A river here he viewed so lovely bright,
  It showed the bottom in a fairer light,
  Nor kept a sand concealed from human sight. 
  The stream produced nor slimy ooze, nor weeds,
  Nor miry rushes, nor the spiky reeds;