IDYLL XXII.

The Sons of Leda

    The pair I sing, that AEgis-armed Zeus
    Gave unto Leda; Castor and the dread
    Of bruisers Polydeuces, whensoe’er
    His harnessed hands were lifted for the fray. 
    Twice and again I sing the manly sons
    Of Leda, those Twin Brethren, Sparta’s own: 
    Who shield the soldier on the deadly scarp,
    The horse wild-plunging o’er the crimson field,
    The ship that, disregarding in her pride
    Star-set and star-rise, meets disastrous gales:—­
    Such gales as pile the billows mountain-high,
    E’en at their own wild will, round stem or stern: 
    Dash o’er the hold, the timbers rive in twain,
    Till mast and tackle dangle in mid-air
    Shivered like toys, and, as the night wears on,
    The rain of heaven falls fast, and, lashed by wind
    And iron hail, broad ocean rings again. 
    Then can they draw from out the nether abyss
    Both craft and crew, each deeming he must die: 
    Lo the winds cease, and o’er the burnished deep
    Comes stillness; this way flee the clouds and that;
    And shine out clear the Great Bear and the Less,
    And, ’twixt the Asses dimly seen, the Crib
    Foretells fair voyage to the mariner. 
    O saviours, O companions of mankind,
    Matchless on horse or harp, in lists or lay;
    Which of ye twain demands my earliest song? 
    Of both I sing; of Polydeuces first.

      Argo, escaped the two inrushing rocks,
    And snow-clad Pontus with his baleful jaws,
    Came to Bebrycia with her heaven-sprung freight;
    There by one ladder disembarked a host
    Of Heroes from the decks of Jason’s ship. 
    On the low beach, to leeward of the cliff,
    They leapt, and piled their beds, and lit their fires: 
    Castor meanwhile, the bridler of the steed,
    And Polydeuces of the nut-brown face,
    Had wandered from their mates; and, wildered both,
    Searched through the boskage of the hill, and found
    Hard by a slab of rock a bubbling spring
    Brimful of purest water.  In the depths
    Below, like crystal or like silver gleamed
    The pebbles:  high above it pine and plane
    And poplar rose, and cypress tipt with green;
    With all rich flowers that throng the mead, when wanes
    The Spring, sweet workshops of the furry bee. 
    There sat and sunned him one of giant bulk
    And grisly mien:  hard knocks had stov’n his ears: 
    Broad were his shoulders, vast his orbed chest;
    Like a wrought statue rose his iron frame: 
    And nigh the shoulder on each brawny arm
    Stood out the muscles, huge as rolling stones
    Caught by some rain-swoln river and shapen smooth
    By its wild eddyings:  and o’er nape and spine
    Hung, balanced by the claws, a lion’s skin. 
    Him Leda’s conquering son accosted first:—­