“I ceased, when affable the goddess cried: 
’Observe, and in the truths I speak confide;
The oracular seer frequents the Pharian coast,
From whose high bed my birth divine I boast;
Proteus, a name tremendous o’er the main,
The delegate of Neptune’s watery reign. 
Watch with insidious care his known abode;
There fast in chains constrain the various god;
Who bound, obedient to superior force,
Unerring will prescribe your destined course. 
If, studious on your realms, you then demand
Their state, since last you left your natal land,
Instant the god obsequious will disclose
Bright tracts of glory or a cloud of woes.’

“She ceased; and suppliant thus I made reply: 
’O goddess I on thy aid my hopes rely;
Dictate propitious to my duteous ear,
What arts can captivate the changeful seer;
For perilous the assay, unheard the toil,
To elude the prescience of a god by guile.’

“Thus to the goddess mild my suit I end. 
Then she:  ’Obedient to my rule attend: 
When through the zone of heaven the mounted sun
Hath journeyed half, and half remains to run;
The seer, while zephyrs curl the swelling deep,
Basks on the breezy shore, in grateful sleep,
His oozy limbs.  Emerging from the wave,
The Phocas swift surround his rocky cave,
Frequent and full; the consecrated train
Of her, whose azure trident awes the main;
There wallowing warm, the enormous herd exhales
An oily steam, and taints the noontide gales. 
To that recess, commodious for surprise,
When purple light shall next suffuse the skies,
With me repair; and from thy warrior-band
Three chosen chiefs of dauntless soul command;
Let their auxiliar force befriend the toil;
For strong the god, and perfected in guile. 
Strech’d on the shelly shore, he first surveys
The flouncing herd ascending from the seas;
Their number summ’d, reposed in sleep profound
The scaly charge their guardian god surround;
So with his battening flocks the careful swain
Abides pavilion’d on the grassy plain. 
With powers united, obstinately bold,
Invade him, couch’d amid the scaly fold;
Instant he wears, elusive of the rape,
The mimic force of every savage shape;
Or glides with liquid lapse a murmuring stream,
Or, wrapp’d in flame, he glows at every limb. 
Yet, still retentive, with redoubled might,
Through each vain passive form constrain his flight
But when, his native shape renamed, he stands
Patient of conquest, and your cause demands;
The cause that urged the bold attempt declare,
And soothe the vanquish’d with a victor’s prayer. 
The bands releas’d, implore the seer to say
What godhead interdicts the watery way. 
Who, straight propitious, in prophetic strain
Will teach you to repass the unmeasured main. 
She ceased, and bounding from the shelfy shore,
Round the descending nymph the waves resounding roar.