But thro' Azilis' gloomy forests stray'd : When PHOEBUS from Myrtufa's brow survey'd, And to his lovely bride (whofe faving hand From the fierce lion free'd the ravag'd land) With pleasing favour fhew'd the typic race, 130 PHOEBUS Strophe 2. Once without help of dart or spear Engag'd with lion fierce the lovely maid! Forth, forth, dread Centaur from thy bow'r, To view the triumphs of a female power. View with what courage the maintains the fight, While her great spirit foars beyond her might: She knows not fear :-relate her happy fire, What root its birth to branch fo glorious gave? What mortal to the honour may afpire, Of daughter fo undaunted, great, and brave? Antiftrophe 2. On the virgin, Chiron, fay, And crop her virgin flower, and full-blown charms ?" Soften'd to fmiles his features grave, This answer fober Chiron gave; "Who love's purer flames wou'd share By sweet perfuafion fteak upon the fair, And with fond elegance of paffion move, The yielding fair one to a virtuous love : In modeft hints first fighing out their flame, And delicate alike, tho' bolder grown: For Gods and men hate those who know not fhame. But fhock the ear with ribbald lewdness tone. • The Spartans. Epode 2. But thou, of truth great deity, Thus alone to speak hath led: Whence defcends the royal maid? Every path that mortals tread; Knowledge paft our power to tell : When her pregnant bowels fwell: Sooner when waves roll rough and tempests roar, Number the fands, that raging crowd the shore: Strophe 3. All things are open to thy eyes, Both where they flow, and whence they rife: Yet if with one fo wife and great, 'Tis granted me, dread king, myself to meet : Hear what the Centaur hath to tell : Deftin'd the maid's, you fought this vale: Hither thou cam'ft her love to fhare, And to Jove's gardens o'er the feas fhall bear : Thither thy people from their +isle shall tend, And to the vale-furrounded hill afcend, Where rule from thee Cyrene fhall receive; Now for thy fake glad Lybia to the fair In golden domes reception waits to give, And yield her of her fpacious empire share. * + Tnera. Antiftrophe PHOEBUS no choir, Cyrene, more divine, Nor ftate more favour'd, e'er beholds than thine : Mindful for ever of the ravish'd dame Whofe wond'rous charms infpir'd and blest his flame: And hence fuperior honours are bestow'd By grateful fons of Battus on their God. SING IO Pæan, fing the facred found; The Delphian people to thy honour found: What time thy golden arrows plenteous flew, And the fell Python, dreadful ferpent, flew: Antiftrophe 3. There fhall they rule, their laws the fame, And make of men's delight the man, a God: There her beauteous city guarding, Her Carnean's fill rewarding 135 140 Swift In the Pythian's facred toils: give Fame to thofe realms, whence all their fame receive, &c. Ver. 142. And the fell Python, &c.] The afcribing this exploit to Apollo seems evidently to have arifen from a corrupt tradition of what the Redeemer was to do, a tradition founded on the promife of God, that "the feed of the woman fhould bruife the ferpent's head." We see (as was before remarked, note 34.) that this triumphant found of Io Paan, took its original from this victory of the God over the ferpent, which confirms the agreement noted above between it and Hallelujah, which is an acclamation of victory a: d triumph: as here the people are introduced finging this fong of joy to their Apollo for the deliverance wrought by him, fo in the Revelation xii. 9. we read, that when the great dragon was caft out, that old ferpent called the devil and fatan,-when he was caft out into * Teleficrates. Swift from thy bow they pierc'd the monster's heart, While still the people cry'd, "Elance the dart :" Each shaft with acclamations they attend, "Io, fend forth, another arrow fend: "Thee thy bleft mother bore, and pleas'd affign'd "The willing Saviour of diftreft mankind." into the earth and fubdued, a loud voice was heard in heaven, faying, "Now is come falvation and frength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Chrift, &c. See ver. 13. and xx. 2, 3. It is obferveable, that Callimachus only explains the name In, and that of emitting, which nothing affects the explanation given in the before mentioned note: for Пainor, Pean, muft indifputably come from was, percutio, ferio, to ftrike, emit, fend forth; and Scapula immediately fays, " Apollo was called Paan, παρατο παίειν, à feriendo, quod a fagittis Pythonem ferpentem confoAnd we must remember, that In (however deduced) is finally derived from E, to be, which comes from Ew, and whence is derived Inu. See Stephens's Thefaurus, and Scapula's Lexicon. So that In, Fe, or reverfed E7 immediately expreffes the effence, thou art : and muft be appropriated to the divinity, as before proved. The connection between ', fifi, infi, &c. are well worth the notice of the critical and learned etymologift. I fhall have occafion to speak more of Python in the hymn to Delos. derit." Ver. 147. Thee, &c.] The people in their acclamations to their triumphant deity do not barely fay, that he was born, the Saviour, &c. or that his father begat him a Saviour, &c. but that his mother bore him, • Ευθυ σε ΜΗΤΗΡ Γεπατ ̓ ΑΟΣΣΗΤΗΡΑ. for we must remark, that according to the promife, it was the SEED of the WOMAN that was to bruise the ferpent's head. I know not of any one word in the English language, which fully expreffes aconteça in the original; the ety 145 ENVY mologifts explain it by Bonterra autoμatus arse ooons xa novos, one that lends his affiftance entirely of his own accord, without being called upon, or demanded, &c. nor can I tell of any better method of expreffing it, than "a willing, voluntary Saviour and deliverer," and I know not of any thing which can give us an idea of the word fave his gracious name and mercy, who loved us and gave himself for us, Ephef. v. 2. a ransom for all, 1 Tim. ii. 6. who put away fin by the facrifice of himself, Heb. ix. 26. and of his OWN WILL begat us with the word of his truth, James i. 18. A learned friend obferves, "That the true interpretation of Gen. iii. 20. will throw confiderable light on this expreffion. The words are, Adam called his wife's name Eve, because fhe was the mother of all living. On merely reading our translation, there are few perfons but take living for a word of the plural number, whereas it is really fingular, and may be interpreted either living or life (vivens or vita). The learned Dr. Hodges (Elibu, p. 252, 3. 4to edit.) has the following remarks on this verfe. "The words, says he, I think ought to be rendered, Adam upon the promife being given) called his wife's name CHaVaH, because he was to be (futura effet, fays a commentator cited by Poole) the mother of all or univerfal life, as the original may, I had almoft faid, must be rendred.-Eve's name is undoubtedly derived from the verb CHaVaH, as our tranflators inform us in the margin, which begins with a CHeth I, whofe expofition, according to Marius, is to make manifeft, fhewforth, declare, demonftrate, exhibit, &c. and is used in Daniel for a particular exhibition and declaration, of thofe eventual realities, which ENVY, grown pale with felf-confuming cares, Thus fhed her poifon in APOLLO's ears: "I hate the bard, who cannot pour his fong, "Full as the Sea, and as the torrent ftrong," The fiend APOLLO fcorning, fpurn'd afide With angry foot indignant, and replied: Headlong defcends the deep Affyrian flood, "But with pollution foul'd, and black with mud; * were adumbrated and enigmatically reprefented in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. It is evident, I think, that the words when firft delivered were understood by Eve in this fenfe from what he fays upon the birth of Cain, I have gotten the man, the Jehovah, as the words are rendred by very learned men. See Glaffius, Poole, Hutchinfon, &c. Had Eve attended to every particular of this prophecy, fhe would have looked farther for the completion of it. A mother only being mentioned as being to have the fole honour and bleffing of producing this univerfal life (who was properly fo called, as he was the author and giver of life) fhe might have inferred, that Cain could not be the promised feed, fince he was conceived by Adam's knowing her.. A future Eve was therefore pointed out, who fhould produce a man without the affiftance of man, and fo be a mother in an exclufive fenfe. This man, or production was likewife to be all, or univerfal life, the fountain of life, or reflorer of immortality." Hath not the poet preferved the tradition with remarkable exactnefs? He does not fay, and bone acconing, thou was born the Saviour, &c. but ευθύ σε μητηρ γεινατ' άοσσητηρα, thy mother bore thee a Saviour, &c. 150 155 "While Ver. 149. Envy, &c.] It has been imagined by many commentators, that this was a fecret infinuation of the attempts made by fome envious perfon to depreciate Callimachus in the eye of his patron and Apollo, Ptolemy, and of the fruitleffness of the attempt; and this opinion is confirmed by what Callimachus fays of himself, that he fung xoa facxanns. His enemies took the handle from the minutenefs of our author's genius, and the fmallnefs of his performances: he always profeft himself a great admirer of concilenefs, the Brazucia, and is faid to have had conftantly in his mouth sya Bior, peya xaxor, a great book, a great evil. It is moreover conjectured, that the author in the words of envy alludes to fome poem well known in his times, probably the Argonautic of his cotemporary Apollonius Rhodius, between whom and Cal limachus there appears to have been great jealoufy; whofe Argonautics he might well characterife by the title of worros, as their fubject is principally the expedition in the Euxine fea, and as that poet begins them thus, -Αρχόμενος στο φοίβε, &c Μνησομαι οι ΠΟΝΤΟΙ Ο κατά τομα, &c. *And I leave it to the reflection of every confiderate reader, whether the fenfe here propofed be not much more pertinent to the then ftate of nian, than that in which they are, I doubt, commonly underftood. 7. P. The "While the Meliffe facred waters bring, "Not from each ftream, but from the pureft fpring, "From whose small urn the limpid current rills "In clear perfection down the gladden'd hills." HAIL king, once more thy conquering arm extend, To final ruin rancorous Envy fend! The fcholiaft informs us, that Callimachus was Willing to wound, and yet afraid to ftrike, Envy thy latent foe fuggefted thus, 160 End of the Hymn to APOLLO. |