Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 1) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/129

Fair as the Guardian of the Capitol,
Soft as the Swan; a large and lovely Fowl;
His Tongue, his prating Tongue had changed him quite
To sooty Blackness from the purest White.
The Story of his Change shall here be told;
In Thessaly there liv'd a Nymph of old,
Coronis nam'd; a peerless Maid she shin'd,
Confest the fairest of the fairer Kind.
Apollo lov'd her, till her Guilt he knew,
While true she was or while he thought her true.
But his own Bird the Raven chanc'd to find
The false one with a secret Rival join'd.
Coronis begg'd him to suppress the Tale,
But could not with repeated Pray'rs prevail.
His milk-white Pinions to the God he ply'd;
The busy Daw flew with him, Side by Side,
And by a thousand teizing Questions drew
Th' important Secret from him as they flew.
The Daw gave honest Counsel, tho' despis'd,
And tedious in her Tattle, thus advis'd.
"Stay silly Bird, th' ill-natur'd Task refuse,
"Nor be the Bearer of unwelcome News.
"Be warn'd by my Example: you discern
"What now I am, and what I was shall learn.
"My foolish Honesty was all my Crime;
"Then hear my Story. Once upon a Time,
"The two-shap'd Ericthonius had his Birth
"(Without a Mother) from the teeming Earth;
"Minerva nurs'd him, and the Infant laid
"Within a Chest, of twining Osiers made.
"The Daughters of King Cecrops undertook
"To guard the Chest, commanded not to look
"On what was hid within. I stood to see
"The Charge obey'd, perch'd on a neighb'ring Tree.
"The Sisters Pandrosos and Herse keep
"The strict Command; Aglauros needs would peep,

"And