Page:Aratus The Phenomena and Diosemeia.pdf/67

When Scorpio rises with the bright Antar, 660
Orion marks that signal from afar;
Nor turns to view the monster form again,
But hastens downward to the western main.
Pardon, chaste Dian, if I now relate,
As ancient bards have sung, Orion's fate.
He rashly dar'd, they say, on Chian strand
To touch thy virgin vest with impious hand,
What time invited by Œnopion came
The giant warrior in pursuit of game;
And slaughter'd heaps, and vacant forests told 670
The skill and vigour of the hunter bold.
A mightier beast, that could his might withstand,
From the cleft rock arose at thy command;
And this huge Scorpion with the hunter's blood
Aveng'd the harmless tenants of the wood.
Hence not in heaven unmindful of the fray
Orion shuns the Scorpion's blasting ray.
With him Andromeda and Cetus merge
Their total limbs deep in the briny surge.
Within the Arctic circle Cepheus glides— 680
His glittering girdle night from day divides.
Each eve his crowned head and breast he laves
Down to the waist in ocean's cooling waves.
Behind Andromeda her mother queen
With head immers'd, and legs aloft is seen,
A royal matron and a stately dame,
Like to a tumbler at some rustic game!