And he declar'd for Jove: When Juno fir'd,
More than so trivial an Affair required,
Depriv'd him, in her Fury, of his Sight,
And left him groping round in sudden Night.
But Jove (for so it is in Heav'n decreed,
That no one God repeal another's Deed)
Irradiates all his Soul with inward Light,
And with the Prophet's Art relieves the want of Sight.
The Transformation of Echo.
Fam'd far and near for knowing things to come,
From him th' enquiring Nations sought their Doom;
The fair Liriope his Answers try'd,
And first th' unerring Prophet justify'd.
This Nymph the God Cephisus had abus'd,
With all his winding Waters circumfus'd,
And on the Nereid got a lovely Boy,
Whom the soft Maids ev'n then beheld with Joy.
The tender Dame, sollicitous to know
Whether her Child should reach old Age or no,
Consults the Sage Tiresias, who replies,
"If e'er he knows himself, he surely dies.
Long liv'd the dubious Mother in Suspence,
'Till Time unriddled all the Prophet's Sense.
Narcissus now his sixteenth Year began,
Just turn'd of Boy, and on the Verge of Man;
Many a Friend the blooming Youth caress'd,
Many a Love-sick Maid her Flame confess'd:
Such was his Pride, in vain his Friend caress'd,
The Love-sick Maid in vain her Flame confess'd.
Once, in the Woods, as he pursu'd the Chace,
The babbling Echo had descry'd his Face;
She, who in other's Words her Silence breaks,
Nor speaks her self but when another speaks.
