Dryope

Oeta was glorious; proud of ancestry
There Dry ops reign 'd: Spercheios was his sire,
His mother Polydora; but above
All ancestry went forth his daughter's fame,
Dryope, loved by him whose radiant car
Surmounts the heavens. With light he irrigates
The earth beneath, to all things gives their hue,
Motion, and graceful form, and harmony:
But now the tresses of his golden hair
Wills he to fall and his warm breath to breathe
On Dryope alone; her he pursues
Among the willow of pubescent flower
And fragrant bark stript off the tender twigs,
Moist, split, and ready for the basket-braid.
He followed her along the river-bank,
Along the shallow where the Nereids meet
The Dryads.

She was tending once her flock
In a deep valley, when there suddenly
Burst forth the sound of horn and pipe, and clash
Of cymbal rattling from uplifted palms;
Dryad and Hamadryad, wild with joy,
Ran on before, ran on behind; one stopt
And cried to her, ere past . .

"Art thou alone
Forgetful of the day, our festival?
Is Dryops greater than Admetos, king
But shepherd too: Apollo watcht his flock,
Apollo scared the stealing wolves away,
And even Apollo now is scared from thine!
Thus daughters place their seat above their sire's."

Dryope laught, no little proud, at taunt
Like this.

And now the revels were begun.
And circling dance succeeded; and the day-
Closed with the chorus of the psean hymn.
Weary with dancing Dryope reclined
On the soft herbage: lo! before her feet
Shone forth a lyre amidst it; whose that lyre
Each askt, and none replied, for surely each
Had hers: was it Antonoe's? was it like
Theano's? Whose-soever it might be
She took it, and with twinkling finger ran
Over the chords: and now at one she glanced
Now at another, with a nod that said
She knew their mischief, and to punish them
She thrust it in her bosom. Ha! behold!
A snake glides out. All shriek aloud, all throw
Their bodies back and spring up all at once.
Antonoe dasht upon her fragil reed
Her tender hand in rising, but scarce felt
The wound until she saw one ruddy globe
Enlarging, then she shuddered, then she suckt
The whole away, and but two rims appeared.
Faster the others ran, they knew not where.
Thro' every field about: the choral shell
Around whose loosen'd strings the snake had coil'd
Was now all snake. He rusht on Dryope,
So slow in due performance of the rites,
Kites which the fathers for their God ordain VI.
Then spake Antonoe to the only Nymph
Remaining nigh, stil fleeing both away,
Both looking back; for pity rose o'er fear.
"See! see! the wicked serpent! how he licks
Her eyes and bosom! how he bends her down
When she would rise and run away! where now
Can be Apollo, proud of Python slain?
Scorn'd by one inexperienced, feard by one
Silly, he seems to think that Fear can win
Where Love was driven off.

Help, Phoebus, help!
How swells the creature's neck! how fierce his crest!
A cloud hides all below. The dragon race
Is various: now they shake their scales on earth,
Now shine their feathers in the sky; now flame
In cars athwart; now their hard bodies melt
In the thin air nor leave a trace behind."

Deep in a woody dell beneath a cliff.
Scarce daring yet to lift her eyes above
The lowest bush, Callianeira held
Diaula, dubious to run on or stay.
And argued with her thus.

"Since now the grass
In the warm spring lies closer and grows higher,
And many things may at first sight decieve.
Might it not be a lizard she caught up
Into her bosom? What is pleasanter
Than in hot days to hold a lizard there
Panting, and gently with a finger's tip
Provoke its harmless bite? The species seems
Pare, it is true. Behold how sisterly
Dry ope treats it."

"Lizard! no indeed!"
Replied the maiden with wide-open eyes,
"No lizard can be seen a whole field off,
Nor so spring up as that bold animal/
Neither Diaula nor her arguer dared
Procede: Callianeira went alone
Toward Dryope midway.

Again, whate er
It was erewhile, the form is changed; no more
A serpent, nor indeed a lizard now,
Nor chelys, is that orb by purple veil'd
One moment and then altered into white;
As violets under hailstones when the wind
Blows hurriedly and fitfully above.
Then partly mused and partly uttered some.
"That hair is surely hers: another Nymph
Not of our company, and practised more
In quelling serpents, may have intervened.
Or witch in gleeful mischief played her pranks.
What hand is under her? what hair like hers
Is waving over?"

Delius now appeared
Himself among them, and with radiant nod
And arm outstretcht recall'd the fugitives,
Drawing his purple vest more closely round.
They came with downcast eyes, remembering well
Their terror when he lent his lofty car
To that ambitious son, and how the lakes
Shrank under him, and how the rivers paus'd
In silence, and how Po himself, although
From heaven descended, was enwrapt in flames;
Remembering too the clangor of his bow
Bent against Python, when Diana's self
Trembled at her deliverer: well they knew
The power, for good or evil, of the God,
And kept the fearful secret in their breasts.

Soon they recovered; soon they pitied her
The victim of such cruelty: the words
Of pity Dryope well understood,
Replying not. They lookt into her eyes
A little languid; on her neck they lookt
A little moist; they own'd her pouting lip
Was worthy of the God.

Each slily askt
Some little question; she could only blush.
Slowly, nor staying to reprove, she went
Amid their giggles to her father's house.
They, growing bolder, might mayhap have told
The tale to others, but had gazed too near
For bashful Nymphs; beside, Diana's wrath
They dreaded if her brother they betraid.

Dryope, now Andraemon's happy spouse
And mother of Amphissos, every spring
Is celebrated thro' the groves and vales
Of Oeta, where the psean had been sung.