You are here
قراءة كتاب The Works of John Dryden. Now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 15. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical and explanatory, and the life of the author, by Walter Scott, esq. Vol. XV.
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
اللغة: English
The Works of John Dryden. Now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 15. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical and explanatory, and the life of the author, by Walter Scott, esq. Vol. XV.
الصفحة رقم: 10
class="i0">Gold are their vests; long Alpine spears they wield,
And their left arm sustains a length of shield.
Hard by, the leaping Salian priests advance;
And naked through the streets the mad Luperci dance:
In caps of wool; the targets dropt from heaven.
Here modest matrons, in soft litters driven,
To pay their vows in solemn pomp appear,
And odorous gums in their chaste hands they bear.
Far hence removed, the Stygian seats are seen;
Pains of the damned, and punished Catiline,
Hung on a rock—the traitor; and, around,
The Furies hissing from the nether ground.
Apart from these, the happy souls he draws,
And Cato's holy ghost dispensing laws.
Betwixt the quarters flows a golden sea;
But foaming surges there in silver play.
The dancing dolphins with their tails divide
The glittering waves, and cut the precious tide.
Amid the main, two mighty fleets engage—
Their brazen beaks opposed with equal rage.
Actium surveys the well-disputed prize:
Leucate's watery plain with foamy billows fries.
Young Cæsar, on the stern, in armour bright,
Here leads the Romans and their gods to fight:
His beamy temples shoot their flames afar,
And o'er his head is hung the Julian star.
Agrippa seconds him, with prosperous gales,
And, with propitious gods, his foes assails.
A naval crown, that binds his manly brows,
The happy fortune of the fight foreshows.
Ranged on the line opposed, Antonius brings
Barbarian aids, and troops of eastern kings,
The Arabians near, and Bactrians from afar,
Of tongues discordant, and a mingled war:
And, rich in gaudy robes, amidst the strife,
His ill fate follows him—the Egyptian wife.
Moving they fight: with oars and forky prows,
The froth is gathered, and the water glows.
It seems, as if the Cyclades again
Were rooted up, and jostled in the main;
Or floating mountains floating mountains meet;
Such is the fierce encounter of the fleet.
Fire-balls are thrown, and pointed javelins fly;
The fields of Neptune take a purple dye.
The queen herself, amidst the loud alarms,
With cymbals tossed, her fainting soldiers warms—
Fool as she was! who had not yet divined
Her cruel fate, nor saw the snakes behind.
Her country gods, the monsters of the sky,
Great Neptune, Pallas, and love's queen defy.
The dog Anubis barks, but barks in vain,
Nor longer dares oppose the etherial train.
Mars, in the middle of the shining shield,
Is graved, and strides along the liquid field.
The Diræ sowse from heaven with swift descent:
And Discord, dyed in blood, with garments rent,
Divides the prease: her steps Bellona treads,
And shakes her iron rod above their heads.
This seen, Apollo, from his Actian height,
Pours down his arrows; at whose winged flight
The trembling Indians and Egyptians yield,
And soft Sabæans quit the watery field.
The fatal mistress hoists her silken sails,
And, shrinking from the fight, invokes the gales.
Aghast she looks, and heaves her breast for breath,
Panting, and pale with fear of future death.
The god had figured her, as driven along
By winds and waves, and scudding through the throng.
Just opposite, sad Nilus opens wide
His arms and ample bosom to the tide,
And spreads his mantle o'er the winding coast,
In which he wraps his queen, and hides the flying host.
The victor to the gods his thanks expressed,
And Rome triumphant with his presence blessed.
Three hundred temples in the town he placed;
With spoils and altars every temple graced.
}
{ Three shining nights, and three succeeding days,
{ The fields resound with shouts, the streets with praise,
{ The domes with songs, the theatres with plays.
All altars flame: before each altar lies,
Drenched in his gore, the destined sacrifice,
Great Cæsar sits sublime upon his throne,
Before Apollo's porch of Parian stone;
Accepts the presents vowed for victory,
And hangs the monumental crowns on high.
Vast crowds of vanquished nations march along,
Various in arms, in habit, and in tongue.
Here, Mulciber assigns the proper place
For Carians, and the ungirt Numidian race;
Then ranks the Tracians in the second row,
With Scythians, expert in the dart and bow.
And here the tamed Euphrates humbly glides,
And there the Rhine submits her swelling tides,
}
{ And proud Araxes, whom no bridge could bind.
{ The Danes' unconquered offspring march behind;
{ And Morini, the last of human kind.
}
{ These figures, on the shield divinely wrought,
{ By Vulcan laboured, and by Venus brought,
{ With joy and wonder fill the hero's thought.
Unknown the names, he yet admires the grace,
And bears aloft the fame and fortune of his race.