Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/121

ll. 349–404.] Panchaean spice swells from the altars, and his mother cries, Take up a flagon of Maeonian wine; let us pour libation to Oceanus. Herself therewithal offers prayer to Oceanus father of all things and to the Nymphs' sisterhood who have an hundred forests, an hundred floods in their keeping: thrice she poured clear nectar over the blazing altar-fire, thrice the flame sank and flared up again to the crown of the roof. And strengthening his courage by this omen, she thus begins:

In the Carpathian sea-gulf dwells a soothsayer, blue Proteus, whose chariot yoked with fishes and twy-footed coursers spans the mighty ocean plain. He now visits again Emathia's borders and his birthplace of Pallene; to him we Nymphs do worship, and aged Nereus our lord; for he has the seer's knowledge of all things that are or that have been or that draw nigh to their coming: this by grace of Neptune, whose monstrous flocks and ugly seals he herds under the gulf. Him, my son, must thou first enfetter, that he may fully unfold the source of the sickness, and give prosperous issue. For without force he will give counsel in nowise, nor wilt thou bend him by entreaties; with sheer force and fetters must thou tie thy prisoner; around them his wiles at last will break unavailing. Myself will lead thee, when the sun has kindled the heat of noon, when the grass is athirst and the shade now grows more grateful to the flock, to the old man's covert, his retreat from the weary waves, that while he lies asleep thou mayest lightly assail him. But when thou Rh