Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 2) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/279

Book 15. The Thracians have a Stream, if any try The Taste, his harden'd Bowels petrify; Whate'er it touches, it converts to Stones, And makes a Marble Pavement, where it runs. Crathis, and Sybaris her Sister Flood, That slide through our Calabrian Neighbour Wood, With Gold, and Amber dye the shining Hair, And thither Youth resort; (for who would not be Fair:) But stranger Virtues yet in Streams we find, Some change not only Bodies, but the Mind: Who has not heard of Salmacis obscene, Whose Waters into Women soften Men? Or Æthiopian Lakes, which turn the Brain To Madness, or in heavy Sleep constrain? Clytorian Streams the Love of Wine expel, (Such is the Virtue of th' abstemious Well,) Whether the colder Nymph that rules the Flood Extinguishes, and balks the drunken God; Or that Melampus (so have some assur'd) When the mad Prœtides with Charms he cur'd, And pow'rful Herbs, both Charms, and Simples cast Into the sober Spring, where still their Virtues last. Unlike Effects Lyncestis will produce; Who drinks his Waters, tho' with moderate Use, Reels as with Wine, and sees with double Sight: His Heels too heavy, and his Head too light. Ladon, once Pheneos, an Arcadian Stream, (Ambiguous in th' Effects, as in the Name) By Day is wholsome Bev'rage; but is thought By Night infected, and a deadly Draught. Thus running Rivers, and the standing Lake, Now of these Virtues, now of those partake; Time was (and all Things Time, and Fate obey) When fast Ortygia floated on the Sea; Such were Cyanean Isles, when Typhis steer'd Betwixt their Streights, and their Collision fear'd; They