His wand and holy words, the viper's rage, And venom'd wounds of serpents could assuage.
He, when he pleas'd with powerful juice to steep Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep.
But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art, To cure the wound giv'n by the Dardan dart:
Yet his untimely fate th' Angitian woods In sighs remurmur'd to the Fucine floods.
The son of fam'd Hippolytus was there, Fam'd as his sire, and, as his mother, fair;Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nurs'd his youth along the marshy shore, Where great Diana's peaceful altars flame, In fruitful fields; and Virbius was his name.
Hippolytus, as old records have said, Was by his stepdam sought to share her bed;But, when no female arts his mind could move, She turn'd to furious hate her impious love.
Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore, Another's crimes th' unhappy hunter bore, Glutting his father's eyes with guiltless gore.
But chaste Diana, who his death deplor'd, With Aesculapian herbs his life restor'd.
Then Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain, The dead inspir'd with vital breath again, Struck to the center, with his flaming dart, Th' unhappy founder of the godlike art.
But Trivia kept in secret shades alone Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown;And call'd him Virbius in th' Egerian grove, Where then he liv'd obscure, but safe from Jove.
For this, from Trivia's temple and her wood Are coursers driv'n, who shed their master's blood, Affrighted by the monsters of the flood.
His son, the second Virbius, yet retain'd His father's art, and warrior steeds he rein'd.
Amid the troops, and like the leading god, High o'er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode:
A triple of plumes his crest adorn'd, On which with belching flames Chimaera burn'd: