Heav'n heard his song, and hasten'd his relief, And chang'd to snowy plumes his hoary hair, And wing'd his flight, to chant aloft in air.
His son Cupavo brush'd the briny flood:
Upon his stern a brawny Centaur stood, Who heav'd a rock, and, threat'ning still to throw, With lifted hands alarm'd the seas below:
They seem'd to fear the formidable sight, And roll'd their billows on, to speed his flight.
Ocnus was next, who led his native train Of hardy warriors thro' the wat'ry plain:
The son of Manto by the Tuscan stream, From whence the Mantuan town derives the name-An ancient city, but of mix'd descent:
Three sev'ral tribes compose the government;Four towns are under each; but all obey The Mantuan laws, and own the Tuscan sway.
Hate to Mezentius arm'd five hundred more, Whom Mincius from his sire Benacus bore:
Mincius, with wreaths of reeds his forehead cover'd o'er.
These grave Auletes leads: a hundred sweep With stretching oars at once the glassy deep.
Him and his martial train the Triton bears;High on his poop the sea-green god appears:
Frowning he seems his crooked shell to sound, And at the blast the billows dance around.
A hairy man above the waist he shows;
A porpoise tail beneath his belly grows;
And ends a fish: his breast the waves divides, And froth and foam augment the murm'ring tides.
Full thirty ships transport the chosen train For Troy's relief, and scour the briny main.
Now was the world forsaken by the sun, And Phoebe half her nightly race had run.
The careful chief, who never clos'd his eyes, Himself the rudder holds, the sails supplies.
A choir of Nereids meet him on the flood, Once his own galleys, hewn from Ida's wood;But now, as many nymphs, the sea they sweep, As rode, before, tall vessels on the deep.
They know him from afar; and in a ring Inclose the ship that bore the Trojan king.
Cymodoce, whose voice excell'd the rest, Above the waves advanc'd her snowy breast;Her right hand stops the stern; her left divides The curling ocean, and corrects the tides.