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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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'T was once a robber's den, inclos'd around With living stone, and deep beneath the ground. The monster Cacus, more than half a beast, This hold, impervious to the sun, possess'd. The pavement ever foul with human gore; Heads, and their mangled members, hung the door. Vulcan this plague begot; and, like his sire, Black clouds he belch'd, and flakes of livid fire. Time, long expected, eas'd us of our load, And brought the needful presence of a god. Th' avenging force of Hercules, from Spain, Arriv'd in triumph, from Geryon slain: Thrice liv'd the giant, and thrice liv'd in vain. His prize, the lowing herds, Alcides drove Near Tiber's bank, to graze the shady grove. Allur'd with hope of plunder, and intent By force to rob, by fraud to circumvent, The brutal Cacus, as by chance they stray'd, Four oxen thence, and four fair kine convey'd; And, lest the printed footsteps might be seen, He dragg'd 'em backwards to his rocky den. The tracks averse a lying notice gave, And led the searcher backward from the cave. "Meantime the herdsman hero shifts his place, To find fresh pasture and untrodden grass. The beasts, who miss'd their mates, fill'd all around With bellowings, and the rocks restor'd the sound. One heifer, who had heard her love complain, Roar'd from the cave, and made the project vain. Alcides found the fraud; with rage he shook, And toss'd about his head his knotted oak. Swift as the winds, or Scythian arrows' flight, He clomb, with eager haste, th' aerial height. Then first we saw the monster mend his pace; Fear his eyes, and paleness in his face, Confess'd the god's approach. Trembling he springs, As terror had increas'd his feet with wings; Nor stay'd for stairs; but down the depth he threw His body, on his back the door he drew (The door, a rib of living rock; with pains His father hew'd it out, and bound with iron chains): He broke the heavy links, the mountain clos'd, And bars and levers to his foe oppos'd. The wretch had hardly made his dungeon fast; |
