These spirits she persuades not, nor deceives,
But none beside escape, so well she weaves
Her unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor gods
Who live secure in their unseen abodes. 
She won the soul of him whose fierce delight 35
Is thunder—­first in glory and in might. 
And, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving,
With mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving,
Concealed him from his spouse and sister fair,
Whom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare. 40
but in return,
In Venus Jove did soft desire awaken,
That by her own enchantments overtaken,
She might, no more from human union free,
Burn for a nursling of mortality. 45
For once amid the assembled Deities,
The laughter-loving Venus from her eyes

Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile,
And boasting said, that she, secure the while,
Could bring at Will to the assembled Gods 50
The mortal tenants of earth’s dark abodes,
And mortal offspring from a deathless stem
She could produce in scorn and spite of them. 
Therefore he poured desire into her breast
Of young Anchises, 55
Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains
Of the wide Ida’s many-folded mountains,—­
Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung
Like wasting fire her senses wild among.

***

THE CYCLOPS.

A SATYRIC DRAMA TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; dated 1819.  Amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian there is a copy, ‘practically complete,’ which has been collated by Mr. C.D.  Locock.  See “Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 64-70.  ’Though legible throughout, and comparatively free from corrections, it has the appearance of being a first draft’ (Locock).]

SILENUS. 
ULYSSES. 
CHORUS OF SATYRS. 
THE CYCLOPS.

SILENUS: 
O Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now
And ere these limbs were overworn with age,
Have I endured for thee!  First, when thou fled’st
The mountain-nymphs who nursed thee, driven afar
By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee; 5
Then in the battle of the Sons of Earth,
When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,
No unpropitious fellow-combatant,
And, driving through his shield my winged spear,
Slew vast Enceladus.  Consider now, 10
Is it a dream of which I speak to thee? 
By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies! 
And now I suffer more than all before. 
For when I heard that Juno had devised
A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea 15
With all my children quaint in search of you,