Book 2
if you behold not in the height of Heaven
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those new made stars, now honoured to my shame,
conspicuous; fixed in the highest dome of space
that circles the utmost axis of the world.
“Who, then, should hesitate to put affront
on Juno? matchless goddess! each offense
redounds in benefit! Who dreads her rage?
Oh boundless powers! Oh unimagined deeds!
My enemy assumes a goddess' form
when my decree deprives her human shape;—
and thus the guilty rue their chastisement!
“Now let high Jove to human shape transform
this hideous beast, as once before he changed
his Io from a heifer.—Let him now
divorce his Juno and consort with her,
and lead Calisto to his couch, and take
that wolf, Lycaon, for a father-in-law!
“Oh, if an injury to me, your child,
may move your pity! drive the Seven Stars
from waters crystalline and azure-tint,
and your domain debar from those that shine
in Heaven, rewarded for Jove's wickedness.—
bathe not a concubine in waters pure.”—
the Gods of Ocean granted her request.
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High in her graceful chariot through the air,
translucent, wends the goddess, glorious child
of Saturn, with her peacocks many-hued:
her peacocks, by the death of Argus limned,
so gay were made when black as midnight turned
thy wings, O chattering raven! white of yore.
For, long ago the ravens were not black—
their plumage then was white as any dove—
white-feathered, snow-white as the geese that guard
with watchful cries the Capitol: as white
as swans that haunt the streams. Disgrace reversed
the raven's hue from white to black, because
offense was given by his chattering tongue.
O glorious Phoebus! dutiful to thee,
Coronis of Larissa, fairest maid
of all Aemonia, was a grateful charm,
