Kitap 2
If ever, Cupid, now indulgent prove;
O Venus! aid, thou charming queen of love!
Kind Erato, let thy auspicious name
Inspire the work, and raise my gen'rous flame.
The labour's great! a method I design
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For love, and will the fetter'd god confine;
The god that roves the spacious world around,
In ev'ry clime, and distant region found;
Active and light, his wings elude our guard,
And to confine a deity is hard.
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His guest from flight Minos inclos'd around,
Yet he with wings a daring passage found.
Thus Daedalus her offspring first confin'd;
Who, with a bull, in lewd embraces join'd:
Her teeming womb the horrid crime confess'd;
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Big with a human bull, half man half beast.
Said he, " Just Minos, best of human kind,
Thy mercy let a prostrate exile find:
By fates compell'd my native shores to fly,
Permit me, where I durst not live, to die,
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