Metin
Had she the progress of her crime foreseen;
But pleas'd with the soft kindling of love's fire,
We day by day indulge the fond desire,
Till like a serpent it has eat its way,
And uncontroll'd does on our entrails prey.
115
Yet if the proper season you have pass'd,
Tho' hard the task, I'll use my skill at last;
Nor see my patient perish by his grief,
Because no sooner call'd to his relief.
When Philoctetes first receiv'd his wound,He was born of Paean, and Hercules' faithful companion, who made him swear he would never discover where he lay buried, and gave him his arrows dipped in hydra's blood. The Greeks being told by the oracle that thsy should never conquer Troy until they found the fatal arrows, importuned Philoctetes to tell them where they were hid, which was in Hercules' tomb; and he discovered it by stamping on it with his foot, to keep himself from perjury. But he was wounded in the foot for his prevarication, by one of those arrows, when he went to the Trojan war. However, Marchaon cured him. Ulysses brought him to Troy and boasted of it in the speech he made to the Grecian princes, when he demanded Achilles's arms.
120
The venom'd part cut off, had sav'd the sound;
Yet he, e'en after tedious years of grief,
Was cur'd, and brought the fainting Greeks relief.
Thus I, who charg'd you speedy means to use,
Will none in last extremities refuse.
125
Or try to quench the kindling flames, or stay
Till the spent fury on itself doth prey.
While in its full career, give scope to rage,
And circumvent the force you can't engage.
What pilot would against the current strive,
130
