Читать книгу Bulfinch's Mythology - Bulfinch Thomas - Страница 56

“Amongst these leaves she made a Butterfly,

With excellent device and wondrous slight,

Fluttering among the olives wantonly,

That seemed to live, so like it was in sight;

The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie,

The silken down with which his back is dight,

His broad outstretched horns, his hairy thighs,

His glorious colors, and his glistening eyes.”^[15]

“Which when Arachne saw, as overlaid

And mastered with workmanship so rare,

She stood astonied long, ne aught gainsaid;

And with fast-fixed eyes on her did stare,

And by her silence, sign of one dismayed,

The victory did yield her as her share:

Yet did she inly fret and felly burn,

And all her blood to poisonous rancor turn.”

And so the metamorphosis is caused by Arachne’s own mortification and vexation, and not by any direct act of the goddess.

The following specimen of old-fashioned gallantry is by Garrick:

“Upon a Lady’s Embroidery

“Arachne once, as poets tell,

A goddess at her art defied,

And soon the daring mortal fell

The hapless victim of her pride.

“O, then beware Arachne’s fate;

Be prudent, Chloe, and submit,

For you’ll most surely meet her hate,

Who rival both her art and wit.”

Tennyson, in his “Palace of Art,” describing the works of art with which the palace was adorned, thus alludes to Europa:

“… sweet Europa’s mantle blew unclasped

From off her shoulder, backward borne,

From one hand drooped a crocus, one hand grasped

The mild bull’s golden horn.”

In his “Princess” there is this allusion to Danaë:

“Now lies the earth all Danaë to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.”