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Show [ 30 ] -Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move ; Or warri r-bands alarm the gaping crowd, And annies :lhrink beneath the :ihadowy cloud. '' So mig1ty HERCULEs o'er many a clime \Vavcd bis vafl: mace in Virtue's caufe fublin1e, 295 SQ might>• Htrculcs . I. 297· The f1ory of Ilercules feems of great antiqui ty, as app ars from the fimplicity of his rlrcfs and armour, a li on's fkin and a club; 2nd from the nature of many of his exploits, the def1ruction of wild beafls and robbers. This part of the hill:ory of Hercules feems to have related to times before the im•enrion of the bow and arrow, or of !pinning flax. O ther ftories of Hercules are perhaps of later d;<te, and :lppear to be allegorical, as hi~ conq1..1ering the river-god Achelous, ::md bringing Cerberus up to day-light; the former might refer to his turning the courfe of a river, :wd draining a morals, and the latter to his expoflng a part of the fup erfl:i tion of the times. The £l:rangling the _lion and tearing his jaws afunder, are defcribed from a ibtue in the Mufeum Florentinum, and from an antique gem; and the gra fping Anteus to death in his arms as he lifts him from the earth, is defcribed from another antient cameo. The famo11s pillars of Hercules have been varioufly explained. .Pliny al1erts that the natives of Sp<~ in and of frica believed that the mounta ins c,f Abyla and Calpc on each flue of the fl.raits of Gibraltar \II ere the pillars of Hercnles; and tha.t they were rL·ared by the h:Jnds of th:lt g,>d, and the lea admitted between them. Plin. Hill. Nat. p. ,~6 . Edit. M.wut. Venct. r6o9 . If the pallage between the two continents was opened by an ea rthquake in antient times, as this allegoricalltury wculc! feet 1 to couuten:tncc, there mufl: have been an immcnfe current of water at fir£1: run into the Mediterrane:Jn from the Atlanti ; fince there is at prefent a f1rong £l:ream fe ts al\\ays from thence into the 1\1ecbterranean. Whatcrcr may be the caufe, which now confl:antly oper:1tcs, fo as to make the fnrface of the M<.:diterranean lower than that of .he Atlantic, it mufl: have kept it very much lower before a pafb.ge for the water through the fl:raits was opened. It is prnbab~e before fuch an event took place, the coa£l:s and if1ands of the Mediterranean extended r 31 J U nmeafured frrength with early art combined, A wed, ferved, protected, and atnazed mankind.- 3 oo Firfi two dread Snakes at JUNo's vengeful nod Climb'd round the cradle of the ilecping God; Waked by the lhrilling hi(r;) and ru.fl:ling found, And ilirieks of fair attendants trernbling round, Their gafping throats with clenching hands he holds ; And Death untwifis their convoluted folds. 306 Next in red torrents from her fevenfold heads Fell HYDRA's blood on Lerna's lake he :fheds; Grafps AcHELous with re:G.filefs force, And drags the roaring River to his courfe; 3 IO Binds with loud bellowing and with hideous yell The monfier Bull, and threefold Dog of Hell. " Tncn, where Netnea's howling fore.fl:s wave, I-Ie drives the Lion to his du{ky cave; much further into that lea, and were then for a great extent of country deflroyed by the floods occafi ·Jned by the new rife of w:tter, and have IInce remained beneath. the fea. Mioht not this oive rife to the flood of Deucalion 1 See note on Cailia, V. II. oftl1!S work. t> t> |