Proteus on you bestow'd the boon
To change your visage like the moon;
You sometimes half a face produce,
Keep t'other half for private use.
How famed thy conduct in the fight
With Hermes, son of Pleias bright!
Outnumber'd, half encompass'd round,
You strove for every inch of ground;
Then, by a soldierly retreat,
Retired to your imperial seat.
The victor, when your steps he traced,
Found all the realms before him waste:
You, o'er the high triumphal arch
Pontific, made your glorious march:
The wondrous arch behind you fell,
And left a chasm profound as hell:
You, in your capitol secured,
A siege as long as Troy endured.
[Footnote 1: Naples, anciently called Parthenope, from the name of the
siren who threw herself into the sea for grief at the departure of
Ulysses, and was cast up and buried there.--Ovid, "Met.," xiv,
101.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 2: Americus Vespuccius, the discoverer of America in 1497. See
Hakluyts "Navigations, Voyages, etc.," vii, 161; viii, 449.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 3: See Lucretius, "De Rer. Nat.," lib. i.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 4: Bubo, the owl.--_Dublin Edition_.]
[Footnote 5: Taken prisoner by the Carthaginians in the first Punic war,
and ultimately tortured to death.
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