Yet though this harsh inglorious fate they found, Each in the deathless grandson lived renown’d. Through conquer’d India Bacchus nobly rode, And Greece with temples hail’d the conquering god. In Argos only proud Acrisius reign’d, Who all the consecrated rites profaned. Audacious wretch! thus Bacchus to deny, And the great Thunderer’s great son defy! Nor him alone: thy daughter vainly strove Brave Perseus of celestial stem to prove, And herself pregnant by a golden Jove. Yet this was true, and truth in time prevails; Acrisius now his unbelief bewails. His former thought an impious thought he found, And both the hero and the god were own’d. He saw, already, one in heaven was placed, And one with more than mortal triumphs graced. The victor Perseus, with the Gorgon head, O’er Libyan sands his airy journey sped. The gory drops distill’d, as swift he flew, And from each drop envenom’d serpents grew. The mischiefs brooded on the barren plains, And still the unhappy fruitfulness remains.