The Earth at length, on every side embraced With scalding seas, that floated round her waist, When now she felt the springs and rivers come, And crowd within the hollow of her womb, Uplifted to the heavens her blasted head, And clapp’d her hand upon her brows, and said, (But first, impatient of the sultry heat, Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat): “If you, great king of gods, my death approve, And I deserve it, let me die by Jove: If I must perish by the force of fire, Let me transfix’d with thunderbolts expire. See, while I speak, my breath the vapours choke (For now her face lay wrapp’d in clouds of smoke), See my singed hair, behold my faded eye, And wither’d face, where heaps of cinders lie! And does the plough for this my body tear? This the reward for all the fruits I bear, Tortured with rakes, and harass’d all the year? That herbs for cattle daily I renew, And food for man, and frankincense for you? But, grant me guilty, what has Neptune done? Why are his waters boiling in the sun? The wavy empire, which by lot was given,