“You’ve heard, perhaps, in conversation told, What once befell Hippolytus of old; To death by Theseus’ easy faith betray’d, And caught in snares his wicked stepdame laid. The wondrous tale your credit scarce may claim, Yet, strange to say, behold in me the same Whom amorous Phaedra oft had press’d in vain, My father’s honour and my own to stain; Till, seized with fear, or by revenge inspired, She charged on me the crimes herself desired. Expell’d by Theseus, from his home I fled, With heaps of curses on my guiltless head. Forlorn, I sought Pitthean Troezen’s land, And drove my chariot o’er Corinthus’ strand; When from the surface of the level main A billow rising, heaved above the plain, Rolling and gathering, till so high it swell’d, A mountain’s height the enormous mass excell’d; Then bellowing, burst, when from the summit cleaved, A horned bull his ample chest upheaved: His mouth and nostrils storms of briny rain, Expiring, blew. Dread horror seized my train. I stood unmoved. My father’s cruel doom Claim’d all my soul, nor fear could find a room.