Amphitrite

Among these was Nereus, son of Oceanus, who was celebrated for his vast knowledge, his gift of prophecy, and his love of truth and justice.

He and his wife Doris, also a child of Oceanus, had fifty daughters called Nereids, and they were so beautiful that Neptune chose one of them, named Amphitrite, for his wife.

There were two others of the Nereids who became famous, Galatea, beloved by the Cyclops Polyphemus, and Thetis, the mother of Achilles, but none of them equaled Amphitrite in beauty.

When Neptune first went wooing the Nereid, she was frightened by his formidable appearance, for he drove in a chariot drawn by huge sea horses with brazen hooves and golden manes, and the god himself carried his terrible trident, or three-pronged spear, with which he shatters rocks and commands the storms and shakes the shores of the earth.

None knew better than Amphitrite the extent of Neptune's power, for she had often watched him, when a storm was at its height, raise his all-compelling trident, and immediately the waves would cease raging, and there would be a great calm.

Sometimes she saw a ship doomed by the sea god to disaster, gliding confidently in quiet waters, when all at once a fierce storm would break over its head, and the hapless sailors, as they breasted the angry waves, would pray vainly to Neptune for the help that would never come.

Many a good ship had nearly gained her port when He spake and round about him called the clouds, and roused the ocean, wielding in his hand the trident, summoned all the hurricanes of all the winds, and covered earth and sky at once with mists, while from above the night fell suddenly.

Odyssey, Book 5, line 348, Bryant's translation.

Day and night and night and day, drifting on his dreary way, with a solid darkness black closing round his vessel's track.

Whilst above, the sunless sky Big with clouds hangs heavily And behind, the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet He has ever drifted on O'er the unreposing wave To the haven of the grave What if there no friends will greet? What if there no heart will meet His with love's impatient beat? Wander wheresoe'er he may Can he dream before that day To find refuge from distress In friendship's smile? In love's caress? Then 'twill wreak him little woe Whether such there be or no Senseless is the breast and cold Which relenting love would fold Bloodless are the veins and chill Which the pulse of pain did fill Every little living nerve That from bitter words did swerve Round the tortured lips and brow Are like sapless leaflets now Frozen upon December's bough On the beach of a northern sea Which tempests shake eternally As once the wretch there lay to sleep Lies a solitary heap One white skull and seven dry bones On the margin of the stones Where a few gray rushes stand Boundaries of the sea and land Nor is heard one voice of wail But the sea-mews as they sail O'er the billows of the gale Or the whirlwind up and down Howling like a slaughtered town When a king in glory rides Through the pomp and fratricides Those unburied bones around There is many a mournful sound There is no lament for him Like a sunless vapour dim Who once clothed with life and thought What now moves nor murmurs not Ay, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide agony To such a one this morn was led My bark by soft winds piloted Mid the mountains Euganean I stood listening to the paean With which the legioned rooks did hail The sun's uprise majestical Gathering round with wings all hoar Through the dewy mist they soar Like gray shades till the eastern heaven bursts And then as clouds of even Flecked with fire and azure lie In the unfathomable sky So their plumes of purple grain Starred with drops of golden rain Gleam above the sunlight woods As in silent multitudes On the morning's fretful gale Through the broken mist they sail And the vapours cloven and gleaming Follow down the dark steep streaming Till all is bright and clear and still Round the solitary hill Beneath this spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy Bounded by the vaporous air Islanded by cities fair Underneath day's azure eyes Ocean's nursling Venice lies A peopled labyrinth of walls Amphitrite's destined halls Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue and beaming waves Lo, the sun upsprings behind Broad, red, radiant, half reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline And before that chasm of light As within a furnace bright Column, tower, and dome, and spire Shine like obelisks of fire Pointing with inconstant motion From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise As to pierce the dome of gold Where Apollo spoke of old Sea-girt city, thou hast been Ocean's child and then his queen Now is come a darker day And thou soon must be his prey If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier A less drear ruin then than now With thy conquest-branded brow Stooping to the slave of slaves From thy throne among the waves Wilt thou be when the sea-mew flies As once before it flew O'er thine isles depopulate And all is in its ancient state Save where many a palace gate With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of ocean's own Topples o'er the abandoned sea As the tides change sullenly The fisher on his watery way Wandering at the close of day Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore Lest thy dead should from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep Lead a rapid mask of death O'er the waters of his path Those who alone thy towers behold Quivering through aerial gold As I now behold them here Would imagine not they were Sepulchres where human forms Like pollution-nourished worms To the corpse of greatness cling Murdered and now mouldering But if freedom should awake In her omnipotence and shake From the Celtic anarch's hold All the keys of dungeons cold Where a hundred cities lie Chained like thee ingloriously Thou and all thy sister band might adorn this sunny land, twining memories of old time with new virtues more sublime.

If not, perish thou and they clouds which stain truth's rising day by her sun consumed away.

Earth can spare ye while like flowers in the waste of years and hours from your dust new nations spring with more kindly blossoming.

M. Luigi had suggested that I should fashion a Venus with Cupid surrounded by a crowd of pretty emblems, all in proper keeping with the subject.

M. Gabriello proposed that I should model an Amphitrite, the wife of Neptune, together with those Tritons of the sea, and many such like fancies, good enough to describe in words, but not to execute in metal.

I first laid down an oval framework, considerably longer than half a cubit, almost two-thirds in fact, and upon this ground, wishing to suggest the interminglement of land and ocean, I modeled two figures considerably taller than a palm in height, which were seated with their legs interlaced, suggesting those lengthier branches of the sea, which run up into the continents.

The sea was a man, and in his hand I placed a ship, elaborately wrought in all its details, and well adapted to hold a quantity of salt.

Golden child of Zeus, oh, here, let thine angel face appear.

And grant that Ares, whose hot breath I feel, though without targe or steel he stalks, whose voice is as the battle shout may turn in sudden rout to the unharbored Thracian water sped, or Amphitrite's bed, for what night leaves undone, smit by the morrow's sun, perishing? Father Zeus, whose hand doth wield the lightning brand, slay him beneath thy levying bold.

We pray, slay him, oh slay.

Oh, that thine arrows too, Lycian king, from that taut bow's gold string might fly abroad.