To me, ye injured youths, for help repair,Who hopeless languish for some cruel fair;I'll now unteach the art I taught before,The hand that wounded shall your health restore.One soil can herbs and pois'nous weeds disclose:The nettle oft is neighbour to the rose.Such was the cure the Arcadian hero found;Telephys king of Mysia, sun of Hercules and Auge, daughter of the king of Arcadia. He was called Telephus from his having been nursed by a doe in a wild place, where he was found by shepherds, who carried him to Corytus, king of Thessaly, by whom he was adopted for a son. When he had grown up to man's estate, he went to Delphos to enquire out his parents by the oracle, which bid him go to Theutras, kingn of Mysia, where he should be informed of what he desired; he then found his mother Auge, and when his birth was known, great was the joy of the Mysian court. Theytras, who had no male issue, gave him his daughter Argiope in marriage and left him his successor in the kingdom at his death. The Trojan war happening nsome time after, the Greeks who did not know very well their way to Troy, landed in Mysia, where Telephus gave them battle, and wounded Ulysses; but was himself dangerously wounded by Achilles. Consulting the oracle about his cure, he was told he could never be cured, unless he was wounded again in the same place with the same lance; upon which he went to Greece, whither the Greeks were returned, and promised Achilles to be his guide to Troy if he would cure him; accordingly the Grecian hero did cure him with the same lance that gave the wound. Diodorus Siculus tells this story in his fifth book.The Pelian spear that wounded, made him sound.But know, the rules that I to men prescribe,In like distress may serve the female tribe:And when beyond your sphere my methods go,You may, at least, infer what you should do.When flames beyond their useful bounds aspire,'Tis charity to quench the threat'ning fire.Nine visits to the shore poor Phillis made;Had I advis'd, the tenth she should have paid.Nor had Demophoon, when return'd from sea,He gives several instances of ladies who came to untimely ends through their impatience in their loves.For his expected bride embraced a tree,Nor Dido, from her flaming pile, by night,Discover'd her ungrateful Trojan's flight.Nor had that mother dire revenge pursu'd,Who in her offspring's blood her hands imbu'd.Fair Philomel, preserv'd from Tereus' rapeHe was changed into a lapwing. The fable of Philomel is mentioned in the Art of Love.(2.383 f)Her honour she had kept, and he his shape.Pasiphae ne'er had felt such wild desire,Nor Phoedra suffered by incestuous fire.Let me the wanton Paris take in hand,Helen shall be restor'd, and Troy shall stand.My wholesome precepts had lewd Scylla read,The purple lock had grown on Nisus' head.Learn, youths, from me, to curb the desp'rate forceOf love, and steer, by my advice, your course.By reading me, you first receiv'd your bane;Now, for an antidote, read me again:From scornful beauty's chains I'll set you free,Consent but you to your own liberty.Phoebus, thou god of physic and of verse,Assist the healing numbers I rehearse;Direct at once my med'cines and my song,For to thy care both provinces belong.