d her in, Virgo to undo her girdle, Subigo to
stretch her upon the bed, and Praema to keep back her arms, whispering
sweet words in her ear.

"But she will not come! and they dismiss the others--Nona and Decima,
the nurses; the three Nixii, who are to deliver her; the two
wet-nurses, Educa and Potina; and Carna, the cradle-rocker, whose bunch
of hawthorns drives away bad dreams from the infant. Later, Ossipago
will have strengthened its knees, Barbatus will have given the beard,
Stimula the first desires, and Volupia the first enjoyment; Fabulinus
will have taught it how to speak, Numera how to count, Cam[oe]na how to
sing, and Consus how to think."

The chamber is empty, and there remains no longer at the side of the bed
anyone but Naenia--a hundred years old--muttering to herself the lament
which she poured forth on the death of old men.

But soon her voice is lost amid bitter cries, which come from the
domestic lares, squatted at the end of the atrium, clad in dogs' skins,
with flowers around their bodies, holding their closed hands up to their
cheeks, and weeping as much as they can.

"Where is the portion of food which is given to us at each meal, the
good attentions of maid-servant, the smile of the matron, and the gaiety
of the little boys playing with huckle-bones on the mosaic of the
courtyard? Then, when they have grown big, they hang over our breasts
their gold or leather bullae.

"What happiness, when, on the evening of a triumph, the master,
returning home, turned towards us his humid eyes! He told the story of
his contests, and the narrow house was more stately than a palace, and
more sacred than a temple.

"How pleasant were the repasts of the family, especially the day after
the Feralia! The feeling of tenderness towards the dead dispelled all
discords; and people embraced one another, drinking to the glories of
the past, and to the hopes of the future.

"But the ancestors in painted wax, shut up behind us, became gradually
covered with mouldiness. The new races, to punish us for their own
deceptions, have broken our jaws; and under the rats' teeth our bodies
of wood have crumbled away."

And the innumerable gods, watching at the doors, in the kitchen, in the
cellar, and in the stoves, disperse on all sides, under the appearance
of enormous ants running away, or huge butterflies on the wing.

Then a thunderclap.

_A voice_--"I was the God of armies, the Lord, the Lord God!

"I have unfolded