gers to our
country slew the boar. Now will the head and tusks of the monster adorn
our hall, and men will know that the arms of our house can well protect
this land."

But one word only did Meleagrus say, and that word was the name,
"Atalanta." The maiden came and Meleagrus, his spear upon the head,
said, "Take, O fair Arcadian, the spoil of the chase. All know that it
was you who inflicted the first wound upon the boar."

Plexippus and Toxeus tried to push him away, as if Meleagrus was still
a boy under their tutoring. He shouted to them to stand off, and then
he hacked out the terrible tusks and held them toward Atalanta.

She would have taken them, for she, who had never looked lovingly upon
a youth, was moved by the beauty and the generosity of Prince
Meleagrus. She would have taken from him the spoil of the chase. But as
she held out her arms Meleagrus's uncles struck them with the poles of
their spears. Heavy marks were made on the maiden's white arms. Madness
then possessed Meleagrus, and he took up his spear and thrust it, first
into the body of Plexippus and then into the body of Toxeus. His
thrusts were terrible, for he was filled with the fierceness of the
hunt, and his uncles fell down in death.

Then a great horror came over all the heroes. They raised up the bodies
of Plexippus and Toxeus and carried them on their spears away from the
place of the hunting and toward the temple of the gods. Meleagrus
crouched down upon the ground in horror of what he had done. Atalanta
stood beside him, her hand upon his head.

III

Althaea was in the temple making sacrifice to the gods. She saw men come
in carrying across their spears the bodies of two men. She looked and
she saw that the dead men were her two brothers, Plexippus and Toxeus.

Then she beat her breast and she filled the temple with the cries of
her lamentation. "Who has slain my brothers? Who has slain my
brothers?" she kept crying out.

Then she was told that her son Meleagrus had slain her brothers. She
had no tears to shed then, and in a hard voice she asked, "Why did my
son slay Plexippus and Toxeus, his uncles?"

The one who was wroth with Atalanta, Arcas the Arcadian, came to her
and told her that her brothers had been slain because of a quarrel
about the girl Atalanta.

"My brothers have been slain because a girl bewitched my son; then
accursed be that son of mine," Althaea cried. She took off the
gold-fringed robe of a priestess, and