Bevies of weaponed men exhorting, proved their presence.
But from the time when earth was stained with unspeakable scandals
And forth fro' greeding breasts of all men justice departed,
Then did the brother drench his hands in brotherly bloodshed,
Stinted the son in heart to mourn decease of his parents, 400
Longed the sire to sight his first-born's funeral convoy
So more freely the flower of step-dame-maiden to rifle;
After that impious Queen her guiltless son underlying,
Impious, the household gods with crime ne'er dreading to sully--
All things fair and nefand being mixt in fury of evil 405
Turned from ourselves avert the great goodwill of the Godheads.
Wherefor they nowise deign our human assemblies to visit,
Nor do they suffer themselves be met in light of the day-tide.

Pines aforetimes sprung from Pelion peak floated, so 'tis said, through
liquid billows of Neptune to the flowing Phasis and the confines Aeetaean,
when the picked youth, the vigour of Argive manhood seeking to carry away
the Golden Fleece from Colchis, dared to skim o'er salt seas in a
swift-sailing ship, sweeping caerulean ocean with paddles shapen from
fir-wood. That Goddess who guards the castles in topmost parts of the towns
herself fashioned the car, scudding with lightest of winds, uniting the
interweaved pines unto the curving keel. That same first instructed
untaught Amphitrite with sailing. Scarce had it split with its stem the
windy waves, and the billow vext with oars had whitened into foam, when
arose from the abyss of the hoary eddies the faces of sea-dwelling Nereids
wondering at the marvel. And then on that propitious day mortal eyes gazed
on sea-nymphs with naked bodies bare to the breasts outstanding from the
foamy abyss. Then 'tis said Peleus burned with desire for Thetis, then
Thetis contemned not mortal hymenaeals, then Thetis' sire himself
sanctioned her joining to Peleus. O born in the time of joyfuller ages,
heroes, hail! sprung from the gods, good progeny of mothers, hail! and
favourably be ye inclined. You oft in my song I'll address, thee too I'll
approach, Peleus, pillar of Thessaly, so increased in importance by thy
fortunate wedding-torches, to whom Jupiter himself, the sire of the gods
himself, yielded up his beloved. Did not Thetis embrace thee, she most
winsome of Nereids born? Did not Tethys consent that thou should'st lead
home her grandchild, and Oceanus eke, whose waters girdle t