yelling Thyiads with
loosely tossed locks. * * * * When the Delphians tumultuously trooping from
the whole of their city joyously acclaimed the god with smoking altars.
Often in lethal strife of war Mavors, or swift Triton's queen, or the
Rhamnusian virgin, in person did exhort armed bodies of men. But after the
earth was infected with heinous crime, and each one banished justice from
their grasping mind, and brothers steeped their hands in fraternal blood,
the son ceased grieving o'er departed parents, the sire craved for the
funeral rites of his first-born that freely he might take of the flower of
unwedded step-dame, the unholy mother, lying under her unknowing son, did
not fear to sully her household gods with dishonour: everything licit and
lawless commingled with mad infamy turned away from us the just-seeing mind
of the gods. Wherefore nor do they deign to appear at such-like assemblies,
nor will they permit themselves to be met in the day-light.

LXV.

Esti me adsiduo confectum cura dolore
Sevocat a doctis, Ortale, virginibus,
Nec potisest dulces Musarum expromere fetus
Mens animi, (tantis fluctuat ipsa malis:
Namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris 5
Pallidulum manans adluit unda pedem,
Troia Rhoeteo quem subter littore tellus
Ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis.
* * * *
Adloquar, audiero numquam tua _facta_ loquentem,
Numquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, 10
Aspiciam posthac. at certe semper amabo,
Semper maesta tua carmina morte canam,
Qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris
Daulias absumpti fata gemens Itylei)--
Sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto 15
Haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae,
Ne tua dicta vagis nequiquam credita ventis
Effluxisse meo forte putes animo,
Vt missum sponsi furtivo munere malum
Procurrit casto virginis e gremio, 20
Quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum,
Dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur:
Atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu,
Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.

LXV.

TO HORTALUS LAMENTING A LOST BROTHER.

Albeit care that consumes, with dule assiduous grieving,
Me from the Learned Maids (Hortalus!) ever seclude,
Nor can avail sweet births of the Muses thou to deliver
Thought o' my mind; (so much floats it on flooding of ills:
For that the Lethe-wave upsurging