Bent low at a sandal, untying the strings,

And one carries the vases of gold from the springs,

While one washes the wound, — and behind them a brother
Fans down on the body sweet air with his wings.

VIII.

Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamenting.

Each torch at the door Hymenæus blew out.

And, the marriage wreath dropping its leaves as repenting,
No more "Hymen, Hymen," is chanted about,
But the ai ai instead - -"Ai alas!" is begun

For Adonis, and then follows "Ai Hymenæus!"
The Graces are weeping for Cinyris's son,

Sobbing low each to each, "His fair eyes cannot see us!"
Their wail strikes more shrill than the sadder Dioné's.
The Fates mourn aloud for Adonis, Adonis,
Deep chanting; he hears not a word that they say:

He would hear, but Persephoné has him in keeping.

Cease moan, Cytherea! leave pomps for to-day,

And weep new when a new year refits thee for weeping.

CASSANDRA'S PROPHECY.

BY LYCOPHRON.

(Translated by Viscount Royston.)

[LYCOPHRON, a Greek critic and tragic poet, born at Chalcis in Eubœa, but an Alexandrian by residence and work, flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 285-247. Intrusted by him with the arrangement of the comedies in the Alexandrian library, he wrote a treatise on comedy, but his chief production was a body of tragedies forty-six or sixty-four in number. His only extant work is "Cassandra," an imaginary prophecy by that daughter of Priam concerning the fate of Troy and the Greek and Trojan heroes.]

HARK, how Myrinna groans! the shores resound
With snorting steeds, and furious chivalry:
Down leaps the Wolf, to lap the blood of kings,
Down on our strand; within her wounded breast
Earth feels the stroke, and pours the fateful stream
On high, the fountains of the deep disclosed.

Now Mars showers down a fiery sleet, and winds
His trumpet-shell, distilling blood, and now,
Knit with the Furies and the Fates in dance,

Leads on the dreadful revelry; the fields
With iron harvests of embattled spears
Gleam; from the towers I hear a voice of woe
Rise to the steadfast Empyréan; crowds
Of zoneless matrons rend their flowing robes,
And sobs and shrieks cry loud unto the night
One woe is past! Another woe succeeds!

This, this shall gnaw my heart! then shall I feel
The venomed pang, the rankling of the soul,
Then when the Eagle, bony and gaunt and grim,
Shall wave his shadowy wings, and plow the winds
On clanging penns, and o'er the subject plain
Wheel his wide-circling flight in many a gyre,
Pounce on his prey, scream loud with savage joy,
And plunge his talons in my Brother's breast,
(My best beloved, my Father's dear delight,
Our hope, our stay!) then, soaring to the clouds,
Shower down his blood upon his native woods,
And bathe the terrors of his beak in gore.

Oh God! what column of our house, what stay, What massy bulwark fit to bear the weight Of mightiest monarchies, hast thou o'erthrown! But not without sharp pangs the Dorian host Shall scoff our tears, and mock our miseries, And, as the corpse in sad procession rolls, Shall laugh the loud and bitter laugh of scorn, When through the blazing helms and blazing prows Pale crowds shall rush, and with uplifted hands And earnest prayer invoke protector Jove Vainly; for then nor foss, nor earthly mound, Nor bars, nor bolts, nor massy walls, though flanked With beetling towers, and rough with palisades, Ought shall avail; but (thick as clustering bees, When sulphurous streams ascend, and sudden flames Invade their populous cells) down from the barks, Heaps upon heaps, the dying swarms shall roll, And temper foreign furrows with their gore!

Then, thrones and kingdoms, potentates whose veins Swell high with noble blood, whose falchions mow "The ranks, and squadrons, and right forms of war," Down e'en to earth thy dreaded hands shall crush, Loaded with death, and maddening for the fray. But I shall bear the weight of woe, but I Shall shed the ceaseless tear; for sad and dawn, And sad the day shall rise when thou art slain !

Saddest, while Time athwart the deep serene
Rolls on the silver circle of the moon.

Thee too I weep, no more thy youthful form
Shall blossom with new beauties, now no more
Thy brother's arms shall twine about thy neck
In strict embrace, but to the Dragon's heart
Swift shalt thou send thy shafts entipped with flame,
And round his bosom weave the limèd nets
Of love; but loathing shall possess thy soul,
Thy blood shall flow upon thy father's hearth,
And low the glories of thine head shall lie.

But I, who fled the bridal yoke, who count
The tedious moments, closed in dungeon walls
Dark and o'er-canopied with massy stone;
E'en I, who drove the genial God of Day
Far from my couch, nor heeded that he rules
The Hours, Eternal beam! essence divine!
Who vainly hoped to live pure as the maid,
The Laphrian virgin, till decrepit age

Should starve my cheeks, and wither all my prime;
Vainly shall call on the Budéan queen,

Dragged like a dove unto the vulture's bed!

But she, who from the lofty throne of Jove
Shot like a star, and shed her looks benign
On Ilus, such as in his soul infused

Sovereign delight, upon the sculptured roof
Furious shall glance her ardent eyes; the Greece
For this one crime, aye for this one, shall weep
Myriads of sons; no funeral urn, but rocks

Shall hearse their bones; no friends upon their dust
Shall pour the dark libations of the dead;

A name, a breath, an empty sound remains,

A fruitless marble warm with bitter tears

Of sires, and orphan babes, and widowed wives!
Ye cliffs of Zarax, and ye waves which wash
Opheltes' crags, and melancholy shore,
Ye rocks of Trychas, Nedon's dangerous heights,
Dirphossian ridges, and Diacrian caves,

Ye plains where Phorcys broods upon the deep,
And founds his floating palaces, what sobs

Of dying men shall ye not hear? what groans
Of masts and wrecks, all crashing in the wind?
What mighty waters, whose receding waves
Bursting, shall rend the continents of earth?
What shoals shall writhe upon the sea-beat rocks?

While through the mantling majesty of clouds
Descending thunderbolts shall blast their limbs,
Who erst came heedless on, nor knew their course,
Giddy with wine, and mad with jollity,
While on the cliffs the mighty felon sat
In baleful guidance, waving in his hand
The luring flame far streaming o'er the main.
One, like a sea bird floating on the foam,
The rush of waves shall dash between the rocks,
On Gyra's height spreading his dripping wings
To catch the drying gales, and sun his plumes;
But rising in his might, the King of Floods
Shall dash the boaster with his forky mace
Sheer from the marble battlements, to roam
With orcs, and screaming gulls, and forms marine;
And on the shore his mangled corpse shall lie,
E'en as a dolphin, withering in the beams
Of Sol, 'mid weedy refuse of the surge
And bedded heaps of putrefying ooze;
These sad remains the Nereïd shall inurn,
The silver-footed dame beloved of Jove,
And by th' Ortygian Isle shall rise the tomb,
O'er which the white foam of the billowy wave
Shall dash, and shake the marble sepulchre
Rocked by the broad Ægéan; to the shades
His sprite shall flit, and sternly chide the Queen
Of soft desires, the Melinéan dame,

Who round him shall entwine the subtile net,
And breathe upon his soul the blast of love,
If love it may be called, a sudden gust,
A transient flame, a self-consuming fire,
A meteor lighted by the Furies' torch.

Woe! woe! inextricable woe, and sounds Of sullen sobs shall echo round the shore From where Aræthus rolls to where on high Libethrian Dotium rears his massy gates! What groans shall peal on Acherusian banks To hymn my spousals! how upon the soul, Voice, other than the voice of joy, shall swell, When many a hero floating on the wave Sea monsters shall devour with bloody jaws! When many a warrior stretched upon the strand Shall feel the thoughts of home rush on his heart, "By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned!" VOL. IV.-24

EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS OF CALLIMACHUS.

(Verse translations made for this work.)

[CALLIMACHUS, a celebrated Greek poet, was born at Cyrene in Africa, and became librarian of the Alexandrian library about B.C. 260, holding the position till his death about 240. He was regarded as the greatest of Greek elegiac poets; and was also a great critic and teacher, several famous men being his pupils.]

LATE hearing, Heraclitus, of thine end,

The tears welled in me as the memory rose
How oft we twain had made the sunset close
Upon our converse; yet I know, my friend,
Singer of Halicarnassus, that thou must
Long, long ago have moldered into dust.
But still thy strains survive, and Hades old,
All-spoiler, shall not grasp them in his hold.

Here dwell I, Timon, the man-hater: but pass on: bid me

woes as many as you will, only pass on.

A. Doth Charidas rest beneath thee? B. If you mean the son of Arimnas the Cyrenæan, he rests beneath me. A. O Charidas, what are the things below? B. Vast darkness. A. And what the returns to earth? B. A lie. A. And Pluto? B. A fable, we have perished utterly. This is my true speech to you; but if you want the pleasant style of speech, the Pellæan's great ox is in the shades. (That is, I can lie to you as well about the immortality of cattle as of men.)

Oft mourn the Samian maids that passed away

Is witty Crethis, graceful in her play,

A fellow-worker brightening all the day,
And free of speech; but here she soundly sleeps
The slumber fate for every mortal keeps.

Would there had never been swift ships: for then we would not lament for Sopolis, son of Dioclides. But now he drifts a corse somewhere in the sea, and in his stead we pass by a name and a cenotaph.

At dawn we were burying Menalippus, and at sunset the maiden Basilo died by her own hand. For she had not the heart to live, when she had placed her brother in the flame. So the house of their sire Aristippus saw a double woe: and