Ibis (Riley)

Up to this time, twice five lustra having now been passed by me, every verse of my Muse has been inoffensive, and not a single letter of Naso's exists, out of so many thousands that have been written, that can be read as injurious. My books, too, have hurt no one but myself; when the life of the author was lost through his Art of Love, One man (and that very circumstance is a great reproach) does not permit my credit for inoffensiveness to be lasting. Whoever he is (for I will still, in some measure, be silent on his name) he forces my unused hands to take up weapons. He does not allow me, removed afar to the cold rising of the North wind, to lie concealed in my place of exile. In his cruelty, he torments the wounds that seek for rest, and he bandies my name about the whole of the Forum. Nor does he allow her, who is bound to me by the lasting tie of marriage, to lament the death of her wretched husband. While I am clinging to the shattered remains of my vessel, he strives to seize the planks of my shipwreck. He, too, who ought to extinguish the sudden conflagration, like a plunderer, snatches his booty from the midst of the fire. He strives that subsistence may be wanting to my exiled old age; alas! how much more worthy was he himself of my misfortunes! The Gods deemed otherwise; of whom he is by far the greatest to me, who willed not my wanderings to be destitute. To him, then, whenever I shall be allowed, I shall always return deserved thanks for a disposition so merciful. Pontus shall hear of these things; perhaps the same Divinity may cause a nearer country to testify them for me. But I will be deservedly an enemy to thee, however wretched, who hast, cruel man, trod upon me when lying prostrate. Water shall sooner cease to be the antagonist of fire, and the light of the Sun shall be joined with the Moon; the same portion of the heavens shall send forth the West winds and those of the East; and the warm South wind shall blow from the cold North pole; a fresh-born concord, too, shall arise between the smoke of the ashes of Eteocles and Polynices, the brothers, which the old enmity separated even on the lighted funeral pile; Spring, too, shall mingle with Autumn, and Summer with Midwinter; and the West and the East shall be the same spot, before, having laid aside the arms which I have assumed, there shall be the friendship, thou wretch, between me and thee which thou hast broken by thy crimes: before this resentment can ever cease in length of time, or time and season can moderate my hatred. There will be that peace between us, so long as my life shall last, which there is wont to be between the wolves and the weak sheep. I, indeed, will commence the first warfare in the verse with which I have begun, although wars are not wont to be waged in this measure. And, as the lance of the light-armed soldier, not yet heated for the combat, is first aimed at the ground strewed with the yellow sand; so will I not at first aim at thee with the sharp steel; nor shall my spear at once strike at thy hated head, neither will I mention thy name, or thy actions in this book; and I will suffer thee, for a little time, to conceal who thou art. Afterwards, shouldst thou persist, the bold Iambic measure shall provide me with weapons against thee, steeped in the blood of Lycambes. At present, I curse thee and thine, in the same manner in which Callimachus, the son of Battus, curses his enemy, the Ibis. And as he does, I will involve my lines in dark fables, although I am not accustomed to practise this kind of composition. Emulating his obscurities in his Ibis, I shall be pronounced forgetful of my taste and of my skill. And as I do not disclose to inquirers, for the present who thou art, do thou as well, in the meantime take the name of Ibis. As my lines will contain some obscurity, so be the whole tenor of thy life overcast. I will cause some one to read these lines to thee on thy birth-day, and on the Calends of Janus, with no deceiving lips.

Ye Gods of the sea and of the land, and ye who, together with Jove, possess realms still better than these between the opposite poles, I pray all of you to turn hither your attention, and to allow due weight to attend my wishes. And do thou. Earth, and thou Ocean with thy waves, and thou ther on high, receive my prayers; ye stars too, and thou form of the Sun, surrounded with rays; thou Moon too, who never shinest with the same aspect with which thou didst the day before; thou Night too, awful in the appearance of thy shades: and ye Destinies as well, who spin your appointed task with three-fold fingers; and thou, Lethe, river of the water that sanctions no false oath, that rollest through the vallies of hell with terrific roar; and you Furies, who they say, are seated before the dark doors of the dungeon, with your locks wreathed with twisted vipers; and you, too, the commonalty of the Divinities, ye Fauns, and Satyrs, and Lares, and Streams, and Nymphs, and thou race of Demigods. And lastly, all ye Gods both old and young, from ancient Chaos down to our time, assist, while imprecatory verses are being repeated against this perfidious head, and anger and resentment are performing their part; favour my desires all of you, each in his order, and let no fraction of my wishes be unrealized. Let the things that I pray for come to pass, that he may suppose that they were not my sayings, but the words of the son-in-law of Pasiphae. May he suffer, too, those punishments, which I shall omit; may he be wretched to an extent beyond my imagination. And let not my prayers that execrate a fictitious name, prevail the less for that reason or influence in a less degree the great Gods.

I accurse him, whom my mind understands as the Ibis; who knows that by his crimes he has deserved this execration. I am guilty of no delay; as the priest, I will go through the prayers resolved on by me. Whoever ye be, that are present at my rites, aid me, all of you, with your words. Whoever ye be, that are present at my rites, utter words of sadness; and approach the Ibis with tearful cheeks; meet him with inauspicious words, and with the left foot advanced; and let black vestments clothe your bodies. And thou too. Ibis, why dost thou hesitate to assume the mournful fillets? the altar, as thou seeest, is now standing ready for thy doom. The procession is prepared for thee; be there no delay in the fulfilment of my vows of ill omen for thee. Victim accursed, extend thy throat for my knives. May the earth deny thee its produce, the stream its waters; may the wind, and may the air deny thee their breezes. May the sun be no longer bright for thee, nor the moon shining: may all the stars fade from before thy eyes. Let neither Vulcan, God of fire, nor air afford thee their use: let neither the land nor the sea afford thee a passage. An exile and in need, mayst thou wander; mayst thou visit the thresholds of others; and mayst thou beg a little morsel with tremulous lips. Let neither thy body nor thy weakened mind be free from complaining pain; and may the night prove more tormenting to thee than the day, the day than the night. Mayst thou ever be wretched; and mayst thou be pitied by none. Let both man and woman rejoice in thy misfortunes. Let hatred be added to thy tears, and when thou art enduring a multitude of woes, mayst thou be deemed worthy of still more. May too, which seldom happens, the hateful appearance of thy sorrow be deprived of the usual interest. May the occasion of death not be wanting to thee, but may its opportunity be denied thee: may life, forced upon thee, never meet with the death that is longed for. May thy breath, only after a prolonged struggle, forsake thy agonized limbs: and may it torment thee first by a lengthened procrastination.

These things will come to pass. Phoebus himself, this moment, gave me signs of the future, and a bird of bad omen flew on my left hand. Assuredly, I will always believe that what I wish will influence the Gods above; and, perfidious wretch! I shall ever be nourished by the hope of thy destruction. That day will come to pass, which will hereafter take thee away from me; that day will come to pass, which comes but slowly for me. And may that day, which approaches but tardily for me, first take away this life, often the object of thy attacks, before this resentment ever fade in length of years, or time or season modify my hatred. So long as the Thracian shall fight with the javelins, the Iazyges with the bow, so long as the Ganges shall be warm, the Danube be cold; so long as the mountains shall have their oaks, the plains their soft pasturage, so long as the Etrurian Tiber shall have yellow waters, so long with thee will I wage war; even death shall not put an end to my wrath, but to one ghost shall it give ruthless arms against another spirit. Then, too, when I shall have flitted into vacant air, my lifeless phantom shall still hate thy shade; even then, as a ghost, I will approach, not unforgetful of thy crimes, and, a skeleton form, I will attack thy face. Whether I shall be worn out by length of years, a thing I would not desire, or whether I shall depart by a death caused by my own hand; whether I shall be tost in shipwreck along the boundless waves, and the fish from afar shall prey on my entrails; whether foreign birds shall tear my limbs, or whether wolves shall stain their jaws with my blood; or whether any one shall deign to deposit me in the earth, or to give my lifeless body to an humble pile; whatever I shall be, I shall struggle to escape from the Stygian regions, and, as my own avenger, I will extend my cold hands to thy features. In thy watchings thou shalt behold me; seeming to be present in the silent darkness of night, I will disturb thy sleep. In fine, whatever thou shalt be doing, I will hover before thy face and thy eyes, and I will wail; in no spot shalt thou be at rest. The twisted thongs shall send forth their sounds, and the torches, wreathed with snakes, shall ever be smoking before thy conscience-stricken face; by these Furies, while yet livings thou shalt be tormented, and by the same when dead. Thy life will prove shorter than thy punishment. Obsequies and the tears of thy friends, shall not be thy lot; undeplored shalt thou be thrown out. Thou shalt be dragged by the hand of the executioner, amid the shouts of the people, and the hook shall be fixed amid thy bones. The very flames, which devour everything, shall fly from thee; the retributive earth shall reject thy hated carcase with disgust. With talons and bill shall the sluggish vulture drag thy entrails, and the greedy dogs shall tear asunder thy perfidious heart. Over thy body, too, (although thou mayst be elated at such a compliment), there shall be strife among the insatiate wolves. Thou wilt be banished to a spot far away from the Elysian Plains, and thou wilt inhabit the abodes which the guilty crowd occupies. Sisyphus is there, both rolling his stone and catching it as it falls; and Ixion, who is whirled, fastened to the circumference of the revolving wheel; the Danaides, too, grand-daughters of Belus, who bear on their shoulders the water that ever flows away, the daughters-in-law of Ægyptus, a blood-stained crowd; Tantalus, the father of Pelops, catches at the apples, ever at hand, and the same person is ever thirsting for, yet ever abounding with the flowing water; Tityus, too, who at his crown many hundred yards distant from his feet, there affords his entrails, as the due of the ever-present bird. There one of the Furies will lacerate thy sides with a whip, that thou mayst confess the number of thy crimes; another one will give thy torn, limbs to the dragons of Tartarus; the third will roast thy smoking cheeks with fire. Thy guilty shade shall be tormented in a thousand ways, and Æacus shall be quite refined in thy tortures. To thee shall he transfer the torments of those men of olden time; thou shalt be a cause of rest to the shades of the ancients. Sisyphus, thou shalt have one, to whom thou mayst nand over thy burden that ever rolls back again: the rapid wheels shall now whirl the limbs of a new victim. He it shall be, who shall in vain catch at the boughs and the water; he shall feed the bird with his undiminished entrails. No other end shall terminate the punishment of this death, and no hour shall be the last for miseries so great. I will mention a few of the number; just as though any one were to pick leaves from Ida, or skim water from the surface of the Libyan sea. For, I can neither recount how many flowers spring up in the Sicilian Hybla, nor how many ears of saffron the Sicilian land produces; nor yet with how many hailstones Athos is made white, when the ruthless storm rages on the wings of the North wind. Nor yet could all thy woes be enumerated by my voice, even though thou shouldst give me multiplied mouths. Sorrows will come upon thee, O wretched man so many and so great, that I could fancy that even I could be forced to weep. Those tears will make me happy unceasingly; then will those tears be far sweeter to me than laughter. Of ill omen wast thou born; thus did the Gods will; and there was no star favouring or propitious at thy birth. No Venus shone, no Jupiter, at that hour; neither Sun nor Moon was in a favourable position. Mercury, whom the beauteous Maia bore to the great Jove, did not afford thee his light situate with any kind influence for thee. The stars of Mars, and of the old man with the scythe, ruthless and foreboding no tranquillity, overwhelmed thee. The day too of thy birth, that thou mightst see nothing but what was sinister, was foul and lowering with clouds o'ercast. This was the day to which Calamitous Allia gives a name in the Calendar; a day which produced the Ibis as well, a public disgrace. Soon as he, falling from the womb of his impure mother, came in contact with the Cinyphian ground with his filthy body, the owl of the night sat on an opposite house-top and uttered his ill-boding notes with funereal voice. Forthwith the Furies washed him in the sedge of the swamp, where the deep waters had overflowed from the Stygian pools. They besmeared his breast with the venom of the serpent of Erebus, and thrice did they clap their blood-stained hands; they filled, too, his infant throat with the milk of a bitch; this was the first nourishment that entered the mouth of the child. Thence does the fosterling imbibe the savage nature of his nurse; and, throughout all the Forum, does he bark out his canine words. They swathed his limbs, too, with clouts dipped in rust, which they snatched from a funereal pile that had been shamelessly deserted. And, that it might not He down, supported by the bare earth, they placed his youthful head upon the flint stones. And, when now they were about to depart, they waved near his eyes, and before his face, torches made of green branches. The infant cried, soon as he came in contact with the pungent smoke; when thus spoke one Sister of the three: "Those tears have we destined for thee to endless time, which shall ever flow with a cause to excite them. She spoke. Clotho ordered her promises to take effect, and, with envenomed hand, she spun the black warp. And that she might not have to pronounce the lengthened foreboding of his days, she said," There will be a Poet who shall foretell thy destiny. I am that Poet; from me shalt thou learn thy sorrows; if only the Gods give their own energy to my words; and if the confirmation of events, which thou shalt find to be true throughout thy griefs, is consequent upon my lines. And that thou mayst not be tortured without the precedents of former ages, may thy woes be no lighter than those of the Trojans. Mayst thou, too, on thy gangrened foot bear wounds as numerous as Philoctetes, the Pœantian hero, the heir of the club-bearing Hercules, Mayst thou feel no less pain than Telephus, he who sucked the udder of the hind, and who received the wound of Achilles in arms, his cure as a friend; or than Bellerophon, who fell headlong from his horse upon the Ale'ian plains, whose beauty was nearly his own destruction. Mayst thou see that which Phoenix, the son of Amyntor did; and, deprived of thy eyes, mayst thou tremblingly grope thy way with the assisting stick. And mayst thou see no better, than Œdipus, whom Antigone, his own daughter guided; whose criminality either parent experienced. Mayst thou he just as Tiresias, the old man celebrated in the prophetic art of Apollo, after he was chosen umpire in the sportive dispute: just, too, as Phineus was, by whose directions the dove was given as the forerunner and guide of the bark, the work of Pallas; and like Polymnestor, who lost his eyes, by which, to his sorrow, he had beheld the gold; eyes which the bereft mother offered as an atoning sacrifice to the shades of her son. Like the shepherd of Ætna, whose future calamities Telemus, the son of Eurymus, had previously prophecied. Like the two sons of Phineus, whom the same person deprived of sight that gave it to them; like Thamyras and the person of Demodocus. May one mutilate thy members, just as Saturn cut off those parts, whence he had derived his origin. And may Neptune be no more favourable to thee on the boisterous waves, than he ivas to Ceyx, whose brother and wife suddenly became birds; and to Ulysses, the sagacious man, upon whom Ino, the sister of Semele, took compassion, as he clung to the shattered remnants of his ship. Or, that one only may not have been acquainted with that kind of punishment, let thy divided entrails be torn asunder by horses going different ways. Or, mayst thou endure thyself what Regulus, who thought it shameful to be redeemed, bore from the Punic general. And may no Divinity be present to aid thee; as it was with Priam, to whom the altar of Hercæan Jove, as a place of refuge, was of no avail. And just as Thessalus was precipitated from the heights of Ossa, mayst thou be hurled as well from the rocky steep; or may thy limbs be a prey tc greedy snakes, just like those of Euryalus, who received the sceptre after him. Or may the boiling stream of water poured over thee hasten thy death, like that of Minos, and just as Prometheus, mayst thou feed the fowls of the air with thy blood far from guiltless, but not so with impunity. Or, like the son of Etracus, the fifth from the thrice great Hercules, mayst thou be hurled, when slain, into the boundless ocean. Or may some boy, loved with a disgraceful affection, hate thee and wound thee with the ruthless sword, like Philip, the son of Amyntas.

May, too, no draughts be mingled for thee, less treacherous, than were for him, who was born of Jove wearing the horns. Or mayst thou perish, suspended in the manner of the captive Achæus, who was miserably hanged, the gold-bearing stream attesting it. Or may a tile, hurled by the hand of the foe, crush thee, as it did him, who was famous with the kindred surname of the son of Achilles. And may thy bones repose no more quietly than those of Pyrrhus, which, scattered about, were strewed in the roads of Ambracia. And mayst thou die, just hke the daughter of the descendant of Æacus, by the impelled darts; from Ceres it is not possible to conceal this -wickedness. And, like the grandson of the King, just now mentioned in my verse, mayst thou drink extract of cantharides, a parent administering it. Or may some adulterous woman be called virtuous for thy murder; just as she was called virtuous, by whose avenging hand Leucon fell. And, mayst thou, together with thyself, throw on the pile the dearest pledges of affection; an end which Sardanapalus experienced for his life. And may the sands, driven by the South wind, cover thy face, as they did that of Cambyses, who attempted to profane the temple of Libyan Jove. May the crumbling ashes consume thy bones, as they did of those who were slain by the treachery of the second Darius. Or, may cold and hunger be the cause of thy death, as with Neocles, that once was banished from olive-bearing Sicyon. Or, as he, of Atarna, mayst thou be disgracefully carried to thy superior, sewed up in the hide of a bull. Mayst thou also be stabbed in thy chamber, after the manner of Alexander of Pheræ, who was put to death by the sword of his wife. And, mayst thou, like Aleuas of Larissa, find, by thy wounds, those to be unfaithful, whom thou deemest trustworthy. And, just like Milo, under whose tyranny Pisa was tormented, mayst thou be precipitated alive in the subterranean waters. May those bolts, too, strike thee, which were sent by Jupiter against Adimantus, who ruled the realms of Phlius. Or, like, in days of old, Lenæus, from the regions of Amastris, mayst thou be deserted, naked on the ground, that is called by the name of Achilles. And just as either Eurydamas was thrice dragged around the pile of Thrasyllus, by Larissaean wheels, or, as Hector, who, with his body, made the circuit of the walls not destined to last, which he had frequently defended; and as, when the daughter of Hippomenes suffered a new kind of punishment, her adulterer is said to have been dragged on the Actæan soil: so, when thy odious life shall have left thy limbs, may avenging horses drag thy filthy carcase. May some projecting rock transfix thy entrails; as were once those of the Greeks, returning from Troy, transfixed in the Euboean strait. And as the bold ravisher, Ajax, the son of Oïleus, perished by lightning and the waves; so may fire aid the waves that are to overwhelm thee. May thy infatuated mind, too, be frenzied by the Furies, as with Marsyas, who, when flayed, had but one wound in the whole of his body. And, as with Lycurgus, the son of Dryas, who held the realms of Rhodope, who had not the same regard for both his feet. As it happened, too, in former times, to Hercules, at (Eta, and to the son-in-law of the Dragons, and to Orestes, the father of Tisamenus, and to Alcmæon, the husband of Callirhoe. And may thy wife be no more chaste than Ægle, that matron, at whom Tydeus might blush for a daughter-in-law; and, than Hypermnestra, the Locrian, who had intercourse with the brother of her husband, concealing it by the death of her handmaid. May the Gods also make thee able to rejoice in a wife, as faithful as Amphiaraus, the son-in-law of Talaus, and Agamemnon, the son-inlaw of Tyndarus, did; and, as true as the Bana'ides, the grand-daughters of Belus, who, daring to contrive the death of their cousins, are overwhelmed everlastingly with water up to their necks. May she burn, too, with the flame of Byblis, and of Canace, as though with that of a torch; and be not thy sister known to thee, but in a criminal manner. Shouldst thou have a daughter; may she be as Pelopea was to Thyestes, Myrrha to her own father, and Nyctimene to hers; and may she be no more affectionate, or attached to the person of her father, than thy daughter was to thee, Pterelas, or thine to thee, Nisus; and, than Tullia, who made the place accursed by the fame of her wickedness, and crushed the limbs of her father with the wheels driven over them. Mayst thou die as the youths did, whose heads the summits of the gates of Pisa once supported; and, as Œnomaus, who stained the ground that had been often bathed in that of the wretched Suitors, more deservedly with his own blood. And, as Myrtilus, the charioteer, did, the betrayer of the remorseless tyrant, who gave its new name to the Myrtoan sea. And, as those who, in vain, sought Atalanta, the damsel swift of foot; until she was caught, overtaken through the three apples. And as those who entered the irremeable retreats of the darkened habitation, that concealed the form of the wondrous monster, the Minotaur. Like those Trojans, whose six bodies, along with other six, Achilles, the son of Æacus, in his rage, placed upon the lofty pile. Like those, whom we read that the Sphynx devoted to a horrid death, when deceived by the obscurities of her ambiguous language. Like those who were slain in the temple of the Bistonian Minerva; on which account even now the face of the Goddess is covered. Like those, who once, as food, made the mangers of the Thracian king red with blood. Like those who were exposed to the lions of Therodamas, and like those who were sacrificed at the Tauric rites of the Goddess worshipped by Thoas. Like those whom voracious Scylla, and Charybdis, opposite to Scylla, snatched trembling from the Dulichian ship: like those whom Polyphemus despatched into his vast paunch: like those who entered into the houses of the Læstrygons. Like those whom the Punic general drowned in the waters of the well, and made the stream white with the dust thrown in. Just as the twice six maid servants of Penelope, the daughter of Icarus, and her suitors perished, and hke Melanthius, too, who furnished those suitors with arms against the life of his master. Just as Antæus, the wrestler, who lies prostrate, thrown by the Aonian stranger, one who (wondrous to relate) was conqueror after he had fallen. Like those whom the strong arms of Antaeus crushed; and those whom the Lemnian multitude put to a cruel death: like him, who, the discoverer of cruel rites, slain as a victim, brought down the showers of rain after a length of time. As Busiris, the brother of Antaeus, strewed the altars with that blood which, injustice, he ought, and was slain himself, after the example he had set: and as Diomedes, who, in his impiety, fed his terrible steeds with human entrails, in place of the blade containing the grain: like the two that were slain, on different occasions, by the same avenger, Nessus, and Eurytion, the son-in-law of Dexamenus. Like thy great grandson, Saturn, Periphetas, whom Æsculapius, the son of Coronis, from his own City saw yield up his life. Like Sinnis and Scyron, the robbers, and Procrustes, the son of Polypemon, and the Minotaur, who was a man in one part, a bull in another. Like him, too, who, surveying the waters of this sea and of that, used to let the pine trees pressed down spring up from the ground into the air; and like the body of Cercyon, which Ceres beheld, with joyful countenance, dying by the hand of Theseus. May these curses, which my anger calls down with merited prayers, be thy lot, or others not more tolerable than these woes. Just as Achæmenides, deserted on Sicilian Ætna, was, when he beheld the Trojan sails approach. Such, too, as was the fortune of the two-named Irus, and of those who post themselves as beggars on the bridge, a fortune which shall be more intolerable to thee. In vain may Plutus, the son of Ceres, ever be loved by thee; and may he, ever sought, desert thy fortunes. And as the soft sand gives way under the pressure of the foot, as the water ebbs and flows, so may thy possessions always melt in some indescribable manner; and, slipping through the midst of thy hands, may they ever flow away. Mayst thou, when filled, be wasted by insatiate hunger, like the father of the damsel who was wont to assume various forms. And may no loathing of human flesh come on thee; and in the only respect that thou canst, thou shalt be the Tydeus of the present day. And mayst thou perpetrate some crime, by reason of which the steeds of the horror-stricken Sun may again be turned from the West towards the East. Thou shalt repeat the foul banquet of the table of Lycaon, and thou shalt attempt to deceive Jupiter by the false appearance of thy viands. I wish, too, that some one would try the power of the Divinity, by serving thee up; that thou mayst be the son of Tantalus, and the boy of Tereus. And may thy limbs be scattered over the wide fields, as those were which arrested the progress of the father of Medea. Mayst thou imitate the real bulls in the brass of Perillus, with a voice adapted to the figure of the bull. And, like the cruel Phalaris, thy tongue first cut out with the sword, mayst thou lament in imitation of the bull, enclosed in Paphian brass. And whilst thou shalt desire to return to the years of a more youthful age, mayst thou be outwitted like Pelias, the aged father-in-law of Admetus. On horseback mayst thou be swallowed, like Curtius, in the gulf of the pervading swamp, only so that there be no glory in thy deed. And mayst thou perish, like those sprung from the teeth sown in the Grecian fields by the Sidonian hand of Cadmus, May the direful imprecations fall upon thy head which the grandson of Pentheus uttered, and the brother of Medusa; and those with which, in the little book, the bird was accursed, which purges its own body with water injected. And mayst thou endure as many wounds as Osiris is said to have borne, from whose rites the knife is said to be absent. And mayst thou insanely hack thy worthless members to the Phrygian tune, like those whom Mother Cybele influences.

From a man mayst thou be made neither man nor woman, like Atys; and mayst thou shake the jarring tambourine with effeminate hand. Mayst thou, too, suddenly be changed into a lion, the beast of the great Mother Cybele, just as the conqueror, and she that was conquered in the foot-race, were transformed. And, that Limone alone may not have experienced that punishment, may the horse tear thy entrails, too, with savage tooth. Or, as he of Cassandria, not less cruel than that tyrant, mayst thou, wounded, be entombed in the earth heaped on thee. Or, as Perseus, the descendant of Abas, or the Cycneian hero, mayst thou, shut up, be precipitated into the waves of the deep; or mayst thou be slain, a victim at the sacred altars of Phoebus; a death which Theudotus received at the hands of a cruel enemy. Or may Abdera devote thee on the appointed days, and may multitudes of stones, in a she be hurled upon thee so devoted.

Or mayst thou be struck by the three-forked bolt of Jove, like Capaneus, the son of Hipponous, and like Atrax, the father of Dosithoe; like Semele, the sister of Autonoe; Idee Jasius, whose aunt was Maia; like him, who badly guided the horses that in his rashness he had desired. Like Salmoneus the cruel son of olus; like him born of the same parent as she was sprung from, who, as the Bear, ever avoids the flowing waters. As Macedo, with her husband, was struck by the swift lightnings, so, I pray, mayst thou fall by the fires of the heavenly avenger. Mayst thou also be a prey to the dogs, by which Latonian Delos may not be approached, Thasus, the priest of Apollo, having been torn by them before his time; and who pulled in pieces him who beheld the bath of the modest Diana, and Linus, the grandson of Crotopus. And mayst thou not be more lightly stung by the venomous serpents than Bury dice, the daughter-in-law of the old man (Œagrus, and of Calliope; than Opheltes, the son of Hypsipyle; than Laocoon, who was the first to pierce with his sharp spear the wood of the suspected horse. And mayst thou not approach the lofty stairs more cautiously than Elpenor, and mayst thou feel the effects of wine in the same manner as he did. And mayst thou fall, as much vanquished as each Dryopian that aided the inhuman Thiodamas, who called them to arms; as much as Cacus, who fell slaughtered by his own cave, betrayed by the voice of the heifer shut up A?; as much as Lichas, who bore the gifts dipped in the Lernaean venom, and who dyed the Euboean waves with his own blood. Or mayst thou come to Tartarus from the steep a like him who read the Socratic book upon death; like him who beheld the deceiving sails of the ship of Theseus; like the boy Astyanax, who was hurled from the towers of Troy; like Ino, the nurse of the infant Bacchus, who was his aunt; like him, the cause of whose death was far the invention of the saw. Like the Lydian virgin, who threw herself from the lofty rocks, and who had uttered opprobrious expressions to the reluctant Deity. May a pregnant lioness, a native of thy country, meet thee on thy paternal soil, and may she be the cause of thy death, resembling that of Phayllus, king of Ambracia, May, too, the boar which slew the son of Lycurgus, and Adonis, who was born of a tree, and the bold Idmon, tear thee as well; and may he, even when dead, give thee a wound, as with him, upon whose face the head of the transfixed boar fell. Or mayst thou be like him whom a pine-nut slew with a similar fate, and mayst thou be as the Phrygian, and the hunter of Berecynthus, Should thy ship touch upon the Minoian sands, may the Cretan multitude take thee to be a Corcyræan. Mayst thou enter a house about to fall, like the offspring of Aleuas, when the Constellation was propitious to the man who was the son of Leoprepis. And, like either Evenus or Tiberinus, drowned in the rapid stream, mayst thou give a name to the flowing river. And may thy head, a fit prey for wild beasts, be a prey for man, cut off like that of the son of Astacus, from thy mutilated carcase. And, as they say that Broteas did, in his desire for death, mayst thou place thy limbs to be burnt on the lighted pile. Shut up in a cage, mayst thou suffer death, like the compiler of the history, that availed him nothing. May, too, thy insolent tongue prove thy destruction, as it was the ruin of the inventor of the abusive Iambics. like him, too, who slandered Athens in his limping verse, mayst thou perish, despised, for want of food. And, as the poet of the satirical lyre is said to have perished, may thy breach of faith be the cause of thy ruin. And, as the serpent gave the wound to Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, mayst thou, too, perish from a sting containing venom. May the first night of thy marriage be the last of thy life: Eupolis and his newmade bride died in this manner. As they say that Lycophron the Tragedian perished, so may an arrow stand fixed in thy vitals. Or, torn in pieces, mayst thou be scattered in the woods, by the hands of thy relations; just as Pentheus was scattered about, at Thebes, who was descended from Cadmus changed into a dragon for his grandsire. And mayst thou be drawn over the wild mountains, a bull dragging thee; just as Dirce, the tyrannical wife of Lycus, was dragged. And, that which Philomela the unwilling supplanter of her sister suffered, may thy tongue, cut out, fall before thy feet. Like him that was named Astacus, having been slain in the Theban war, his head, when cut off, was mangled and gnawed by Tydeus, to the great disgust of Minerva. Blaesus, the founder of Cyrrha, late in its erection, mayst thou be found in innumerable parts of the world. And may the industrious bee, as it did to the poet Achæus, fix its hurt ful sting in thy eyes. Bound, too, on the hard rocks, mayst thou have thy entrails torn, like Prometheus, whose brother's daughter was Pyrrha. Like the son of Harpagus, mayst thou recall the example of Thyestes, and, slaughtered, mayst thou enter the bowels of thy parent. Mayst thou have thy members mutilated, thy parts being lopped off by the cruel sword, just as they say that the limbs of Mimnermus were. And as it was with the Syracusan poet, may the passage of thy breath be closed, thy throat being stopped up. May thy entrails, too. He exposed, the skin being stripped off; like him whose name the Phrygian river bears. Mayst thou, to thy misery, look upon the face of Medusa, that changes into stone, she who, though but one, put to death many of the subjects of Cepheus. Mayst thou feel the bite of the mares of Potniae like Glaucus, and mayst thou leap into the water of the sea, like another Glaucus. And as, with him who had the same names as the two just now mentioned, may Gnossian honey stop up the passage of thy breath. Mayst thou too drink, with trembling lips, the same which Socrates, the most learned of men, accused by Anytus, once drank with serene countenance. May nothing, shouldst thou love anything, happen to thee more fortunately than it did to Hæmon; and mayst thou enjoy thy own sister, as Macareus did his. Or mayst thou behold what the son of Hector saw from his native towers, when now the flames prevailed on every side. Mayst thou expiate thy crimes with thy blood, like Adonis, who was begotten by his father, who was his grandfather, and whose own sister, by criminality, became his mother. May such a kind of weapon stick in thy bones as that with which Ulysses, the son-in-law of Icarius, is said to have been slain. And as the loquacious throat was stopped up in the horse that was made of maple wood, so may the passage of thy voice be closed by the thumb. Or, like Anaxarchus, mayst thou be brayed in a deep mortar, and may thy bones, when struck, rattle instead of the real corn. And may Phoebus enclose thee in the lowest depths of Tartarus, as he did Crotopus, the father of Psamathe; the same as he had done to his own daughter. May that plague, too, attack thy family which the right hand of Choraebus conquered, and so aided the wretched Argives. Like Hippolytus, the grandson of Æthra, doomed to perish through the wrath of Venus, mayst thou, in exile, be dragged by thy frightened horses. As the host, Polymnestor, slew his foster-chil.d, on account of his great riches, may thy host slay thee, on account of thy want of riches. As they say, too, that his six brothers were slain, together with Damasicthon, son of Niobe so may all thy race perish, together with thee. As the harper, Amphion, added his own death to that of his wretched children, so mayst thou have a deserved loathing of thy own life. Or, like Niobe, the sister of Pelops, mayst thou become hard with rock growing over thee, and, like Battus, who was ruined by his own tongue. If thou shalt cleave the vacant air with the hurled quoit, mayst thou fall, struck by the same circle as the boy, Hyacinthus, the son of Œbalus. If any water shall be cleaved by thy alternating arms, may every stream prove more injurious to thee than that of Abydos, over which Leander swam. As the Comedian perished in the midst of the waves, while he was swimming, so may the Stygian water suffocate thee. Or else, when, shipwrecked, thou shalt have escaped the boisterous sea, mayst thou perish on touching the shore, as Palinurus did. And may the pack of watchful hounds, the care of Diana, tear thee too in pieces, like the Poet of Tragedy. Or like Empedocles, of Trinacria, mayst thou leap upon the face of the giant Enceladus, where the Sicilian Ætna vomits forth flames in abundance. May the Strymonian matrons tear asunder thy limbs with insane nails, thinking they are those of Orpheus. As Meleager, the son of Althaea, burned with distant flames, so may thy funereal pile be consumed by the flame of a branch. As the new-made bride, Creusa, was deceived by the Phasian chaplet, and as the father of the bride, and, with the father, the household. As the venom, diffused, pervaded the limbs of Hercules, so may the pestilential poison consume thy body. May those wounds, from a new-fashioned weapon, await thee too, by means of which his offspring avenged Lycurgus, the son of Pentheus. And, like Milo, mayst thou endeavour to cleave the fissile oak; and mayst thou be unable to remove thence thy hands caught there. Mayst thou perish, too, through thy own gifts, like Icarus; against whom the drunken crowd raised their hands in arms. And as Erigone, his affectionate daughter, did, through grief for her father's death, do thou cause the noose of the rope to go round thy throat. Mayst thou too endure famine, the threshold of the house being blocked up, like him to whom his own mother herself gave sentence of punishment. Mayst thou outrage the statues of Diana, after the example of Agamemnon who sped on his rapid path from the port of Aulis. After the example of Palamedes, the son of Nauplius, mayst thou be punished with death on a false accusation: and may it be of no advantage to thee that thou didst not deserve it. As the host, the priest of Isis, deprived Æthalius of his life, whom, lo remembering it even to this day, drives afar from her rites. And as the bereft mother, by the aid of her lamp, betrayed Melantheus as he lurked in darkness after the murder; so may thy breast be pierced with the hurled darts; so, I pray, mayst thou be injured by thy own aliies. May such a night be passed by thee, as was by Dolon, the Phrygian coward, who bargained for the horses which the brave Achilles used to drive. Mayst thou, too, enjoy no better sleep than Rhesus did, and those who were the companions of Rhesus, both in his death and before, in his journey; mid, than they did, whom the active son of Hyrtacus, and his companion, put to death, together with the Rutulian Rhamnes. Surrounded, too, like the son of Ciinias, with smoky flames, mayst thou carry thy half-burnt limbs to Stygian doom. May rustic arms also prove the destruction of thy life, as they were for Remus, who dared to pass over the new-built walls. Lastly, I pray, that amid Sarmatian and Getic arrows, thou mayst hve and die in these regions. These things have been only sent thee in a hurried work, that thou mayst not complain that I am forgetful of thee. They are few indeed, I confess, but may the Gods grant more than is asked for, and, in their kindness, may they multiply my wishes.

Hereafter, thou shalt read still more, and that which shall contain thy true name, written in Iambics, the measure in which ruthless warfare ought to be waged.