Which now sad I (alas!) outpour from innermost vitalsMaugre my will, sans help, blind, fired with furious madness.And, as indeed all spring from veriest core of my bosom,Suffer you not the cause of grief and woe to evanish;But with the Will wherewith could Theseus leave me in loneness,Goddesses! bid that Will lead him, lead his, to destruction."

E'en as she thus poured forth these words from anguish of bosom,And for this cruel deed, distracted, sued she for vengeance,Nodded the Ruler of Gods Celestial, matchless of All-might,When at the gest earth-plain and horrid spaces of oceanTrembled, and every sphere rockt stars and planets resplendent.Meanwhile Theseus himself, obscured in blindness of darknessAs to his mind, dismiss'd from breast oblivious all thingsErewhile enjoined and held hereto in memory constant,Nor for his saddened sire the gladness-signals uphoistingHeralded safe return within sight of the Erechthean harbour.For 'twas told of yore, when from walls of the Virginal DeessAegeus speeding his son, to the care of breezes committed,Thus with a last embrace to the youth spoke words of commandment:

"Son! far nearer my heart (you alone) than life of the longest,Son, I perforce dismiss to doubtful, dangerous chances,Lately restored to me when eld draws nearest his ending,Since such fortune in me, and in you such boiling of valourTear you away from me so loath, whose eyes in their languorNever are sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures.Nor will I send you forth with joy that gladdens my bosom,Nor will I suffer you show boon signs of favouring Fortune,But from my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow,Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms,So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spiritShow by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.But, grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,(And our issue to guard and ward the seats of ErechtheusSware She) that if your right is besprent with blood of the Man-Bull,Then do you so-wise act, and stored in memory's heart-coreDwell these mandates of me, no time their traces untracing.Dip, when first shall arise our hills to gladden your eye-glance,Down from your every mast the ill-omened vestments of mourning,Then let the twisten ropes upheave the whitest of canvas,Wherewith splendid shall gleam the tallest spars of the top-mast,These seeing sans delay with joy exalting my spiritWell shall I wot boon Time sets you returning before me."

Such were the mandates which stored at first in memory constantFaded from Theseus' mind like mists, compelled by the whirlwind,Fleet from aerial crests of mountains hoary with snow-drifts.But as the sire had sought the citadel's summit for outlook,Wasting his anxious eyes with tear-floods evermore flowing,Forthright e'en as he saw the sail-gear darkened with dye-stain,Headlong himself flung he from the sea-cliff's pinnacled summitHolding his Theseus lost by doom of pitiless Fortune.Thus as he came to the home funest, his roof-tree paternal,Theseus (vaunting the death), what dule to the maiden of MinosDealt with unminding mind so dree'd he similar dolour.She too gazing in grief at the kelson vanishing slowly,Self-wrapt, manifold cares revolved in spirit perturbed.

ON ANOTHER PART OF THE COVERLETBut from the further side came flitting bright-faced IacchusGirded by Satyr-crew and Nysa-reared SileniBurning with love unto thee (Ariadne!) and greeting thy presence. Who flocking eager to fray did rave with infuriate spirit,"Evoe" frenzying loud, with heads at "Evoe" rolling.Brandisht some of the maids their thyrsi sheathed of spear-point,Some snatcht limbs and joints of sturlings rended to pieces,These girt necks and waists with writhing bodies of vipers,Those with the gear enwombed in crates dark orgies ordained—Orgies that ears profane must vainly lust for o'er hearing—Others with palms on high smote hurried strokes on the cymbal,Or from the polisht brass woke thin-toned tinkling music,While from the many there boomed and blared hoarse blast of the horn-trump,And with its horrid skirl loud shrilled the barbarous bag-pipeShowing such varied forms, that richly-decorated couch-clothFolded in strait embrace the bedding drapery-veiled.This when the Thessalan youths had eyed with eager inspectionFulfilled, place they began to provide for venerate Godheads,Even as Zephyrus' breath, seas couching placid at dawn-tide,Roughens, then stings and spurs the wavelets slantingly fretted—Rising Aurora the while 'neath Sol the wanderer's threshold—Tardy at first they flow by the clement breathing of breezesUrged, and echo the shores with soft-toned ripples of laughter,But as the winds wax high so waves wax higher and higher,Flashing and floating afar to outswim morn's purpurine splendours,—So did the crowd fare forth, the royal vestibule leaving,And to their house each wight with vaguing paces departed.After their wending, the first, foremost from Pelion's summit,Chiron came to the front with woodland presents surcharged:Whatso of blooms and flowers bring forth Thessalian uplandsMighty with mountain crests, whate'er of riverine lea flowersReareth Favonius' air, bud-breeding, tepidly breathing,All in his hands brought he, unseparate in woven garlands,Whereat laughed the house as soothed by pleasure of perfume.Presently Péneus appears, deserting verdurous Tempe—