Now doth the groom receive with happiest omen his goddess,Now let the bride at length to her yearning spouse be delivered.Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
12.
Neither the nurse who comes at dawn to visit her nurslingE'er shall avail her neck to begird with yesterday's ribband.[Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 spindles.]Nor shall the mother's soul for ill-matcht daughter a-grievingLose by a parted couch all hopes of favourite grandsons.Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.Thus in the bygone day Peleus' fate foretellingChaunted from breasts divine prophetic verse the Parcae.For that the pure chaste homes of heroes to visit in personOft-tide the Gods, and themselves to display where mortals were gathered,Wont were the Heavenlies while none human piety spurned.Often the Deities' Sire, in fulgent temple a-dwelling,Whenas in festal days received he his annual worship,Looked upon hundreds of bulls felled prone on pavement before him.Full oft Liber who roamed from topmost peak of ParnassusHunted his howling host, his Thyiads with tresses dishevelled.Then with contending troops from all their city outflockingGladly the Delphians hailed their God with smoking of altars.Often in death-full war and bravest of battle, or MavorsOr rapid Triton's Queen or eke the Virgin Rhamnusian,Bevies of weaponed men exhorting, proved their presence.But from the time when earth was stained with unspeakable scandalsAnd 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,Longèd the sire to sight his first-born's funeral convoySo 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 evilTurned 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.TO HORTALUS LAMENTING A LOST BROTHER.Albeit care that consumes, with dule assiduous grieving,Me from the Learnèd Maids (Hortalus!) ever seclude,