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Oft from Parnassus Bacchus drove his flocks
Of Thyads rev'lling with dishevell❜d locks;
When all the Delphians from their city pour'd,
And glad with smoking shrines the god adored.
Oft, 'mid the deadly warfare proudly seen,
Would horrid Mars or rapid Triton's Queen,
Or Nemesis, Rhamnusian maid, incite

Their armed throngs to brave the thickest fight.

But when this earth with impious crime was stain'd, When virtue fled from man, and passion reign'd; When brothers dyed their hands in brothers' gore;

When children wept a parent's death no more;

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When the harsh father sigh'd for early fate

To snatch the first-born of his buried mate;

And leave him free from fonder ties, to press
Some blooming stepdame in his faint caress;
When e'en the mother, warm'd by youthful charms,
Lured her unconscious offspring to her arms;

Bade incest's curse her household gods condemn, Impious alike to nature and to them;

When rival honour crime and virtue knew ;

Their favour justly all the gods withdrew;
No more to visit sinful earth would deign,
Nor let the eye of man their forms profane.

TO HORTALUS.

SENT TO HIM WITH THE POEM OF BERENICE'S HAIR.

THOUGH grief, my Hortalus, that wastes my heart,
Forbids the culture of the learned Nine ;

Nor can the Muses with their sweetest art
Inspire a bosom worn with grief like mine;

For Lethe laves my brother's clay-cold foot,
His spirit lingers o'er its lazy wave;
The Trojan earth at high Rhetæum's root
O'erwhelms his relics in a distant grave!

Shall I then never, in no future year,
Oh brother, dearer far than vital breath!

See thee again? yet will I hold thee dear,

And in sad strains for ever mourn thy death.

VOL. II.

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Such as the Daulian bird so sadly pours;

As, in some gloomy grove, whose branches crost Inweave their shade, she still at night deplores The hapless destinies of Itys lost.

Yet not forgetting thy request, my friend,
My love awhile can anguish disregard ;
And, though opprest by heaviest woe, I send
These lines, the chosen of Cyrene's bard.

Lest, vainly borne upon the zephyrs swift,
Thou deem'st thy wishes fled my thought and care;

As the dear apple, love's clandestine gift,
Falls from the bosom of the virgin fair;

Which she forgetting in her vest conceal'd,
Springs her returning mother's kiss to claim,
It falls, and as it rolls to view reveal'd,

Her blushes own, like me, neglect and shame.

THE HAIR OF BERENICE.

TRANSLATED BY CATULLUS FROM THE GREEK OF

CALLIMACHUS.

(The Hair speaks.)

CONON, who knew the lights of yonder skies,
Told how the constellations set and rise;
How the sun's glorious beam is clouded o'er;
How stars at certain times are seen no more;
How love calls Dian from her orbit's place

To steal in Latmos' cave the mute embrace;

He first mark'd me with heavenly light o'erspread,

The honours once of Berenice's head:

Which she, with arms outstretch'd in suppliant love, Vow'd to devote to many Gods above;

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