We sought the greenhouse; for the three was set a sofa there.
Dost wonder how the trio sat? I sat between the pair.
We'd Lygdamus for waiter-crystal summer-service; wine
The produce of Methymna, with the smack of turpentine;
A gipsy flutist; Phyllis played the bones in charming style,
So trim and neat, with smile so sweet as roses rained the
while;

A dwarf besides, shrunk up into his limbs, a dumpy thing,
Who tossed his stumpy hands, and made the hollow boxwood

ring.

But though the lamps were often trimmed, the flame would burn not well,

And off its legs, face uppermost, at last the table fell.

And while I tried the dice for luck with oft-repeated throws,
By some untoward chance the cursèd aces always rose.
They sung, 'twas vain; exposed their charms—I had as well
been blind :

Woe's me! Lanuvium's gates alone were ever in my mind,—
When suddenly the door-posts shook, the hinges creaked, a din
Of whispered murmurs at the door, like some one coming in-
'Twas Cynthia! bang the leaves went wide-it was no vain
presage-

Not with elaborated hair, but beautiful in rage.

Down from my thewless fingers fell the goblet on the floor,
My lips, though steeped in rosy wine, a deathlike pallor wore.
Her eyes flash fire, she raves as only woman can: I ween,
In captured city ne'er before was witnessed such a scene.
She thrusts her wrathful nails in Phyllis' face; while, wan with

fear,

Loud Teia shouts, "From yonder pools bring water quickly here."

The sleeping Romans ope their eyes in fright, and one and all, With hurrying feet, dash through the street to see the midnight

brawl.

The quaking pair, with ruffled hair, and tunics flying free,
Rush up the dismal alley to the nearest shop they see.
Now Cynthia revels in the rout; returns, the combat o'er,
And with her vixen hands my face with slaps belabours sore.
She bites my neck-here is the mark-till blood profusely
flows;

But still my eyes, that were to blame, receive the heaviest blows.
And when she'd tired her arms, and wreaked her vengeance

to the dregs,

Poor Lygdamus, who'd hid beneath the sofa's hinder legs, Is trundled out, and humbly sues for aid on bended knee. "Poor soul," I cried, "'tis vain; I'm but a captive here with thee."

With suppliant hands I begged for peace, and, moved by slow degrees,

She let me touch her feet at last, and said in words like these:

"If thou wouldst have forgiveness for the wrong that thou hast done,

Then list to my conditions as I name them one by one:
Ne'er more in fine attire thou'lt stroll in Pompey's pillar'd
shade,

Nor seek the lustful Forum with the combat's sand o'erlaid;
Nor stare around the theatre, neck bent from side to side,
To where the women sit, nor lounge by litter open wide.
And first of all, let Lygdamus, the cause of all my pain,
Be sold, and drag on both his legs the slave's ignoble chain."

Such were the terms imposed: I answered, "Lady, I agree." She proudly smiled to see me bend beneath her stern decree. She smoked each luckless spot whereon my stranger-nymphs had been,

And then with water from the spring washed all the threshold

clean.

The dress and hood I had put on she bade me change once

more,

And thrice with burning sulphur all my head besprinkled o'er. The fumigation done, she changed the bedclothes sheet by sheet:

Our quarrel o'er, in bed once more we lay in concord sweet.

IX.

HERCULES AND CACUS.

Amphitryoniades qua tempestate juvencos.

WHEN, Erythea, from thy stalls Alcides drave the kine,
He wandered to the lofty hills of steer-browsed Palatine,
And, weary, stayed his weary herd Velabrum's lake beside,
Where o'er the unborn city's breast the boatman's pinnace

plied.

Nor there with Cacus, faithless host, his flock unscathed remained;

For soon with theft the shrine of Jove the godless robber stained.

Within an awful den this Cacus dwelt-a tenant dire,

Who belched from forth three gaping mouths three flames of living fire.

And lest the place should show a trace of such an act of bale, He turned the oxen round, and dragged them caveward by

the tail.

Heaven saw the theft: the oxen lowed: with fury boiling o'er, He sped amain, and dashed in twain the robber's ruthless door. With sturdy bough his triple brow he smote, and laid him low, And said, "Go, steers of Hercules, my club's last labour, go: Go, steers, twice sought and twice my spoil, with lowings bless your home;

A noble Forum yet shall crown the pasture-lands ye roam."

He spoke his tongue is parched; no streams gush from the teeming earth;

Afar he hears in bowery glade the ring of maiden-mirth. 'Tis Bona Dea's secret grove, where lustral fountains flow, And maidens ply the awful rites that man may never know. The gates were purple-wreathed, the shrine with fragrant flames a-blaze,

The cell o'erarched with poplar-boughs, where song-birds piped their lays.

With shaggy beard all dust-besmeared, the hero hither sped, And thus in words beneath a god before the threshold pled: “I pray you, ye who sport within this hallowed grotto, deign To open to a weary wight your hospitable fane.

Athirst I roam, and round your home are fountains murmuring; Enough whate'er my hollow palm can lift from yonder spring. Have ye e'er heard of one whose back the mighty world once bore,

By earth reclaimed Alcides named? He pleads before your door.

Who knows not the brave deeds the club of Hercules hath

wrought,

And shafts at savage monsters dealt, and never dealt for nought?

Who knows not him-the only man who pierced the Stygian gloom?

Receive him earth will hardly give the weary hero room.
Though here the sacred rites of crabbed Juno now ye plied,
Hard step-dame though she is, she ne'er her waters had denied.
But if my looks, this lion-hide all bristly, and my hair
Embrowned by sweltering Libyan sun, should any maiden scare,
I did a slave-girl's duties once in Tyrian palla drest,
And spun my daily task with Lydian distaff like the rest.
This shaggy breast of mine was then in cincture soft arrayed;
And though my hands were rough and hard, I was a clever

maid."

So spake Alcides, and the saintly priestess thus replied,

Her hoary hair with fillet rare of richest purple tied :

"O spare thine eyes! go, stranger, leave this awful grove,— away!

In safety fly this threshold while thou canst nor longer stay. This altar 'mid the greenwood hid, and barred from foot of man, Aye vindicates its sanctity, and fearful is the ban.

How dear the seer Tiresias paid as Pallas' form he spied, What time she laved her stalwart limbs-her aegis laid aside ! Heaven give thee other founts than 'these: this streamlet trickles on

Along a lonely secret course for maidens' use alone."

She finished with his shoulder then the gloomy posts he shook,

Nor could the bolted door his grievous thirst's wild fury brook. And after he had slaked his thirst and drained the river dry, With lips still moist he banned the sex to all eternity :

"Now on the path of destiny this corner of earth's soil

I reach, and scarce a shelter find when wearied out with toil.
This altar, which I dedicate for finding of my steers—
This mighty altar, raised by hands of mine-in after-years