Which show the fury which your bosom fills,
Come hither, hear my piteous tale of ills,
Which I unhappy, helpless, mad with love,
Pour forth, your ruth with truthful words to move.
And since my words are true, let not my wail

Be disregarded as an idle tale,

But may that savage heart which Theseus bore,
Which left me lonely on this desert shore,
Involve in ruin him and all his race,

Grant me, dread goddesses, at least this grace."
Such wail she uttered from her mournful breast,
Invoking vengeance on her cruel guest.

The mighty Thunderer his dread assent

Nodded propitious, and the sound was sent
Through earth's wide plains, and ocean's waves afar,
And shook through heaven's vault each glittering star.
Blank darkness on the mind of Theseus fell,
His sire's injunction which he learned so well
And kept with constant heart, he now forgot,
No sail was hoisted to announce his lot,
To show the son escaped the monster's rage,
Alive returned to bless his father's age.
For, as the story goes, when first the fleet
Left Athens' port divine, and sailed for Crete,
Old Ægeus ere the parting yet was done
Gave such injunction to his gallant son.

"My child beloved, my only child, more dear
Than length of life through many a rolling year,
Restored thy sire's declining years to bless,
Whom now I send to face grim danger's stress,
Since fortune, and for fame thy generous glow,
Now snatch thee from me, loath to let thee go
For not yet have these eyes enjoyed their fill
Of gazing on thee; it is heaven's will,
But with no joyful heart I bid thee go,
Nor shalt thou signals of good fortune show.
But first will I pour forth my wails and tears,
With scattered dust defile my aged hairs,
Then will I hang sails of a dusky hue

Upon thy mast that all our grief may view—
Iberian sails stained with a rust-like dye,
Sign of my woe, my burning agony.

But if the goddess of Itone's shrine (9)
Who erst our race and Athens' walls divine
Swore to defend, shall grant this grace to thee,
To slay the monster and the land set free,
Then keep this bidding in a constant heart,
Nor from thy memory let my words depart;
When first the Athenian hills shall meet thy view
Put off the yards the sails of dusky hue,

And let the cordage hoist fair canvas white,

That when the wished-for ship shall meet my sight,

Then I may know, while joy shall fill my mind Of thy return, a prosperous age to find."

This bidding Theseus with obedience due

Had minded, but as clouds through the deep blue
Driven by winds leave the hill-tops behind,

So passed his sire's behest from Theseus' mind.
Meanwhile old Ægeus, bowed with anxious fears,
Wasting his eyes with never-ceasing tears,
From the high battlements of Pallas' fane,
Scanning with longing eyes the watery plain,
Soon as he saw the dark sail on the sea
Threw himself headlong, thinking sure that he
His son had fallen low by cruel fate.
So Theseus entered the ancestral gate
Of his proud palace with a mourning train,
And thus returned upon his head again
The woe he wrought on Naxos' rocky shore,
When him the ship from Minos' daughter bore.
She the meanwhile the fast receding bark
Watching remains, a prey to anguish dark.

The other side fair Bacchus meets our view,
And with him come a quaint Satyric crew,
And Nysa-born Sileni with him rove, (10)
Thee, Ariadne, seeking fired with love.
Evoe, lo! they shout with frenzied strain,
Wild-dancing, till the rocks resound again,

Whose favourite shrine on Idrus' summit stands, (13)
She, too, with thee despised the nuptial bands
Which joined fair Thetis and brave Peleus' hands.
Now when the gods their snowy limbs reclined,
The board was filled with cheer of various kind,
Meanwhile the Parcæ, trembling, bent with years,
Chaunting begin to utter fate aloud:

Rose-coloured fillets bind their snowy hairs,

White robes with purple hem their figures shroud,
Working for ever at the web of doom,
The aye-unceasing labour of the loom.

Their left hands hold the distaff, while the wool
Runs swift and smooth around the whirling spool,
Formed with upturnéd fingers; while their thumbs
Bent downwards twist the fibre as it comes.

The ends to equal with their teeth they bite,

With woolly threads their withered lips are white; Before their feet, baskets of osiers stand

To hold the fleeces, and the mystic band

Drawing the thread, sing with clear-sounding cry
The song of fate, the chaunt of doom on high,
Which no succeeding age should falsify:

"Hear thou great lord, whose deeds of valour claim

A newer glory for thy princely name,

Most glorious in thy son that is to be,

Hear what the sisters now reveal to thee,

A truthful oracle on this glad day,

Hear, thou of Thessaly the prop and stay. (14) And ye by whom the doom of men is sped

Run spindles, run, draw out the fateful thread.

"Lo Hesperus draws nigh; the joys of love
Which every eager bridegroom pants to prove,
Attend him, for behold thy matchless bride
Comes with the lucky star to seek thy side,
With thee prepares to join in languorous rest,
Soothing with joy thy love-tormented breast,
Placing her tender arms beneath thy head.

Run spindles, run, draw out the fateful thread.

"Ne'er were such lovers joined beneath one roof,
Ne'er was love seen of such a mighty proof,
Ne'er did a mutual flame such influence shed,
As when brave Peleus did with Thetis wed.
Run spindles, run, draw out the fateful thread.

"To you the great Achilles shall be born,
Whose grand heroic soul all fear shall scorn,
Who on the ranging course full oft shall gain
The crown of victory, and along the plain
Than the light-bounding stag more swift shall be,
Whose flying back no foeman ere shall see,