No More Learning

"To ye shall Achilles be born, a stranger to fear, to his foemen not by his
back, but by his broad breast known, who, oft-times the victor in the
uncertain struggle of the foot-race, shall outrun the fire-fleet footsteps
of the speedy doe. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles.

"None in war with him may compare as a hero, when the Phrygian streams
shall trickle with Trojan blood, and when besieging the walls of Troy with
a long-drawn-out warfare perjured Pelops' third heir shall lay that city
waste. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles.

"His glorious acts and illustrious deeds often shall mothers attest o'er
funeral-rites of their sons, when the white locks from their heads are
unloosed amid ashes, and they bruise their discoloured breasts with feeble
fists. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles.

"For as the husbandman bestrewing the dense wheat-ears mows the harvest
yellowed 'neath ardent sun, so shall he cast prostrate the corpses of
Troy's sons with grim swords. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye
spindles.

"His great valour shall be attested by Scamander's wave, which ever pours
itself into the swift Hellespont, narrowing whose course with slaughtered
heaps of corpses he shall make tepid its deep stream by mingling warm blood
with the water. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles.

"And she a witness in fine shall be the captive-maid handed to death, when
the heaped-up tomb of earth built in lofty mound shall receive the snowy
limbs of the stricken virgin. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye
spindles.

"For instant fortune shall give the means to the war-worn Greeks to break
Neptune's stone bonds of the Dardanian city, the tall tomb shall be made
dank with Polyxena's blood, who as the victim succumbing 'neath two-edged
sword, with yielding hams shall fall forward a headless corpse. Haste ye,
a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles.

"Wherefore haste ye to conjoin in the longed-for delights of your love.
Bridegroom thy goddess receive in felicitous compact; let the bride be
given to her eager husband. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye
spindles.

"Nor shall the nurse at orient light returning, with yester-e'en's thread
succeed in circling her neck. [Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye
spindles. ] Not need her solicitous mother fear sad discord shall cause a
parted bed for her daughter, nor need she cease to hope for dear
grandchildren. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles. "

With such soothsaying songs of yore did the Parcae chant from divine breast
the felicitous fate of Peleus. For of aforetime the heaven-dwellers were
wont to visit the chaste homes of heroes and to shew themselves in mortal
assembly ere yet their worship was scorned. Often the father of the gods,
a-resting in his glorious temple, when on the festal days his annual rites
appeared, gazed on an hundred bulls strewn prone on the earth. Often
wandering Liber on topmost summit of Parnassus led his yelling Thyiads with
loosely tossed locks. * * * * When the Delphians tumultuously trooping from
the whole of their city joyously acclaimed the god with smoking altars.
Often in lethal strife of war Mavors, or swift Triton's queen, or the
Rhamnusian virgin, in person did exhort armed bodies of men. But after the
earth was infected with heinous crime, and each one banished justice from
their grasping mind, and brothers steeped their hands in fraternal blood,
the son ceased grieving o'er departed parents, the sire craved for the
funeral rites of his first-born that freely he might take of the flower of
unwedded step-dame, the unholy mother, lying under her unknowing son, did
not fear to sully her household gods with dishonour: everything licit and
lawless commingled with mad infamy turned away from us the just-seeing mind
of the gods. Wherefore nor do they deign to appear at such-like assemblies,
nor will they permit themselves to be met in the day-light.

LXV.

Esti me adsiduo confectum cura dolore
Sevocat a doctis, Ortale, virginibus,
Nec potisest dulces Musarum expromere fetus
Mens animi, (tantis fluctuat ipsa malis:
Namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris 5
Pallidulum manans adluit unda pedem,
Troia Rhoeteo quem subter littore tellus
Ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis.