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in her hand the lock of hair. Yet he, though the Fates press hard upon his frail life, beholds thee with his dying vision and murmurs thy name with faltering tongue; to thee he gasps out the last breath from his exhausted frame, thee alone he remembers, thy cry alone he hears, for thee his lips are moved and his last words spoken, as he bids thee not to mourn and consoles thy grief. Yet we thank thee, O Fate, that no lingering death devoured his boyish charm as he lay, that he went inviolate to the shades, just as he was, without touch of harm upon his body.

Why should I tell of the funeral rites, the gifts flung prodigally to the flames, the melancholy pomp of the blazing pyre? How thou didst heap the purples high on the sad pile, how Cilician blooms and gifts of Indian herbs,^[1] and juices of Arabia and Palestine and Egypt^[2] steeped the hair that was to burn? Fain would Melior bring all without stinting, and consume whole fortunes in loathing of his wealth laid desolate; but the grudging fire avails not, and the puny flames are too few to burn the gifts. Awe lays hold upon my heart. O Melior, once so calm, how distraught wert thou in that deadly hour beside the pyre, how I feared thee! Was that the merry, kindly face we knew? Whence that frenzy, those merciless hands, those spasms of wild grief as thou liest prostrate on the ground shunning the cruel light, or fiercely tearest thy clothes and bosom, straining the dear face to thee and kissing the cold lips? The father and sorrowing mother of the dead one were there, but on thee they gazed awe-stricken—what wonder? All the people mourned the deadly blow, and crowds escorted thee on the Flaminian road