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no word but is unworthy. Forgive me, lad: ’tis thou dost cloud my mind with sorrow. Ah! verily hard of heart was Thracian Orpheus, if he found a song that pleased him when he saw the wound of his dear spouse, and Apollo, if holding the corpse of Linus^[1] in his arms he was not mute! Too violent am I called perchance and greedy of woe, and extravagant beyond due measure in my weeping? Who art thou that blamest my groans and tears? Ah! too happy he, and heartless, and ignorant, Fortune, of thy law, who dares to set conditions to lamentation, or adjudge the bounds of grief! Alas! mourning incites to mourn: sooner wilt thou check the rivers that hurry past their banks or stay devouring fire than forbid the sorrowful to lament. Yet let him learn, that severe judge, whoe’er he be, my wound and my complaint.

No chattering favourite was it, bought from a Pharian vessel, no infant skilled in the repartee of his native Nile, with over-ready tongue and impudent wit, that won my heart; mine was he, mine indeed. When he lay on the ground, a new-born babe, I saw him, and with a natal ode I welcomed his anointing,^[2] and as with tremulous wailing he claimed his new heritage of air, I set him among living souls. What more did his own parents give? Nay, another birth I gave thee, little one, and thy liberty while yet at the breast, though yet thou didst laugh ungrateful at my gift. Hasty my love may have been, yet with good reason so, lest even a day be lost to so tiny a freedom. And shall I not then all unkempt hurl my reproaches at the gods and at unjust Tartarus? Shall