Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/423

infant, did thy grassy bed afford thee, or thy woven home of oaken twigs; enclosed in the fibre of arbutus-bark thy limbs are warm, and a hollow pipe coaxes thee to gentle slumbers, while the flock shares thy sleeping-ground. But not even such a home did the fates permit, for, as he lay careless and drinking in the day with open mouth, fierce ravening dogs mangled the babe and took their fill with bloody jaws. But when the tidings reached the mother’s horror-struck ears, father and shame and fear were all forgot; herself straightway she fills the house with wild lamentation, all distraught, and baring her breast meets her father with her tale of grief. Nor is he moved, but bids her—Oh horrible!—even as she desires, suffer grim death. Too late remembering thy union, O Phoebus, thou dost devise a solace for her miserable fate, a monster conceived ’neath lowest Acheron in the Furies’ unhallowed lair: a maiden’s face and bosom has she, from her head an ever-hissing snake rises erect, parting in twain her livid brow. Then that foul pest, gliding at night with unseen movement into the chambers, tore from the breasts that suckled them lives newly-born, and with blood-stained fangs gorged and fattened on the country’s grief. But Coroebus, foremost in prowess of arms and high courage, brooked it not, and with chosen youths, unsurpassed in valour and ready at life’s hazard to enlarge their fame, went forth, a willing champion. From dwellings newly ravaged she was going, where in the gateway two roads meet, the corpses of two little ones hung at her side, and still her hooked talons claw their vitals and the iron nails are warm in their young hearts. Thronged by his band of heroes the youth rushed to the attack,