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of speech as ever and quick to anger, and with mixture of harsh words, although his plea was just, he thus began: “Hadst thou simple honesty left thee and regard for a sworn bond, ’twere more right that envoys should go hence to thy brother, now thy year is finished, and that thou in due course shouldst put off thy state and contentedly leave thy throne, so that he, after long wanderings and unseemly hardships in many a strange city, should at length succeed to the promised kingdom. But since thy darling passion is to reign, and power exerts its flattering charm, we summon thee; already hath the swift circle brought round the starry globe, and the mountains have regained the shadows that they lost,^[1] since thy brother hath suffered the unhappy lot of poverty and exile in unknown cities; now is it time thou too didst spend thy days under Jove’s open sky, and let earth’s coldness freeze thy limbs, and pay submissive court at the hearths of strangers. Set a term to thy prosperity; long enough in rich pomp of gold and purple hast thou mocked at thy brother’s year of mean poverty; I warn thee, unlearn of thine own will the joys of ruling, and in patient exile merit thy return.”

He ended, but the other’s fiery heart rages beneath his silent breast, as when a serpent angered by a flung stone darts up close at hand, whose limbs long thirst has racked, down in its hollow lair, and gathered all the venom to its throat and scaly neck. “Had they been doubtful signs that forewarned me of my brother’s quarrel, did not his secret hate shine clear as day to me, that bold assurance alone would suffice, whereby you, in mind his very pattern, thus prelude his fury, as though already a new train of