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slow to tell the cause. But I swear by the sacred laws of wedlock and by thee, O sire, ’tis not he that bids me, but my wakeful anguish. For ever since Hymen at the first and unpropitious Juno raised the ill-omened torch, my sleep has been disturbed by my consort’s tears and moans. Not if I were a tigress bristling fierce, not if my heart were rougher than rocks on the sea-strand, could I bear it; thou only canst help me, thou hast the sovereign power to heal. Grant war, O father; look on the low estate of thy fallen son-in-law, look, father, here on the exile’s babe; what shame for his birth will he one day feel! Ah! where is that first bond of friendship, and the hands joined beneath heaven’s blessing? This surely is he whom the fates assigned, of whom Apollo spake; no hidden fires of Venus have I in secret cherished, no guilty wedlock; thy reverend commands, thy counsel have I ever esteemed. Now with what cruelty should I despise his doleful plaint? Thou knowest not, good father, thou knowest not, what deep affection a husband’s misery implants in a loyal bride. And now in sadness I crave this hard and joyless privilege of fear and grief; but when the sorrowful day interrupts our kisses, when the clarions blare their hoarse commands to the departing host, and your faces glitter in their stern casques of gold, ah! then, dear father, mayhap I shall crave a different boon.”

Her sire, with kisses on her tear-bedewed face: “Never, my daughter, could I blame these plaints of thine; have no fears, praiseworthy is thy request, deserving no refusal. But much the gods give me to ponder—nor cease thou to hope for what thou urgest—much my own fears and this realm’s un-