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and is slow to make attack, and in spite of goadings and many a blow refuses to assume its native temper, so she falls upon him as he lies, and sinking down gathers the welling blood in her bosom, and staunches the fresh wounds with her torn tresses. But when I beheld Alcimede carry her father’s head still murmuring and his bloodless sword, my hair stood erect and fierce shuddering horror swept through my frame; that was my Thoas, methought, and that my own dread hand! Straightway in agony I rush to my father’s chamber. He indeed long while had pondered—what sleep for him whose charge is great?—although our spacious home lay apart from the city, what was the uproar, what the noises of the night, why the hours of rest were clamorous. I tell a confused story of the crime, what was their grievance, whence their passionate wrath. ‘No force can stop their frenzy; follow this way, unhappy one; they are pursuing, and will be on us if we linger, and perchance we shall fall together.’ Alarmed by my words he sprang up from the couch. We hurry through devious paths of the vast city, and, shrouded in a covering of mist, everywhere behold great heaps of nocturnal carnage, wheresoe’er throughout the sacred groves the cruel darkness had laid them low. Here could one see faces pressed down upon the couches, and sword-hilts projecting from breasts laid open, broken fragments of great spears and bodies with raiment gashed and torn, mixing-bowls upset and banquets floating in gore, and mingled wine and blood streaming back like a torrent to the goblets from gaping throats. Here are a band of youths, and there old men whom no violence should profane, and children