Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/119

ll. 291–349.] who dwellest here deep beneath the flood, why hast thou borne me in the gods' illustrious line—if indeed my father is he whom thou sayest, Apollo of Thymbra—to be the scorn of doom? or whither is thy love for me swept away? why didst thou bid me aspire to heaven? Lo, even this mere pride of my mortal life, so hardly wrought out by infinite endeavour in skilful tendance of harvest and herd, this, and thou art my mother, I see depart. Nay come, and with thine own hand uproot my fruitful orchards, carry destroying fire into the folds and kill the harvests, wither the cornfields and wield the strong axe upon the vines, if thou art grown so weary of my praise.

But from her chamber in the river depth the mother heard his cry. Around her the Nymphs carded Milesian fleeces stained with rich sea-dyes, Drymo and Xantho, Ligea and Phyllodoce, their bright tresses falling loose over their snowy necks; and Cydippe and golden-haired Lycorias, the one a maiden, the other even then knowing the first throes of travail; and Clio and Beroë her sister, both daughters of Ocean, both decked with gold, both girt with dappled skins; and Ephyre and Opis and Asian Deïopea, and fleet Arethusa, her arrows at last laid by. And among them Clymene was telling of Vulcan's fruitless care, and the wiles of Mars and the stolen sweetness, and recounting from Chaos downward the myriad loves of the gods. And while amid the witchery of her song the soft spun wool curls off their distaffs, again Aristaeus' lament thrilled his mother's ears, and all