Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/223

 Let us believe all that Tragedy tells us of the savage Colchian and of Procne ; I seek not to gainsay her. Those women were monsters of wickedness in their day; but it was not for money that they sinned. We marvel less at great crimes when it is wrath that incites the sex to the guilty deed, when burning passion carries them headlong, like a rock torn from a mountain side, when the ground beneath gives way, and the overhanging slopes fall in. I cannot endure the woman who calculates, and commits a great crime in her sober senses. Our wives look on at Alcestis undergoing her husband's fate; if they were granted a like liberty of exchange, they would fain let the husband die to save a lap-dog's life. You will meet a daughter of Belus or an Eriphyle every morning; no street but has its Clytemnestra. The only difference is this; the daughter of Tyndareus wielded in her two hands a clumsy two-headed axe, whereas nowadays a slice of a toad's lung will do the business. Yet it may be done by steel as well, if the wary husband have beforehand tasted the medicaments of the thrice-conquered king of Pontus.

Caesar alone hang all the hopes and prospects of the learned; he alone in these days of ours has cast a favouring glance upon the sorrowing Muses— 137