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 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VII mended his cause, Aeacus, his left hand resting on the sceptre's hilt, exclaimed: "Ask not our aid, but take it, Athens; and boldly count your own the forces which this island holds, and all things which the state of my afairs supplies. Warlike strength is not lacking; I have soldiers enough for myself and for my enemy. Thanks to the gods, the times are happy, and without excuse for my refusal." "May it prove even so," said Cephalus, " and may your city multiply in men. In truth, as I came hither, I was rejoiced to meet youth so fair, so matched in age. And yet I miss many among them whom I saw before when last I visited your city." Aeacus groaned and with sad voice thus replied : "It was an unhappy beginning, but better fortune followed. Would that 1 could tell you the last without the first! Now I will take each in turn; and, not to delay you with long circum locution, they are but bones and dust whom with kindly interest you ask for. And oh, how large a part of all my kingdom perished with them! A dire pestilence came on my people through angry Juno's wrath, who hated us for that our land was called by er rival's name. So long as the scourge seemed of mortal origin and the cause of the terrible plague was still unknown, we fought against it with the physician's art. But the power of destruction ex- ceeded our resources, which were completely bafled. At first heaven rested down upon the earth in thick blackness, and held the sluggish heat confined in the clouds. And while the moon four times waxed to a full orb with horns complete, and four times waned from that full orb, hot south winds blew on us with pestilential breath. Consistently with this, the bale- ful infection reached our springs and pools; thousands ofserpents crawled over our deserted fields and defiled 379