Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/101

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waters with his oars, leaving unfulfilled his empty pledges to the wind)- storm; at whom afar from the weedy beach with streaming eyes the daughter of Minos, like a marble figure of a bacchanal, looks forth, alas, looks forth, tempest-tost with great tides of passion. Nor does she still keep the delicate coif on her golden head, nor has her veiled breast covered with her light raiment, nor her milkwhite bosom bound with the smooth girdle; all these, as they slipt off around her whole form, before the maiden's very feet the salt waves lapped. She for her headgear then, she for her floating raiment then, cared not, but on thee, Theseus, with all her thoughts, with all her soul, with all her mind (lost, ah lost!) was hanging, unhappy maid! whom with unceasing floods of grief Erycina maddened, sowing thorny cares in her breast, even from that season, what time bold Theseus setting forth from the winding shores of Piraeus reached the Gortynian palace of the lawless king.

For they tell how of old, driven by a cruel pestilence to pay a penalty for the death of Androgeos, Cecropia was wont to give as a meal to the Minotaur chosen youths, and with them the flower of unwedded maids. Now when the crowded walls were troubled by these evils, Theseus himself for his dear Athens chose to offer his own body, rather than that such deaths, living deaths, of Cecropia should be borne to Crete. Thus then, speeding his course with light bark and gentle gales, he comes to lordly Minos and his haughty halls. Him when the maiden beheld with eager eye, the princess, whom her chaste couch breathing sweet odours still nursed in her mother's soft embrace, like myrtles which spring by the streams of Eurotas, or the varied colours which the breath of spring draws forth, she turned not her burning eyes