Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/121

 Cann. LXIV

'knee and bow her headless trunk. Run, drawing ' the woof-threads, ye spindles, run.

' Come then, unite the loves which your souls 'desire: let the husband receive in happy bonds the ' goddess, let the bride be given up — nay now! — ' to her eager spouse. Run, drawing the woof- ' threads, ye spindles, run.

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' Nor shall her anxious mother, saddened by lone- 'lying of an unkindly bride, give up the hope of ' dear descendants. Run, drawing the woof-threads, 'ye spindles, run.'

Such strains of divination in days of yore, foreboding happiness to Peleus, sang the Fates from prophetic breast. For in bodily presence of old, before religion was despised, the heavenly ones were wont to visit pious homes of heroes, and show themselves to mortal company. Often the Father of the gods coming down again, in his bright temple, when yearly feasts had come on holy days, saw a hundred bulls fall to the ground. Often Liber roving on the topmost height of Parnassus drove the Thyades crying Evoe with flying hair, when the Delphians, racing eagerly from all the town, joyfully received the god with smoking altars. Often in the death-bearing strife of war Mavors or the Lady of swift Triton or the Rhamnu- sian Maid by their presence stirred up the courage of armed bands of men. But when the earth was dyed with hideous crime, and all men banished justice from their greedy souls, and brothers dipped their hands in brothers' blood, the son left off to mourn his parents' death, the father wished for the death of his young son, that he might without hindrance enjoy the flower of a young bride, the

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