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So too the son of Dryas once was bound,

King of Edonian race;

Rough-tempered, he, for words of foul disgrace,

At Dionysos' hands stern sentence found,

In rocky cave confined:

And so there faileth, drop by drop, the life

Of one whose soul was racked by maddening strife;

And then he called to mind

That he had touched the God with ribald tongue;

For he essayed to check the Mænads' throng,

And quench the sacred fire,

And stirred to jealousy the choir

Of Muses loving song.

Hard by the gloomy rocks where two seas meet

The shores of Bosporos rise,

And Salmydessos, the wild Thrakians' seat,

Where Ares saw upon the bleeding eyes

A wound accursèd, made in hellish mood

Of step-dame stern and fierce,—

Eyes that were torn by hands deep dyed in blood,

And points of spindles, quick and sharp to pierce.

And they, poor wretches, wail their wretched fate,

Birth stained with foul disgrace;

They wail their mother's lot, of lineage great,

Descended from the old Erectheid race;

And she in yon far distant caverns vast,

Daughter of Boreas, grew,

On lofty crag, amid the stormy blast;

And yet on her the Fates their dread spell threw.