Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v5.djvu/424

382 Nor to godlike Cadmus,

Who yet are said to have had

The greatest happiness

Of mortals, and who heard

The song of the golden-filleted Muses,

On the mountain, and in seven-gated Thebes,

When the one married fair-eyed Harmonia,

And the other Thetis, the illustrious daughter of wise-counseling Nereus.

And the gods feasted with both;

And they saw the royal children of Kronos

On golden seats, and received

Marriage gifts; and having exchanged

Former toils for the favor of Zeus,

They made erect the heart.

But in course of time

His three daughters robbed the one

Of some of his serenity by acute

Sufferings; when Father Zeus, forsooth, came

To the lovely couch of white-armed Thyone.

And the other's child, whom only the immortal

Thetis bore in Phthia, losing

His life in war by arrows,

Being consumed by fire excited

The lamentation of the Danaans.

But if any mortal has in his

Mind the way of truth,

It is necessary to make the best

Of what befalls from the blessed.

For various are the blasts

Of high-flying winds.