nimirum thiasis et laeta sonantibus armis
blazing exit of the flames. The mountain thunders with repressed fire and Vulcan is shut in a grievous prison; the enclosed smoke cannot escape. The cone-bearing tops of the cypresses blaze and Etna grows with new ashes; the branches crackle, kindled with the sulphur. Then, lest their long journey should cause them to fail, she bids the flames never die nor sleep and drenches the wood with that secret drug[132] wherewith Phaëthon bedews his steeds and the Moon her bulls.
Silent night had now in her turn visited upon the world her gift of sleep. Ceres, with her wounded breast, starts on her long journey and, as she sets out, speaks as follows: “Little thought I, Proserpine, to carry for thee such torches as these. I had hoped what every mother hopes; marriage and festal torches and a wedding-song to be sung in heaven—such was my expectation. Are we divinities thus the sport of fate? does Lachesis vent her spleen on us as on mankind? How lofty was but now mine estate, surrounded with suitors innumerable for my daughter’s hand! What mother of many children but would have owned her my inferior by reason of my only daughter! Thou wast my first joy and my last; I was called prolific for that I bare thee. Thou wert my glory, my comfort, dear object of a mother’s pride; with thee alive I was goddess indeed, with thee safe I was Juno’s equal. Now am I outcast, beggared. ’Tis the Father’s will. Yet why make Jove answerable for my tears? ’Twas I who so cruelly undid thee, I confess it, for I deserted thee and heedlessly exposed thee to threatening foes. Too deeply was I enmeshed in careless enjoyment of shrill-voiced revel, and, happy amid the din of arms,
[132] A magic drug or herb on which the sun is said to have fed his horses in order to render them non-inflammable. Ovid tells how Phaëthon was treated by his father in a like way (Met. ii. 122).
iungebam Phrygios, cum tu raperere, leones.
accipe quas merui poenas. en ora fatiscunt 425
vulneribus grandesque rubent in pectore sulci.
immemor en uterus crebro contunditur ictu.