iste labor; maneant clausis nunc sicca pharetris,
omnis et a solitis noster venatibus arcus 270
thy virgin companions and the chaste band of thy quiver-bearing followers. Thither they come, their shoulders and arms bare, spears in their hands and arrows slung across their backs, beautiful though unadorned; red their cheeks, dusty and suffused with sweat; their fierce virginity betrays not their sex; disordered their hair; girdles twain prevent their dresses from flowing down below their knees. Golden-haired Leontodame precedes her comrades, Nebrophone, foster child of Mount Lycaeus, follows her, and Thero whose arrows hold Maenalus in subjection. Fiery Britomartis hastens from Cretan Ida and Lycaste, peer of the western winds in flight. There join them the twin sisters Hecaërge, terror of beasts, and Opis, deity beloved of hunters, Scythian maids; their preference for Delos[18] over the frosts of the north made them goddesses and queens of the woods. These were the seven chiefs who came; there followed them a second band of Nymphs, Diana’s lovely company, a hundred from Taygetus, a hundred from Cynthus’ summit, a hundred more whose first home was beside the chaste waters of Ladon. When she saw these gathered together Delia thus began:
“Friends who hate the rites of wedlock even as I hate them, who scour the snowy mountains in virgin companies, mark you how the gods with unanimous favour glorify this year for Latium? How many herds of horses Neptune provides from every quarter of the world? How that none of my brother Apollo’s lyres can refrain from sounding the praises of Stilicho? From us too let Stilicho receive the favour we justly owe him; the task needs no javelin; let our arrows remain bloodless in our unopened quivers. Let every bow refrain from its
[18] i.e. they became goddesses through association with Diana whose chosen island was Delos.
temperet; in solam cruor hic servetur harenam.
retibus et clatris dilata morte tenendae
ducendaeque ferae. cupidas arcete sagittas;