Rather than fail thy need (O false!) at hour the supremest.
Therefor my limbs are doomed to be torn of birds, and of ferals
Prey, nor shall upheapt Earth afford a grave to my body.
Say me, what lioness bare thee 'neath lone rock of the desert?
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What sea spued thee conceived from out the spume of his surges!
What manner Syrt, what ravening Scylla, what vasty Charybdis?
Thou who for sweet life saved such meeds art lief of returning!
If never willed thy breast with me to mate thee in marriage,
Hating the savage law decreed by primitive parent,