For did the hapless forget when in loose-girt garment it lurkèd,
Forth would it leap as she rose, scared by her mother's approach,
And while coursing headlong, it rolls far out of her keeping,
O'er the triste virgin's brow flushes the conscious blush.
Though outspent with care and unceasing grief, I am withdrawn, Ortalus, from the learned Virgins, nor is my soul's mind able to bring forth sweet babes of the Muses (so much does it waver 'midst ills: for but lately the wave of the Lethean stream doth lave with its flow the pallid foot of my brother, whom 'neath the Rhoetean seaboard the Trojan soil doth crush, thrust from our eyesight. * * * Never again may I salute thee, nor hear thy converse; never again, O brother, more loved than life, may I see thee in aftertime. But for all time in truth will I love thee, always will I sing elegies made gloomy by thy death, such as the Daulian bird pipes 'neath densest shades of foliage, lamenting the lot of slain Itys.) Yet 'midst sorrows so deep, O Ortalus, I send thee these verses re-cast from Battiades, lest thou shouldst credit thy words by
chance have slipt from my mind, given o'er to the wandering winds, as 'twas with that apple, sent as furtive love-token by the wooer, which outleapt from the virgin's chaste bosom; for, placed by the hapless girl 'neath her soft vestment, and forgotten,—when she starts at her mother's approach, out 'tis shaken: and down it rolls headlong to the ground, whilst a tell-tale flush mantles the face of the distressed girl.
LXVI.
Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi,
Qui stellarum ortus comperit atque obitus,
Flammeus ut rapidi solis nitor obscuretur,