appeal to the gods and to the stars who share Fate’s
counsels, begging the powers, if any there be, that watch,
righteous and unforgetting, over ill-yoked lovers, to hear
her prayer.
It was night, and overtoiled mortality throughout the
earth was enjoying peaceful slumber; the woods were at 5
rest, and the raging waves—the hour when the stars are
rolling midway in their smooth courses, when all the land is
hushed, cattle, and gay-plumed birds, haunters far and wide
of clear waters and rough forest-ground, lapped in sleep