84
CATULLUS.
been his handmaid, to spread his couch and lave his feet, have more than one echo in English poetry; and the climax of the lament, in a deep and sweeping curse on her betrayer, is a passage of terribly realistic earnestness:—
"Yet ere these sad and streaming eyes on earth have looked their last,
Or ere this heart has ceased to heat, I to the gods will cast
One burning prayer for vengeance on the man who foully broke
The vows which, pledged in their dread names, in my fond ear he spoke.
Or ere this heart has ceased to heat, I to the gods will cast
One burning prayer for vengeance on the man who foully broke
The vows which, pledged in their dread names, in my fond ear he spoke.
Come, ye that wreak on man his guilt with retribution dire,
Ye maids, whose snake-wreathed brows bespeak your bosom's vengeful ire!
Come ye, and hearken to the curse which I, of sense forlorn,
Hurl from the ruin of a heart with mighty anguish torn!
Ye maids, whose snake-wreathed brows bespeak your bosom's vengeful ire!
Come ye, and hearken to the curse which I, of sense forlorn,
Hurl from the ruin of a heart with mighty anguish torn!
Though there be fury in my words, and madness in my brain,
Let not my cry of woe and wrong assail your ears in vain!
Urge the false heart that left me here still on with headlong chase,
From ill to worse, till Theseus curse himself and all his race!"
—M.
Let not my cry of woe and wrong assail your ears in vain!
Urge the false heart that left me here still on with headlong chase,
From ill to worse, till Theseus curse himself and all his race!"
—M.
It is not to be denied that it would have been more artistic had the poet here dismissed the legend of Theseus and his misdemeanours, or, if not this, had he at least omitted the lesson of divine retribution conveyed in his sire's death as he crossed the home-threshold, and contented himself with the spirited presentment of Bacchus and his attendant Satyrs and
