METAMORPHOSES BOOK VIII the funeral pyre of my own flesh." And, as she held the fateful billet in her relentless hand and stood, unhappy wretch, before the sepulchral fires, she said: "O ye triple goddesses of vengeance, Eu- menides, behold these fearful rites. I avenge and I do a wicked deed: death must be atoned by death; to crime must crime be added, death to death. Through woes on woes heaped up let this accursed house go on to ruin! Shall happy Oeneus rejoice in his victorious son and Thestius be child- less? '"T'will be better for you both to grieve. Only do you, my brothers' manes, fresh-made ghosts, appre- ciate my service, and accept the sacrifice I offer at so heavy cost, the baleful tribute of my womb. Ah me, whither am I hurrying? Brothers, forgive a mother's heart! My hands refuse to finish what they began. I confess that he deserves to die; but that I should be the agent of his death, 1 cannot bear. And shall he go scathless then? Shall he live, victorious and puffed up with his own success, and lord it in Calydon, while you are naught but a handful of ashes, shivering ghosts? I will not sufler it. Let the wretch die and drag to ruin with him his father's hopes, his kingdom and his fatherland! Where is my mother-love? Where are parents pious cares? Where are those pangs which ten long months I bore? O that you had perished in your infancy by those first fires, and I had suffered it! You lived by my gift; now you shall die by your own desert; pay the price of your deed. Give bacl the life I twice gave you, once at your birth, once when saved the brand; or else add me to my brothers' pyre. I both desire to act, and cannot. Oh, what shall I do? Now I can see only my brothers' wounds, the sight of that deed of blood: and now 441
