Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

NEMESIANUSimpious amour, of her father defiled with eruelcrime, and how, traversinc^ in her fiii^ht tlie fieldsof Araby, she passed into the greenwood life of theleafy trees." There are some who relate the fiercehissinc: of Cadmus turned to a scaly serpent, andMaiden Id's gaoler starred with eyes,^ or who arefain for ever to recount the labours of Hercules, orTereus' wonderment that after your banquet, Philomela,^he could raise wings as yet untried ; there areothers whose theme is Phaethon's ill-starred attemptupon the heights of the universe in the Sun's chariot,and whose song is of flames quenched in the thunderboltlaunched forth, and of the river Padus reeking,of -Cycnus and the plumage of his old age, of the(poplar-)trees for ever weeping by reason of abrother's death. Bards ere now have *^ told of themisfortunes of the Tantalids, the blood-besprinkledtables, the Titan Sun hiding his face at the sight ofMycenae and the dread vicissitudes of a race.*^ Wedo not sing of gifts imbued with the accursed poisonof the angry Colchian dame / and of the burning offair Glauce ; not of Nisus' lock ;'Jnot of cruel Circe'sswan, and by his sisters, the Heliades, who were changed intopoplars.* Blood-guilt was transmitted through Pelops, son ofTantalus, and through his sons Atreus and Thyestes toAgamemnon and his son Orestes. Atreus, King of Mycenae,avenged himself for the seduction of his wife on his brother byslaying his two sons and setting their flesh before theirfather. From this " banquet of Thyestes " the Sun hid hisface in horror :cf. Aetna, 20.f The sorceress Medea from Colchis, infuriated by Jason'sdesertion of her for Glauce, sent to her bridal gifts whichconsumed her with fire.' On the purple lock of Nisus, King of Megara, the safety ofhis kingdom depended. His betrayal by his daughter is toldin Ciris {Appendix Vergiliana).489