"Go, then, and ply her with persuasive woe!
Soft supplications the hard heart subdue.
Then, if my oracles the future know,
Give her this message true:

"'The God whose seat is Delos' marble isle,
Declares this marriage happy and secure.
It has Apollo's own auspicious smile.
_Cast off that rival wooer!_'"

He spoke: dull slumber from my body fell.
Can I believe such perils round me fold?
That such discordant vows thy tongue can tell?
Thy heart in guilt so bold?

Thou wert not gendered by the Pontic Sea,
Nor where Chimaera's lips fierce flame out-pour,
Nor of that dog with tongues and foreheads three,
His back all snakes and gore;

Nor out of Scylla's whelp-engirdled womb;
Nor wert thou of fell lioness the child;
Nor was thy cradle Scythia's forest-gloom,
Nor Syrtis' sandy wild.

No, but thy home was human! round its fire
Sate creatures lovable: of all her kind
Thy mother was the mildest, and thy sire
Showed a most friendly mind.