Sweet days befall them and good loves and lords, And tender and temperate honours of the hearth, Peace, and a perfect life and blameless bed. But who shows next an eagle wrought in gold? That flames and beats broad wings against the sun And with void mouth gapes after emptier prey? MELEAGER. Know by that sign the reign of Telamon Between the fierce mouths of the encountering brine On the strait reefs of twice-washed Salamis. ALTHAEA. For like one great of hand he bears himself, Vine-chapleted, with savours of the sea, Glittering as wine and moving as a wave. But who girt round there roughly follows him? MELEAGER. Ancaeus, great of hand, an iron bulk, Two-edged for fight as the axe against his arm, Who drives against the surge of stormy spears Full-sailed; him Cepheus follows, his twin-born, Chief name next his of all Arcadian men. ALTHAEA. Praise be with men abroad; chaste lives with us, Home-keeping days and household reverences. MELEAGER. Next by the left unsandalled foot know thou The sail and oar of this Aetolian land, Thy brethren, Toxeus and the violent-souled Plexippus, over-swift with hand and tongue; For hands are fruitful, but the ignorant mouth Blows and corrupts their work with barren breath. ALTHAEA. Speech too bears fruit, being worthy; and air blows down Things poisonous, and high-seated violences, And with charmed words and songs have men put out Wild evil, and the fire of tyrannies. MELEAGER. Yea, all things have they, save the gods and love. ALTHAEA. Love thou the law and cleave to things ordained. MELEAGER. Law lives upon their lips whom these applaud. ALTHAEA. How sayest thou these? what god applauds new things? MELEAGER. Zeus, who hath fear and custom under foot. ALTHAEA. But loves not laws thrown down and lives awry. MELEAGER. Yet is not less himself than his own law. ALTHAEA. Nor shifts and shuffles old things up and down. MELEAGER. But what he will remoulds and discreates. ALTHAEA. Much, but not this, that each thing live its life. MELEAGER. Nor only live, but lighten and lift up higher. ALTHAEA. Pride breaks itself, and too much gained is gone. MELEAGER. Things gained are gone, but great things done endure. ALTHAEA.