Who slights a woman’s love cuts deep, And wakes a brood of snakes that sleep Beneath a bed of roses. The lustful wife of Prœtus now To earthly Venus vows a vow, And in her heart proposes A fiendish thing. She, with the pin That bound her peplos, pierced the skin Of her smooth-rounded arm; And when the crimson stream began To trickle down, she instant ran, And with a feigned alarm Roused all her maids, and in the ear Of the fond Prœtus, quick to hear, She poured the piteous lie, That the false guest had sought to move Her loyal-mated heart with love, And with rude hands had dared assail Her virtue, cased in surer mail Than Dian’s panoply: Then, more to stir his wrathful mood, She bared her arm that streamed with blood, And scared his jealous eye. Hot boiled his Argive heart; his eyes Flash vengeance; but himself denies The reins to his own spleen. His public face in smiles is dressed, He joins the banquet with the rest, And tells the tale, and plies the jest With easy social mien; And to his high Corinthian guest Lets not a thought be seen. “Take here,” quoth he, “thou high-souled knight, To Iobates the Lycian wight, The brother of my queen, These tablets; he will honour thee Even more than I; and thou shalt see A famous and a fruitful land, With all Apollo’s beauty bland, And various verdure green.” Uprose the knight with willing feet, His heart was light, his pace was fleet; Girt for the road and venture bold He left the strong Tirynhian hold, And gaily wends his way O’er steep Arachne’s ridge, till he Passed Æsculapius’ sacred fane, That sendeth health, and healeth pain, And reached, with foot untired, the sea That beats with billows bounding free The Epidaurian bay. V.