Atalanta, daughter of King Schoeneus, not willing to lose her virgin's estate, made it a law to all suitors that they should run a race with her in the public place, and if they failed to overcome her should die unrevenged; and thus many brave men perished. At last came Milanion, the son of Amphidamas, who, outrunning her with the help of Venus, gained the virgin and wedded her. Through thick Arcadian[289] woods a hunter went, Following the beasts up, on a fresh spring day; But since his horn-tipped bow, but seldom bent, Now at the noon-tide naught had happed to slay, Within a vale he called his hounds away, 5 Hearkening the echoes of his lone voice cling About the cliffs and through the beech-trees ring. But when they ended, still awhile he stood, And but the sweet familiar thrush could hear, And all the day-long noises of the wood, 10 And o'er the dry leaves of the vanished year His hounds' feet pattering as they drew anear, And heavy breathing from their heads low hung, To see the mighty cornel[290] bow unstrung. Then smiling did he turn to leave the place, 15 But with his first step some new fleeting thought A shadow cast across his sunburnt face; I think the golden net that April brought From some warm world his wavering soul had caught; For, sunk in vague sweet longing, did he go 20 Betwixt the trees with doubtful steps and slow. Yet howsoever slow he went, at last The trees grew sparser, and the wood was done; Whereon one farewell, backward look he cast, Then, turning round to see what place was won, 25 With shaded eyes looked underneath the sun, And o'er green meads and new-turned furrows brown Beheld the gleaming of King Schoeneus'[291] town. So thitherward he turned, and on each side The folk were busy on the teeming land, 30 And man and maid from the brown furrows cried, Or midst the newly blossomed vines did stand, And as the rustic weapon pressed the hand Thought of the nodding of the well-filled ear, Or how the knife the heavy bunch should shear. 35 Merry it was: about him sung the birds, The spring flowers bloomed along the firm dry road, The sleek-skinned mothers of the sharp-horned herds Now for the barefoot milking-maidens lowed; While from the freshness of his blue abode, 40 Glad his death-bearing arrows to forget, The broad sun blazed, nor scattered plagues as yet.