Through envy, you were snatched away _from us_: you were the cause of no cruel wars; you were a chatterer, and the lover of peaceful concord. See, the quails, amid _all_ their battles, [363] live on; perhaps, too, for that reason, they become old. With a very little you were satisfied; and, through your love of talking, you could not give time to your mouth for much food. A nut was your food, and poppies the cause of sleep; and a drop of pure water used to dispel your thirst. The gluttonous vulture lives on, the kite, too, that forms its circles in the air, and the jackdaw, the foreboder [364] of the shower of rain. The crow, too, lives on, hateful to the armed Minerva; [366] it, indeed, will hardly die after nine ages. [367] The prattling parrot is dead, the mimic of the human voice, sent as a gift from the ends of the earth. What is best, is generally first carried off by greedy hands; what is worthless, fills its _destined_ numbers. [368] Thersites was the witness of the lamented death of him from Phylax; and now Hector became ashes, while his brothers _yet_ lived. Why should I mention the affectionate prayers of my anxious mistress in your behalf; prayers borne over the seas by the stormy North wind? The seventh day was come, [369] that was doomed to give no morrow; and now stood your Destiny, with her distaff all uncovered. And yet your words did not die away, in your faltering mouth; as you died, your tongue cried aloud, "Corinna, farewell!" [370] At the foot of the Elysian hill [371] a grove, overshaded with dark holm oaks, and the earth, moist with never-dying grass, is green. If there is any believing in matters of doubt, that is said to be the abode of innocent birds, from which obscene ones are expelled. There range far and wide the guiltless swans; the long-lived Phoenix, too, ever the sole bird _of its kind. There_ the bird itself of Juno unfolds her feathers; the gentle dove gives kisses to its loving mate. Received in this home in the groves, amid these the Parrot attracts the guileless birds by his words. [372] A sepulchre covers his bones; a sepulchre small as his body; on which a little stone has _this_ inscription, well suited to itself: "From this very tomb [377] I may be judged to have been the favorite of my mistress. I had a tongue more skilled at talking than other birds." ELEGY VII. _He attempts to convince his mistress, who suspects the contrary, that he is not in love with her handmaid Cypassis._