A fierce contention then the Goddess rais’d, For the boar’s head and bristly hide, between The Acarnanian and th’ Ætolian bands. While warlike Meleager kept the field, So long the Acarnanians far’d but ill; Nor dar’d, despite the numbers of their host, Maintain their ground before the city walls. When he to anger yielded, which sometimes Swells in the bosom e’en of wisest men, Incens’d against his mother, he withdrew To Cleopatra fair, his wedded wife; (Marpessa her, Evenus’ daughter, bore To Idas, strongest man of all who then Were living, who against Apollo’s self For the neat-footed maiden bent his bow. Her parents call’d the child Alcyone, In mem’ry of the tears her mother shed, Rival of Alcyon’s melancholy fate, When by far-darting Phoebus forc’d away). With her, retiring from the field, he nurs’d His wrath; resenting thus his mother’s curse, Althaea; she her brother’s death bore hard, And pray’d to Heav’n above, and with her hands Beating the solid earth, the nether pow’rs, Pluto and awful Proserpine, implor’d, Down on her knees, her bosom wet with tears, Death on her son invoking; from the depths Of Erebus Erinnys heard her pray’r, Gloom-haunting Goddess, dark and stern of heart. Soon round the gates the din of battle rose, The tow’rs by storm assaulted; then his aid Th’ Ætonian Elders and the sacred priests With promises of great reward implor’d. A fruitful plot they bade him set apart, The richest land in lovely Calydon, Of fifty acres: half for vineyard meet, And half of fertile plain, for tillage clear’d. Upon the threshold of his lofty rooms Old Œneus stood, and at the portals clos’d He knock’d in vain, a suppliant to his son. His sisters and his brother join’d their pray’rs, But sterner his rejection of their suit; The friends he valued most, and lov’d the best, Yet they too fail’d his fix’d resolve to shake; Till to his very doors the war had reach’d, The foe upon the tow’rs, the town in flames: Then Meleager’s beauteous wife, at length, In tears, beseeching him, the thousand ills Recall’d, which on a captur’d town attend; The slaughter’d men, the city burnt with fire, The helpless children and deep-bosom’d dames A prey to strangers. List’ning to the tale, His spirit was rous’d within him; and again He took the field, and donn’d his glitt’ring arms. Thus did his act from doom th’ Ætolians save Spontaneous; yet he gain’d not, though he sav’d, The rich reward they once were pledg’d to give. But be not thou like him, nor let thy God Turn thitherward thy thoughts; our ships on fire, Thine aid will less be priz’d; come, take the gifts, And as a God be honour’d by the Greeks. If thou hereafter, unsolicited, The battle join, the Greeks thou mayst protect, But not an equal share of honour gain.”