_Simaetha_, _madly in love with Delphis_, _who has forsaken her_, _endeavours to subdue him to her by magic_, _and by invoking the Moon_, _in her character of Hecate_, _and of Selene_. _She tells the tale of the growth of her passion_, _and vows vengeance if her magic arts are unsuccessful_. _The scene is probably some garden beneath the moonlit shy_, _near the town_, _and within sound of the sea_. _The characters are Simaetha_, _and Thestylis_, _her handmaid_. * * * * * WHERE are my laurel leaves? come, bring them, Thestylis; and where are the love-charms? Wreath the bowl with bright-red wool, that I may knit the witch-knots against my grievous lover, {11} who for twelve days, oh cruel, has never come hither, nor knows whether I am alive or dead, nor has once knocked at my door, unkind that he is! Hath Love flown off with his light desires by some other path—Love and Aphrodite? To-morrow I will go to the wrestling school of Timagetus, to see my love and to reproach him with all the wrong he is doing me. But now I will bewitch him with my enchantments! Do thou, Selene, shine clear and fair, for softly, Goddess, to thee will I sing, and to Hecate of hell. The very whelps shiver before her as she fares through black blood and across the barrows of the dead. Hail, awful Hecate! to the end be thou of our company, and make this medicine of mine no weaker than the spells of Circe, or of Medea, or of Perimede of the golden hair. _My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! Lo, how the barley grain first smoulders in the fire,—nay, toss on the barley, Thestylis! Miserable maid, where are thy wits wandering? Even to thee, wretched that I am, have I become a laughing-stock, even to thee? Scatter the grain, and cry thus the while, ‘’Tis the bones of Delphis I am scattering!’ _My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! Delphis troubled me, and I against Delphis am burning this laurel; and even as it crackles loudly when it has caught the flame, and suddenly is burned up, and we see not even the dust thereof, lo, even thus may the flesh of Delphis waste in the burning! _My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! Even as I melt this wax, with the god to aid, so speedily may he by love be molten, the Myndian Delphis! And as whirls this brazen wheel, {13} so restless, under Aphrodite’s spell, may he turn and turn about my doors. _My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! Now will I burn the husks, and thou, O Artemis, hast power to move hell’s adamantine gates, and all else that is as stubborn. Thestylis, hark, ’tis so; the hounds are baying up and down the town! The Goddess stands where the three ways meet! Hasten, and clash the brazen cymbals. _My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_!