451There was a log which the three sisters placed in the flames when the daughter of Thestius lay there after giving birth; 453and spinning the threads of fate with pressing thumb, they said: 'We give the same span of life to the wood and to you, O newborn child.' 455After the goddesses had spoken this spell and departed, the mother snatched the burning branch from the fire and sprinkled it with running water. 458It had long been hidden in the innermost part of the house, and, being preserved, it had preserved your years, young man. 460His mother brought it out and orders pine torches and kindling to be laid, and when they are laid she sets hostile fires to them.
462Then four times she tried to put the branch on the flames, four times she held back from what she had begun. 463Mother and sister fight within her, and the two names pull one heart in different directions. 465Often her face grew pale with fear of the coming crime, often burning anger gave its own red to her eyes. 467And now her expression was like that of someone threatening some cruelty or other, now such that you could believe she pitied. 469And when the fierce heat of her spirit had dried her tears, tears were still found. 470And as a ship which the wind drives, and a tide running against the wind, feels the double force and obeys both, uncertain: no differently the daughter of Thestius wavers between doubtful feelings, and by turns lays aside her anger and revives it once laid aside.
475Yet the sister begins to be stronger than the parent, and to appease the shades of her kin with blood, she is dutiful through an undutiful act. 477For when the deadly fire had gathered strength, she said: 'Let this pyre burn my own flesh.' 479And as she held the fatal wood in her dread hand, the unhappy woman stood before the funeral altars and said: 'Goddesses of punishment, threefold Eumenides, turn your faces towards these frenzied rites. 483I avenge and I commit a wrong: death must be atoned for with death, crime must be added to crime, funeral to funeral. 485Let this impious house perish through heaped-up griefs. 486Shall happy Oeneus enjoy his victorious son, while Thestius is childless?
487Better that you both should mourn. 488Only you, my brothers' ghosts, newly departed souls, feel my service and accept the offering prepared at great cost, the evil pledge of my womb! 490Ah me! 491where am I swept away? 491Brothers, forgive a mother. 492My hands fail at what I have begun. 492I confess that he has deserved to die: it is the author of his death that displeases me. 493Shall he then go unpunished, and, alive and victorious and swollen with his very success, hold the kingdom of Calydon, while you lie, a little ash and chill shades? 497I certainly shall not allow it. 497Let the wicked one perish too, and drag down with him his father's hope and his kingdom and the ruin of his country.
499Where is a mother's mind? 499Where are the dutiful bonds of parents, and the labours I endured for twice five months? 501O, would that you had burned as a baby in those first fires, and that I had allowed it! 502You have lived by my gift: now you will die by your own desert. 503Take the reward of your deed, and give back the life given twice, first at your birth, then when the log was snatched — or add me to my brothers' tombs! 506I both long to and cannot. 506What shall I do? 506now my brothers' wounds are before my eyes and the image of so great a slaughter, now duty and the name of mother break my spirit.
508Wretched me! 509you will win, but wrongly; yet win, brothers: provided that I myself follow the consolation I shall give you, and follow you.' 511She spoke, and with trembling hand, her face turned away, threw the funeral brand into the midst of the fire. 513The log itself either gave a groan or seemed to have given one, as, seized by the unwilling fires, it burned. 515Unknowing and far away, Meleager is burned by that flame and feels his vitals scorched by unseen fires, and overcomes his great pains with courage. 518Yet that he should fall by a cowardly and bloodless death he grieves, and calls Ancaeus' wounds fortunate, and with a groan calls on his aged father and his brothers and his loving sisters and the partner of his bed with his last breath, and perhaps his mother too.
522The fire and the pain grow, and die down again: both are put out together, and little by little his spirit passed into the light air, as little by little white ash veiled the embers. 526Lofty Calydon lies low: young and old mourn, common people and nobles groan, and the Calydonian mothers by the Evenus tear their hair and beat their breasts. 529His father, lying stretched on the ground, befouls his white hair and aged face with dust and reproaches his long life. 531For the mother's own hand, conscious of the dreadful deed, exacted punishment from herself, driving a sword through her vitals. 533Not if a god had given me a hundred mouths sounding with tongues, and a capacious genius, and all Helicon, could I go through the sad words of his wretched sisters.
536Forgetful of decorum they beat their bruised breasts, and while the body remains, they warm the body again and again, they give kisses to the man himself, give kisses to the bier on which he is laid. 539After he is ashes, they press the gathered ashes to their breasts, and lie flung on the tomb, and embracing his name carved on the stone, pour tears upon the name. 542At last Latona's daughter, sated with the ruin of the house of Parthaon, raises them, except Gorge and the daughter-in-law of noble Alcmena, with feathers springing up on their bodies, and stretches long wings along their arms, and makes their mouths horny, and sends them, transformed, through the air.