Epistulae

IF any of these lines should appear stained and obscured by blots, know that they will be occasioned by the death of the writer. My right hand holds the pen, my left a drawn sword; and the paper lies unfolded in my lap. This is the true picture of Canace writing to her brother: it is only in this manner, it seems, that I can satisfy a hard-hearted father. I could wish him to be a spectator of my untimely death, that the blow might be given in the presence of a

stern father who commanded it. Fierce, and far more cruel than his eastern ministers of storms, he would view without a tear the mortal wound. For it is infectious to live with savage winds; and therefore he contracts the temper of his people. He commands the South, the Zephyr, and the northern blasts of Thrace; and, surly East, he checks thy rigid wing. He controls indeed the winds; but, alas! he has no power over his own unmeasurable wrath, and governs a kingdom less intractable than his own vices. What avails it that I am allied to the Gods above, that Jupiter is in the number of my kindred? does it snatch from my trembling hind the destructive steel, that fatal gift and weapon, alas, unfit for me! O Macareus, I wish that the hour which joined us had

come later than that of my death! Why, brother, did you ever love me otherwise than as a brother? And why did I regard you more than became a sister? For I also felt the powerful flame, and perceived I know not what God taking possession of my glowing heart; but such as I had often heard described. The color had forsaken my cheeks; a leanness had spread itself over all my joints; and my mouth took with reluctance even the smallest food. No gentle slumbers refreshed me; the nights seemed tedious and lingering; and I often sighed to myself, though no apparent grief oppressed me. I could not give any reason why I was thus disconsolate; nor, though in love myself, did I know what it was to love. My aged nurse first divined the growing mischief; and, wise through years, first told me that it was love. I blushed; and, full of shame, fixed my eyes upon my bosom; signs which, accompanied with silence, too clearly testified my confession. And now my womb swelled with the guilty load, and the growing weight pressed my sickly limbs. What herbs, what me-