Epistulae

I betrayed my father, abandoned my kingdom and country, and fancied that, with you, even exile was some gratification. My virginity became the prey of a foreign ravisher: I left the best of sisters, and a darling mother. Alas! why did I not leave my brother also? Here conscious guilt arrests my hand, and commands me to draw a veil over my crime. My hand refuses to write what it dared to commit. In this manner ought I to have been torn to pieces; but with you, who also deserved the same fate. Nor did I fear, (for

what after this could make me afraid?) though a weak woman, and now a guilty wretch, to trust myself to the sea. Where was then the majesty of heaven? where were the Gods by whom we had falsely sworn? why did we not undergo the just punishment, you of your falsehood, and I of my credulity? Oh! that the meeting Symplegades had crushed us into one, and my bones had been made to incorporate with yours; or that devouring Scylla had made us the prey of hungry dogs (for thus ought Scylla to use ungrateful men); or that the gulf