Epistulae

HYPERMNESTRA sends to the only survivor of so many brothers: the rest have all perished by the crime of their wives. I am closely confined, and loaded with a weight of chains. My piety is the sole cause of my punishment. I am deemed guilty, because my hand trembled to urge the sword to my husband's throat. Had I dared to commit the bloody deed, I should have been extolled. It is better to be thus deemed guilty, than please a father by an act of barbarity. I can never repent that my hands are unstained withmurder.

Should my father torture me with the flames that I have not dared to violate, or throw in my face the torches used at the nuptial rites; should be pierce me with the very sword which he gave me for an inhuman purpose, and destroy the wife by the death from which she saved her husband; yet would all his cruelty be insufficient to make my dying lips own repentance: Hypermnestra is not one who will repent of her piety. Let Danaus and my bloody sisters testify penitence for their wickedness; this usually follows deeds of guilt. My heart sickens at the remembrance of that bloody night; and a sudden trembling enervates the joints of my right hand. That hand which was thought strong enough to engage in the murder of a husband, even dreads to write of a murder that it did not commit; yet will I attempt to describe the horrid scene. Twilight had overspread the earth; it was about the close of day, and night hastened on: we, the descendants of Inachus, are led to the palace of the great Pelasgus; and a father-in-law receives, into his house, daughters armed for the

destruction of their husbands. Lamps adorned with gold shine through all the apartments, and impious incense is offered to the unwilling gods. The people invoke Hymen; but Hymen neglects their call: even the wife of Jove forsook her beloved city. The bridegrooms made their appearance, high in wine, and enlivened by the acclamations of their attendants; their anointed heads were adorned with garlands of flowers: they entered their bed-chambers (chambers doomed to be their graves), and reposed their limbs on beds fitter for their funeral piles. Thus they lay overcome with food, wine, and sleep; and a dead silence reigned in unsuspecting Argos. I seemed to hear around me the groans of dying men; I indeed heard them, and it was really as I feared. At this the blood forsook my limbs, the vital heat departed, and a coldness spread itself over all my joints. As the bending reeds are shaken by the mild zephyrs, or the rough northern blasts agitate the poplar leaves; a like, or more