Page:Metamorphoses.djvu/235

METAMORPHOSES BOOK IV Then, catching up her torch, she whirled it rapidly round and round and kindled fire by the swiftly moving fire. So, her task accomplished and her victory won, she retraced her way to the unsub- stantial realm of mighty Dis, and there laid off the serpents she had worn, Straightway cried Athamas, the son of Aeolus, madly raving in his palace halls : "Ho! my comrades, spread the nets here in these woods! I saw here but now a lioness with her two cubs " and madl pursued his wife's tracks as if she were a beast of prey. His son, Learchus, laughing and stretching out his little hands in glee, he snatched from the mother's arms, and whirling hiin round and round through the air like a sling, he madly dashed the baby's head against a rough rock. Then the mother, stung to madness too, either by grief or by the sprinkled poison's force, howled wildły, and, quite bereft of sense, with hair streaming, she fled away, bearing thee, little Melicerta, in her naked arms, and shouting "Ho! Bacchus as she fled. At the name of Bacchus, Juno laughed in scorn and said: <« So may your foster-son ever bless you!"A cliff o'erhung the sea, the lower part of which had been hollowed out by the beating waves, and sheltered the waters underneath from the rain. Its top stood high and sharp and stretched far out in front over the deep. To this spot-for madness had made her strong-Ino climbed, and held by no natural fears, she leaped with her child far out above the sea. The water where sne fell was churned white with foam. But Venus, pitying the undeserved sufferings of her granddaughter, thus addressed her uncle with coaxing words: "O Neptune, god of waters, whose 215