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METAMORPHOSES BOOK VIII love and the name of mother break me down. Woe is me, my brothers! It is ill that you should win, but win you shall; only let me have the solace that I grant to you, and let me follow you!"She spoke, and turning away her face, with trembling hand she threw the fatal billet into the flames. The brand either gave or seemed to give a groan as it was caught and consumed by the unwilling fire. Unconscious, far away, Meleager burns with those flames; he feels his vitals scorching with hidden fire, and o'ercomes the great pain with fortitude. But yet he grieves that he must die a cowardly and bloodless death, and he calls Ancaeus happy for the wounds he suffered. With groans of pain he calls with his dying breath on his aged father, his brothers and loving sisters and his wife, perchance also upon his mother. The fire and his pains increase, and then die down. Both fire and pain go out together; his spirit gradually slips away into the thin air as white ashes gradually overspread the glowing coals Lofty Calydon is brought low. Young men and old, chieftains and commons, lament and groan; and the Calydonian women, dwellers by Euenus' stream, r breasts. The father, prone on the ground, defiles his white hair and his aged head with dust, and laments that he has lived too long. For the mother, now knowing her awful deed, has punished herself, driving a dagger through her heart. Not if some god had given me a hundred mouths each with its tongue, a master's genius, and Helicon's inspiration, could I describe the piteous prayers of those poor sisters. Careless of decency, the;y beat and bruise theirbreasts; and, while theirbrother's corpse remains, they caress that corpse over and 443 tear theirair and beat thei