Verse
Metamorphoses
Book 14, Line 50 by Henry T. Riley (English)
Thus he said; and raising his swimming eyes and his pallid arms to the door-posts, so often adorned by him with wreaths, when he had fastened a noose at the end of a halter upon the door; he said,— “Are these the garlands that delight thee, cruel and unnatural woman ?” And he placed his head within it; but even then he was turned towards her; and he hung a hapless burden, by his strangled throat. The door, struck by the motion of his feet as they quivered, seemed to utter a sound, as of one groaning much, and flying open, it discovered the deed; the servants cried aloud, and after lifting him up in vain, they carried him to the house of his mother (for his father was dead). She received him into her bosom; and embracing the cold limbs of her child, after she had uttered the words that are natural to wretched mothers, and had performed the usual actions of wretched mothers, she was preceding the tearful funeral through the midst of the city, and was carrying his ghastly corpse on the bier, to be committed to the flames.
MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 14
Book 14, Line 50ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-14-50