greatly; and Meleager having despatched it gave the spoil thereof to Atalanta, as one beyond measure enamoured of her; but the brethren of Althaea his mother, Toxeus and Plexippus, with such others as misliked that she only should bear off the praise whereas many had borne the labour, laid wait for her to take away her spoil; but Meleager fought against them and slew them: whom when Althaea their sister beheld and knew to be slain of her son, she waxed for wrath and sorrow like as one mad, and taking the brand whereby the measure of her son's life was meted to him, she cast it upon a fire; and with the wasting thereof his life likewise wasted away, that being brought back to his father's house he died in a brief space, and his mother also endured not long after for very sorrow; and this was his end, and the end of that hunting.

ATALANTA IN CALYDON.

CHIEF HUNTSMAN.

  Maiden, and mistress of the months and stars
  Now folded in the flowerless fields of heaven,
  Goddess whom all gods love with threefold heart,
  Being treble in thy divided deity,
  A light for dead men and dark hours, a foot
  Swift on the hills as morning, and a hand
  To all things fierce and fleet that roar and range
  Mortal, with gentler shafts than snow or sleep;
  Hear now and help and lift no violent hand,
  But favourable and fair as thine eye's beam
  Hidden and shown in heaven, for I all night
  Amid the king's hounds and the hunting men
  Have wrought and worshipped toward thee; nor shall man
  See goodlier hounds or deadlier edge of spears,
  But for the end, that lies unreached at yet
  Between the hands and on the knees of gods,
  O fair-faced sun killing the stars and dews
  And dreams and desolation of the night!
  Rise up, shine, stretch thine hand out, with thy bow
  Touch the most dimmest height of trembling heaven,
  And burn and break the dark about thy ways,
  Shot through and through with arrows; let thine hair
  Lighten as flame above that nameless shell
  Which was the moon, and thine eyes fill the world
  And thy lips kindle with swift beams; let earth
  Laugh, and the long sea fiery from thy feet
  Through all the roar and ripple of streaming springs
  And foam in reddening flakes and flying flowers
  Shaken from hands and blown from lips of nymphs
  Whose hair or breast divides the wandering wave
  With salt close tresses cleaving lock to lock,
  All gold, or shuddering and unfurrowed snow;
  And all the winds about thee with their wings,
  And fountain-heads of all the watered world;
  Each horn of Acheloüs, and the green
  Euenus, wedded with the straitening sea.
  For in fair time thou comest; come also thou,
  Twin-born with him, and virgin, Artemis,
  And give our spears their spoil, the wild boar's hide.
  Sent in thine anger against us for sin done
  And bloodless altars without wine or fire.
  Him now consume thou; for thy sacrifice
  With sanguine-shining steam divides the dawn,
  And one, the maiden rose of all thy maids,
  Arcadian Atalanta, snowy-souled,
  Fair as the snow and footed as the wind,
  From Ladon and well-wooded Maenalus
  Over the firm hills and the fleeting sea
  Hast thou drawn hither, and many an armèd king,
  Heroes, the crown of men, like gods in fight.
  Moreover out of all the Aetolian land,
  From the full-flowered Lelantian pasturage
  To what of fruitful field the son of Zeus
  Won from the roaring river and labouring sea
  When the wild god shrank in his horn and fled
  And foamed and lessened through his wrathful fords,
  Leaving clear lands that steamed with sudden sun,
  These virgins with the lightening of the day
  Bring thee fresh wreaths and their own sweeter hair,
  Luxurious locks and flower-like mixed with flowers,
  Clean offering, and chaste hymns; but me the time
  Divides from these things; whom do thou not less
  Help and give honour, and to mine hounds good speed,
  And edge to spears, and luck to each man's hand.

CHORUS.

  When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
    The mother of months in meadow or plain
  Fills the shadows and windy places
    With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
  And the brown bright nightingale amorous
  Is half assuaged for Itylus,
  For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,
    The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

  Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers.
    Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
  With a noise of winds and many rivers,
    With a clamour of waters, and with might;
  Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
  Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;
  For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
    Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

  Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
    Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?
  O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,
    Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
  For the stars and the winds are unto her
  As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
  For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
    And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

  For winter's rains and ruins are over,
    And all the season of snows, and sins;
  The days dividing lover and lover,
    The light that loses, the night that wins;
  And time remembered is grief forgotten,
  And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
  And in green underwood and cover
    Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

  The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
    Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,
  The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
    From leaf to flower and flower to fruit,
  And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
  And the oat is heard above the lyre,
  And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes
    The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.

  And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
    Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
  Follows with dancing and fills with delight
    The Maenad and the Bassarid;
  And soft as lips that laugh and hide
  The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
  And screen from seeing and leave in sight
    The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

  The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
    Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes;
  The wild vine slipping down leaves bare
    Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
  The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves.
  But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
  To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
    The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

ALTHAEA.

What do ye singing? what is this ye sing?

CHORUS.

  Flowers bring we, and pure lips that please the gods,
  And raiment meet for service: lest the day
  Turn sharp with all its honey in our lips.

ALTHAEA.