The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

finds;
There fixed, she stands upon a bleaky hill,
There yet her marble cheeks eternal tears distil.”

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Homer, Iliad, XXIV 604, makes them but twelve:⁠—

“Twelve children perished in her halls, six daughters and six blooming sons; these Apollo slew from his silver bow, enraged with Niobe; and those Diana, delighting in arrows, because she had deemed herself equal to the beautifulcheeked Latona. She said that Latona had borne only two, but she herself had borne many; nevertheless those, though but two, exterminated all these.”

But Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, says:⁠—

“Seven are my daughters of a form divine,
With seven fair sons, an indefective line.”

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1 Samuel 31:4, 5:⁠—

“Then said Saul unto his armor-bearer. Draw thy sword and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me. But his armor-bearer would not, for he was sore afraid; therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.”

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2 Samuel 1:21:⁠—

“Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you.”

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Arachne, daughter of Idmon the dyer of Colophon. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI:⁠—

“One at the loom so excellently skilled,
That to the goddess she refused to yield.
Low was her birth, and small her native town,
She from her art alone obtained renown.
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Nor would the work, when finished, please so much,
As, while she wrought, to view each graceful touch;
Whether the shapeless wool in balls she wound,
Or with quick motion turned the spindle round,
Or with her pencil drew the neat design,
Pallas her mistress shone in every line.
This the proud maid with scornful air denies,
And even the goddess at her work defies;
Disowns her lieavcnly mistress every hour,
Nor asks her aid, nor deprecates her power.
Let us, she cries, but to a trial come,
And if she conquers, let her fix my doom.”

It was rather an unfair trial of skill, at the end of which Minerva, getting angry, struck Arachne on the forehead with her shuttle of boxwood.

“The unhappy maid, impatient of the wrong,
Down from a beam her injured person hung;
When Pallas, pitying her wretched state,
At once prevented and pronounced her fate:
‘Live; but depend, vile wretch!’ the goddess cried,
‘Doomed in suspense forever to be tied;
That all your race, to utmost date of time,
May feel the vengeance and detest the crime.’
Then, going off, she sprinkled her with juice
Which leaves of baneful aconite produce.
Touched with the poisonous drug, her flowing hair
Fell to the ground and left her temples bare;
Her usual features vanished from their place,
Her body lessened all, but most her face.
Her slender fingers, hanging on each side
With many joints, the use of legs supplied;
A spider’s bag the rest, from which she gives
A thread, and still by constant weaving lives.”

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In the revolt of the Ten Tribes. 1 Kings 12:18:⁠—

“Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute; and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died; therefore King Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.”

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Amphiaraus, the soothsayer, foreseeing his own death if he went to the Theban war, concealed himself, to avoid going. His wife Eriphyle, bribed by a “golden necklace set with diamonds,” betrayed to her brother Adrastus his hiding-place, and Amphiaraijs, departing, charged his son Alcmeon to kill Eriphyle as soon as he heard of his death.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX:⁠—

“The son shall bathe his hands in parent’s blood,
And in one act be both unjust and good.”

Statius, Theb., II 355, Lewis’s Tr.:⁠—

“Fair Eriphyle the rich gift beheld,
And her sick breast with secret envy swelled.
Not the late omens and the well-known tale
To cure her vain ambition aught avail.
O had the wretch by self-experience known
The future woes, and sorrows not her own!
But fate decrees her wretched spouse must bleed,
And the son’s frenzy clear the mother’s deed.”

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Isaiah 37:38:⁠—

“And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia, and Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead.”

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Herodotus, Book I Ch. 214, Rawlinson’s Tr.:⁠—

“Tomyris, when she found that Cyrus paid no heed to her advice, collected all the forces of her kingdom, and gave him battle. Of all the combats in which the barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest.⁠ ⁠… The greater part of the army of the Persians was destroyed, and Cyrus himself fell, after reigning nine and twenty years. Search was made among the slain, by order of the queen, for the body of Cyrus, and when it was found, she took a skin, and, filling it full of human blood, she dipped the head of Cyrus in the gore, saying, as she thus insulted the corse, ‘I live and have conquered thee in fight, and yet by thee am I ruined; for thou tookest my son with guile; but thus I make good my threat, and give thee thy fill of blood.’ Of the many different accounts which are given of the death of Cyrus, this which I have followed appears to me most worthy of credit.”

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After Judith had slain Holofernes. Judith 15:1:⁠—

“And when they that were in the tents heard, they were astonished at the thing that was done. And fear and trembling fell upon them, so that there was no man that durst abide in the sight of his neighbor, but, rushing out all together, they fled into every way of the plain and of the hill country.⁠ ⁠… Now when the children of Israel heard it, they all fell upon them with one consent, and slew them unto Chobai.”

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This tercet unites the “I saw,” “O,” and “Displayed,” of the preceding passage, and