Now Athamas cries out, his reason fled, “Here, fellow-hunters, let the toils be spread. I saw a lioness, in quest of food, With her two young, run roaring in this wood.” Again the fancied savages were seen, As through his palace still he chased his queen; Then tore Learchus from her breast: the child Stretch’d little arms, and on its father smiled: A father now no more, who now begun Around his head to whirl his giddy son, And, quite insensible to nature’s call, The helpless infant flung against the wall. The same mad poison in the mother wrought: Young Melicerta in her arms she caught, And with disorder’d tresses, howling, flies, “O! Bacchus, Evoe, Bacchus!” loud she cries. The name of Bacchus Juno laugh’d to hear, And said, “Thy foster-god has cost thee dear.”