Now, at her lap arrived, the flatt’ring boy Salutes his parent with a smiling joy: About her neck his little arms are thrown, And he accosts her in a prattling tone; Then her tempestuous anger was allay’d, And in its full career her vengeance stay’d; While tender thoughts, in spite of passion, rise, And melting tears disarm her threat’ning eyes. But, when she found the mother’s easy heart Too fondly swerving from the intended part, Her injured sister’s face again she view’d, And, as by turns, surveying both she stood. “While this fond boy,” she said, “can thus express The moving accents of his fond address, Why stands my sister of her tongue bereft, Forlorn and sad, in speechless silence left? O Procne! see the fortune of your house; Such is your fate when match’d to such a spouse! Conjugal duty, if observed to him, Would change from virtue, and become a crime: For all respect to Tereus must debase The noble blood of great Pandion’s race.”