“Ah! whither am I hurried? Ah! forgive, Ye shades, and let your sister’s issue live; A mother cannot give him death; though he Deserves it, he deserves it not from me.

“Then shall the unpunish’d wretch insult the slain, Triumphant live, nor only live, but reign; While you, thin shades, the sport of winds, are toss’d O’er dreary plains, or tread the burning coast. I cannot, cannot bear; ’tis past, ’tis done; Perish this impious, this detested son; Perish his sire, and perish I withal, And let the house’s heir and the hoped kingdom fall.

“Where is the mother fled, her pious love, And where the pains, with which ten months I strove? Ah! hadst thou died, my son, in infant years, Thy little hearse had been bedew’d with tears.