Had I a hundred tongues, a wit so large As could their hundred offices discharge⁠— Had Phoebus all his Helicon bestow’d In all the streams, inspiring all the god, Those tongues, that wit, those streams, that god in vain Would offer to describe his sisters’ pain; They beat their breasts with many a bruising blow, Till they turn livid, and corrupt the snow; The corpse they cherish, while the corpse remains, And exercise and rub, with fruitless pains; And when to funeral flames ’tis borne away, They kiss the bed on which the body lay; And when those funeral flames no longer burn (The dust composed within a pious urn), Ev’n in that urn their brother they confess, And hug it in their arms, and to their bosoms press.

His tomb is raised; then, stretch’d along the ground, Those living monuments his tomb surround; Ev’n to his name, inscribed, their tears they pay, Till tears and kisses wear his name away.