• Athamas, king of Thebes and husband of Ino, daughter of Cadmus. His madness is thus described by Ovid, Metamorphoses IV , Eusden’s Tr. :⁠— “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 thro’ his palace still he chased his queen; Then tore Learchus from her breast: the child Stretched 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 disordered tresses, howling, flies, ‘O Bacchus, Evôe, Bacchus!’ loud she cries. The name of Bacchus Juno laughed to hear, And said, ‘Thy foster-god has cost thee dear.’ A rock there stood, whose side the beating waves Had long consumed, and hollowed into caves. The head shot forwards in a bending steep, And cast a dreadful covert o’er the deep. The wretched Ino, on destruction bent, Climbed up the cliff⁠—such strength her fury lent: Thence with her guiltless boy, who wept in vain, At one bold spring she plunged into the main.” ↩