’Twas at the time when Juno was enraged, 449 For Semele, against the Theban blood, As she already more than once had shown, So reft of reason Athamas became, 450 That, seeing his own wife with children twain Walking encumbered upon either hand, He cried: “Spread out the nets, that I may take The lioness and her whelps upon the passage”; And then extended his unpitying claws, Seizing the first, who had the name Learchus, And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock; And she, with the other burthen, drowned herself;⁠— And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojan’s arrogance, that all things dared, So that the king was with his kingdom crushed, Hecuba sad, disconsolate, and captive, 451 When lifeless she beheld Polyxena, And of her Polydorus on the shore Of ocean was the dolorous one aware, Out of her senses like a dog she barked, So much the anguish had her mind distorted;