“There lay a log unlighted on the hearth, When she was laboring in the throes of birth For th’ unborn chief; the fatal sisters came, And raised it up, and tossed it on the flame Then on the rock a scanty measure place Of vital flax, and turned the wheel apace; And turning sung, ‘To this red brand and thee, O new-born babe, we give an equal destiny’; So vanished out of view. The frighted dame Sprung hasty from her bed, and quenched the flame. The log, in secret locked, she kept with care, And that, while thus preserved, preserved her heir.”

Meleager distinguished himself in the Argonautic expedition, and afterwards in the hunt of Calydon, where he killed the famous boar, and gave the boar’s head to Atalanta; and when his uncles tried to take possession of it, he killed them also. On hearing this, and seeing the dead bodies, his mother in her rage threw the brand upon the fire again, and, as it was consumed, Meleager perished.