heir limbs, bristled with the hard
skins [of swine], at the will of Circe: then their reason and voice were
restored, and their former comeliness to their countenances. I have
suffered punishment enough, and more than enough, on thy account, O thou
so dearly beloved by the sailors and factors. My vigor is gone away, and
my ruddy complexion has left me; my bones are covered with a ghastly
skin; my hair with your preparations is grown hoary. No ease respites me
from my sufferings: night presses upon day, and day upon night: nor is
it in my power to relieve my lungs, which are strained with gasping.
Wherefore, wretch that I am, I am compelled to credit (what was denied,
by me) that the charms of the Samnites discompose the breast, and the
head splits in sunder at the Marsian incantations. What wouldst thou
have more? O sea! O earth! I burn in such a degree as neither Hercules
did, besmeared with the black gore of Nessus, nor the fervid flame
burning In the Sicilian Aetna. Yet you, a laboratory of Colchian
poisons, remain on fire, till I [reduced to] a dry ember, shall be
wafted away by the injurious winds. What event, or what penalty awaits
me? Speak out: I will with honor pay the demanded mulct; ready to make
an expiation, whether you should require a hundred steers, or chose to
be celebrated on a lying lyre. You, a woman of modesty, you, a woman of
probity, shall traverse the stars, as a golden constellation. Castor and
the brother of the great Castor, offended at the infamy brought on
[their sister] Helen, yet overcome by entreaty, restored to the poet his
eyes that were taken away from him. And do you (for it is in your power)
extricate me from this frenzy; O you, that are neither defiled by family
meanness, nor skillful to disperse the ashes of poor people, after they
have been nine days interred. You have an hospitable breast, and
unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has
tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated
vigor.

CANIDIA'S ANSWER.

Why do you pour forth your entreaties to ears that are closely shut
[against them]? The wintery ocean, with its briny tempests, does not
lash rocks more deaf to the cries of the naked mariners. What, shall
you, without being made an example of, deride the Cotyttian mysteries,
sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall
you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian
incantatio