the waves;" and gave her an unstable place
{of rest}. She was made the mother of two children, that is {but} the
seventh part of my issue. I am fortunate, and who shall deny it? and
fortunate I shall remain; who, too, can doubt of that? Plenty has made
me secure; I am too great for Fortune possibly to hurt; and, though she
should take away many things from me, {even then} much more will she
leave me: my {many} blessings have now risen superior to apprehensions.
Suppose it possible for some part of this multitude of my children to be
taken away {from me}; still, thus stripped, I shall not be reduced to
two, the number of Latona; an amount, by the number of which, how far,
{I pray}, is she removed from one that is childless? Go from the
sacrifice; hasten away from the sacrifice, and remove the laurel from
your hair!"

They remove it, and the sacrifice they leave unperformed; and what they
can do, they adore the Divinity in gentle murmurs. The Goddess was
indignant; and on the highest top of {Mount} Cynthus, she spoke to her
two children in such words as these: "Behold! I, your mother, proud of
having borne you, and who shall yield to no one of the Goddesses, except
to Juno {alone}, am called in question whether I am a Goddess, and, for
all future ages, I am driven from the altars devoted {to me}, unless you
give me aid. Nor is this my only grief; the daughter of Tantalus has
added abusive language to her shocking deeds, and has dared to postpone
you to her own children, and (what {I wish} may fall upon herself), she
has called me childless; and the profane {wretch} has discovered a
tongue like her father's."[38] To this relation Latona was going to add
entreaties, when Phoebus said, "Cease thy complaints, 'tis prolonging the
delay of her punishment." Phoebe said the same; and, by a speedy descent
through the air, they arrived, covered with clouds, at the citadel of
Cadmus.

There was near the walls a plain, level, and extending far and wide,
trampled continually by horses, where multitudes of wheels and hard
hoofs had softened the clods placed beneath them. There, part of the
seven sons of Amphion are mounting upon their spirited steeds, and press
their backs, red with the Tyrian dye, and wield the reins heavy with
gold; of these, Ismenus, who had formerly been the first burden of his
mother, while he is guiding the steps of the horses in a perfect circle,
and is curbing their foaming mouths, cries aloud, "Ah, wretched m