did it stretch upon his funeral pyre. On this the goddess set the
Curetes and the Aetolians fighting furiously about the head and skin of
the boar.

"So long as Meleager was in the field things went badly with the
Curetes, and for all their numbers they could not hold their ground
under the city walls; but in the course of time Meleager was angered as
even a wise man will sometimes be. He was incensed with his mother
Althaea, and therefore stayed at home with his wedded wife fair
Cleopatra, who was daughter of Marpessa daughter of Euenus, and of Ides
the man then living. He it was who took his bow and faced King Apollo
himself for fair Marpessa's sake; her father and mother then named her
Alcyone, because her mother had mourned with the plaintive strains of
the halcyon-bird when Phoebus Apollo had carried her off. Meleager,
then, stayed at home with Cleopatra, nursing the anger which he felt by
reason of his mother's curses. His mother, grieving for the death of
her brother, prayed the gods, and beat the earth with her hands,
calling upon Hades and on awful Proserpine; she went down upon her
knees and her bosom was wet with tears as she prayed that they would
kill her son--and Erinys that walks in darkness and knows no ruth heard
her from Erebus.

"Then was heard the din of battle about the gates of Calydon, and the
dull thump of the battering against their walls. Thereon the elders of
the Aetolians besought Meleager; they sent the chiefest of their
priests, and begged him to come out and help them, promising him a
great reward. They bade him choose fifty plough-gates, the most fertile
in the plain of Calydon, the one-half vineyard and the other open
plough-land. The old warrior Oeneus implored him, standing at the
threshold of his room and beating the doors in supplication. His
sisters and his mother herself besought him sore, but he the more
refused them; those of his comrades who were nearest and dearest to him
also prayed him, but they could not move him till the foe was battering
at the very doors of his chamber, and the Curetes had scaled the walls
and were setting fire to the city. Then at last his sorrowing wife
detailed the horrors that befall those whose city is taken; she
reminded him how the men are slain, and the city is given over to the
flames, while the women and children are carried into captivity; when
he heard all this, his heart was touched, and he donned his armour to
go forth. Thus of his own in