t marble doorway and run hand in
hand down the olive-silvery hill to the shore of the lake. She had
promised to spend the whole afternoon with them. Never had he felt
so happy. The deep blue water, ruffled by a summer breeze, sparkled
with a million points of crystal light. Valerius became absorbed in
trying to launch a tiny red-sailed boat, but Catullus rushed back
to his mother, exclaiming, "Mother, mother, the waves are laughing
too!" And she had caught him in her arms and smiled into his eyes
and said: "Child, a great poet said that long ago. Are you going to
be a poet some day? Is that all my bad dreams mean?"

Then she had called Valerius and asked if they wanted a story of the
sea, and they had curled up in the hollows of her arms and she had
told them about the Argo, the first ship that ever set forth upon
the waters; of how, when her prow broke through the waves, the sailors
could see white-faced Nereids dance and beckon, and of how she bore
within her hold many heroes dedicated to a great quest. It was the
first time Catullus had heard the magic tale of the Golden Fleece
and in his mother's harp-like voice it had brought him his first
desire for strange lands and the wide, grey spaces of distant seas.
Then he had felt his mother's arm tighten around him and something
in her voice made his throat ache, as she went on to tell them of
the sorceress Medea; how she brought the leader of the quest into
wicked ways, so that the glory of his heroism counted for nothing
and misery pursued him, and how she still lived on in one disguise
after another, working ruin, when unresisted, by poisoned sheen or
honeyed draught. Catullus began to feel very much frightened, and
then all at once his mother jumped up and called out excitedly, "Oh,
see, a Nereid, a Nereid!" And they had all three rushed wildly down
the beach to the foamy edge of the lake, and there she danced with
them, her blue eyes laughing like the waves and her loosened hair
shining like the red-gold clouds around the setting sun. They had
danced until the sun slipped below the clouds and out of sight, and
a servant had come with cloaks and a reminder of the dinner hour.

Now from the hill above Verona Catullus could see the red gold of
another sunset and he was alone. Valerius, who had known him with
that Nereid-mother, had gone forever. Because they had lain upon the
same mother's breast and danced with her upon the Sirmian shore,
Catullus had always known th