forbids {thee; but} he is virtuous, and regardful of what is
right. And {yet}, O that there were a like infatuation in him!'

"{Thus} she says; but Cinyras, whom an honourable crowd of suitors is
causing to be in doubt what he is to do, inquires of herself, as he
repeats their names, of which husband she would wish {to be the wife}.
At first she is silent; and, fixing her eyes upon her father's
countenance, she is in confusion, and fills her eyes with the warm
tears. Cinyras, supposing this to be {the effect} of virgin bashfulness,
bids her not weep, and dries her cheeks, and gives her kisses. On these
being given, Myrrha is too much delighted; and, being questioned what
sort of a husband she would have, she says, 'One like thyself.' But he
praises the answer not {really}[45] understood by him, and says, 'Ever
be thus affectionate.' On mention being made of affection, the maiden,
conscious of her guilt, fixed her eyes on the ground.

"It is {now} midnight, and sleep has dispelled the cares, and {has
eased} the minds {of mortals}. But the virgin daughter of Cinyras, kept
awake, is preyed upon by an unconquerable flame, and ruminates upon her
wild desires. And one while she despairs, and at another she resolves to
try; and is both ashamed, and {yet} is desirous, and is not certain what
she is to do; and, just as a huge tree, wounded by the axe, when the
last stroke {now} remains, is in doubt, {as it were}, on which side it
is to fall, and is dreaded in each direction; so does her mind, shaken
by varying passions, waver in uncertainty, this way and that, and
receives an impulse in either direction; {and} no limit or repose is
found for her love, but death: 'tis death that pleases her. She raises
herself upright, and determines to insert her neck[46] in a halter; and
tying her girdle to the top of the door-post, she says, 'Farewell, dear
Cinyras, and understand the cause of my death;' and {then} fits the
noose to her pale neck.

"They say that the sound of her words reached the attentive ears of her
nurse,[47] as she was guarding the door of her foster-child. The old
woman rises, and opens the door; and, seeing the instruments of the
death she has contemplated, at the same moment she cries aloud, and
smites herself, and rends her bosom, and snatching the girdle from her
neck, tears it to pieces. {And} then, at last, she has time to weep,
then to give her embraces, and to inquire into the occasion for the
halter. The maid