§484Cuspide suspecti robora fixit equi.
(like him who) pierced the oak of the suspected horse with his spear-point.
Nor may you approach high steps more cautiously than Elpenor, and may you bear the force of wine in the manner that he bore it.
§487Tamque cadas domitus, quam quisquis ad arma vocantem §488Iuvit inhumanum Thiodamanta Dryops: §491Quam qui dona tulit Nesseo tincta veneno, §492Euboicasque suo nomine saepit aquas.
And may you fall, subdued, as did whatever Dryopian who helped the inhuman Thiodamas when he called to arms: Or like him who brought the gifts stained with Nessus' poison, and hedges the Euboean waters with his own name.
§493Nec de praecipiti venias in Tartara saxo, §494Ut qui Socraticum de nece legit opus; §495Ut qui Theseae fallacia vela carinae §496Vidit, ut Iliaca missus ab arce puer, §497Ut teneri nutrix, eadem matertera, Bacchi, §498Ut cui causa necis serra reperta fuit; §499— Lydia se scopulis ut virgo misit ab altis, §500Dixerat invito quae mala verba deo.
And may you not go down into Tartarus from a steep cliff, like him who read the Socratic work on death; like him who saw the deceitful sails of the Thesean ship, or like the boy cast down from the Trojan citadel, like the nurse of tender Bacchus, who was also his maternal aunt, or like him for whom the invented saw was the cause of death; — as the Lydian maiden cast herself from high rocks, she who had spoken wicked words to the unwilling god.
May a newly-delivered compatriot lioness meet you in your native field, and may she be the cause of a Phalaecean death.
And may the boar which slew the son of Lycurgus, and him born from a tree, and bold Idmon, tear you also.
And may it, even dead, inflict a wound upon you; as on him upon whom fell the jaws of the boar transfixed on a spear.
§507Sive idem; simili pinus quem morte peremit; §509Si tua contigerit Minoas puppis harenas, §510Te Corcyraeum Cressia turba putet.
Or him whom a pine tree destroyed with a similar death; If your ship should touch the Minoan sands, may the Cretan crowd think you to be a Corcyraean.
And may you enter a house about to fall; as did the blood of Aleuas, when the chair of the son of Leoprepes collapsed without its master.
And as even Euenus, drowned in a rushing river, or Tiberinus, may you give your name to the rapid water.
§515— Astacidaeque modo defixa cadavera trunco, §516Digna feris; hominis sit caput esca tuum; §517— Quodque ferunt Brotean fecisse cupidine mortis, §518Des tua succensae membra cremanda pyrae.
— and in the manner of the son of Astacus, let your corpse, fixed on a trunk, fit for wild beasts, and let a human head be your food; — and as they say Broteas did from a desire for death, may you give your limbs to be burned on a kindled pyre.
And shut up in a cage may you suffer death, like that founder of a history that was to be of no avail.
And as his bold tongue harmed the inventor of the combative iambic, so may your petulant tongue be for your destruction.
And like him who harmed Athens with an unstable song, may you perish hated, with food failing you.
And as the prophet of the austere lyre is said to have perished, may a wounded right hand be the cause of your destruction.
And as the snake gave a wound to Agamemnonian Orestes, may you also fall from a venomous bite.
May the first night of your marriage be the last of your life: in this manner perished Eupolis and his new bride.
And as they say that cothurnated Lycophron fell, may a transfixed arrow cling to your vitals.
Or may you, torn, be scattered in the forest by the hands of your own kin, as he who was sprung from a serpent ancestor was scattered at Thebes.
And may you be dragged through wild mountains by a snatching bull, as the imperious wife of Lycus was dragged.
And what the unwilling rival of her sister suffered, may your cut-out tongue fall before your feet.
And may the working bee bury noxious stings in your eyes, as it did to the Achaean prophet.
Like the boy, son of Harpagus, may you repeat the example of Thyestes, and, slain, enter into the vitals of your father.
May you bear truncated limbs, with parts mutilated by the savage sword — such as they say were the limbs of Mamerta.
And as the throat of the Syracusan poet was constricted, so may the passage of your breath be closed by a noose.
Or may your naked vitals lie open, your skin torn away, like the Phrygian whose name the river bears.
Unhappy one, may you look upon the face of stone-making Medusa, which alone sent many of the Cephenes to their death.
§555Potniadum morsus subeas, ut Glaucus, equarum, §557 §559Sollicitoque bibas, Anyti doctissimus olim §560Inperturbato quod bibit ore reus.
May you undergo the bites of the Potnian mares, like Glaucus, And may you drink with an anxious mind what once the most wise defendant of Anytus drank with undisturbed countenance.
Nor may it turn out more happily for you, if you love anything, than for Haemon: and as Maccareus possessed his own, so may you possess yours.
Or may you look upon what, when already the flames held everything, the Hectorean boy saw from his native citadel.
§565Sanguine probra luas, ut avo genitore creatus,
May you atone for your shames with blood, like him born from an ancestor who was also his father,