Book 14
“Are these the garlands that delight your heart?
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You cruel and unnatural woman?”—Then,
thrust in his head, turning even then towards her,
and hung a hapless weight with broken neck.
“The door, struck by the motion of his feet
as they were quivering, seemed to utter sounds
of groaning, and, when it flew open, showed
the sad sight. All the servants cried aloud,
and after they had tried in vain to save him,
carried him from there to his mother's house,
(to her because his father was then dead).
“She held him to her bosom and embraced
the cold limbs of her dead child. After she
had uttered words so natural to the grief
of wretched mothers—after she had done
what wretched mothers do at such sad times,
she led a tearful funeral through the streets,
the pale corpse following high upon the bier,
on to a pyre laid in the central square.
By chance, Anaxarete's house was near
the way through which the mournful funeral
was going with the corpse, and the sad sound
of wailing reached the ears of that proud girl—
hardhearted, and already goaded on
by an avenging god. Moved by the sound,
she said; “Let me observe their sniveling rites.”
And she ascended to an upper room,
provided with wide windows. Scarcely had
she looked at Iphis, laid out on the bier,
when her eyes stiffened, and she turned all white,
as warm blood left her body. She tried then
to turn back from the window, but she stood
transfixed there. She then tried to turn her face
away from that sad sight, but could not move;
and by degrees the stone, which always had
existed, petrified in her cold breast,
and took possession of her heart and limbs.
“This is not fiction, and that you may know,
Salamis keeps that statue safe today,
formed of the virgin and has also built
