358 SOPHENE AND SOPHOCLES. 



My joy and gratitude were extreme ; but Sophene checked their 

 impetuosity, and said to me, Let us not waste these precious moments, 

 and, since this is our unavoidable destiny, let us part fora short time 

 that we may meet never more to be separated. 



Full of a thousand projects, the execution whereof seemed easy to 

 me, but which were so in my fancy only, I flew to the temple. 

 The sacrifice was begun. Already the blood of the slaughtered 

 victims had trickled down into the vases designed to receive it. 

 Already the sacrificer, finding in their bowels favourable omens, had 

 urged Sosthenes to accomplish a marriage acceptable to the gods ; 

 when, on a sudden, a huge eagle stooped down upon the entrails, 

 which he tore to pieces, and taking them up with his talons flew 

 away. The sacred knife slid from the hands of the priest; he 

 retired from the altar; a sudden horror seized on the " minds" of all 

 the standers by, consternation appeared on the faces even of the 

 least timid among them. Nothing was to be heard but groans and 

 lamentations. Each person apprehended for himself the misfortune 

 which this prodigy foretold : it concerns but me, cried Panthia. 

 Immortal gods ! you condemn a union upon which I had placed all 

 my happiness. O my daughter! O unfortunate Sophene! they are 

 not the entrails of the victim that the eagle has torn, but mine. 

 Protector of innocence, O Jupiter! thou readest our hearts. 

 What crime are they guilty of? Be softened by our tears, assuage 

 thy wrath, or let it fall only upon me. Preserve the daughter at the 

 peril of her mother, and let my death give her life again. So 

 speaking, she tore her hair, and smote her breast, as she lay grovel- 

 ling in the dust. The crowd gathered round her, raised her up and 

 endeavoured to comfort her; but she was deaf to all iheir 

 persuasions. 



Nevertheless the company resumed their tranquillity. That ter- 

 rible apparition frightened them no more. It is nothing, say they, 

 but a mere effect of chance, and an indifferent prognostic. Perhaps 

 it is a happy one. Such is the levity natural to the populace. 

 What was the object of their terror quickly becomes a subject of 

 hope. Every one having left the temple, we attended Sosthenes and 

 Panthia on their return. The former was not under a less load of 

 affliction ; but it was more concentred. We found Sophene weeping 

 bitterly. A slave had apprised her of what had just happened. 

 The despondence of her mother affected her more than the cause of 

 it, which might perhaps apologize for the necessity of her running 

 away to avoid the calamities that her parents and herself were 

 threatened with, if the projected marriage took place. Amidst the 

 almost total overthrow of our ideas, she had presence of mind enough 

 left to ask me what I had done. I answered that I was going to 



settle all with Cratisthenes, and that soon 



Her father, calling her, interrupted me ; I pressed her hand ; and 

 her looks, methought, upbraided me with too much tardiness. Corne 

 on my daughter, said he, and help me to comfort thy mother ; she 

 ran to her, and endeavoured to kiss away her tears. She entreated 

 her not to suffer sorrow to overcome her. No, said she, the gods are 



