his heavenly mates,
    And sees, with joy exceeding, children rise
    On children; for that Zeus exempts from age
    And death their frames who sprang from Heracles: 
    And Ptolemy, like Alexander, claims
    From him; his gallant son their common sire. 
    And when, the banquet o’er, the Strong Man wends,
    Cloyed with rich nectar, home unto his wife,
    This kinsman hath in charge his cherished shafts
    And bow; and that his gnarled and knotted club;
    And both to white-limbed Hebe’s bower of bliss
    Convoy the bearded warrior and his arms.

      Then how among wise ladies—­blest the pair
    That reared her!—­peerless Berenice shone! 
    Dione’s sacred child, the Cyprian queen,
    O’er that sweet bosom passed her taper hands: 
    And hence, ’tis said, no man loved woman e’er
    As Ptolemy loved her.  She o’er-repaid
    His love; so, nothing doubting, he could leave
    His substance in his loyal children’s care,
    And rest with her, fond husband with fond wife. 
    She that loves not bears sons, but all unlike
    Their father:  for her heart was otherwhere.

      O Aphrodite, matchless e’en in heaven
    For beauty, thou didst love her; wouldst not let
    Thy Berenice cross the wailful waves: 
    But thy hand snatched her—­to the blue lake bound
    Else, and the dead’s grim ferryman—­and enshrined
    With thee, to share thy honours.  There she sits,
    To mortals ever kind, and passion soft
    Inspires, and makes the lover’s burden light. 
    The dark-browed Argive, linked with Tydeus, bare
    Diomed the slayer, famed in Calydon: 
    And deep-veiled Thetis unto Peleus gave
    The javelineer Achilles.  Thou wast born
    Of Berenice, Ptolemy by name
    And by descent, a warrior’s warrior child. 
    Cos from its mother’s arms her babe received,
    Its destined nursery, on its natal day: 
    ’Twas there Antigone’s daughter in her pangs
    Cried to the goddess that could bid them cease: 
    Who soon was at her side, and lo! her limbs
    Forgat their anguish, and a child was born
    Fair, its sire’s self.  Cos saw, and shouted loud;
    Handled the babe all tenderly, and spake: 

      “Wake, babe, to bliss:  prize me, as Phoebus doth
    His azure-sphered Delos:  grace the hill
    Of Triops, and the Dorians’ sister shores,
    As king Apollo his Rhenaea’s isle.”

       So spake the isle.  An eagle high overhead
    Poised in the clouds screamed thrice, the prophet-bird
    Of Zeus, and sent by him.  For awful kings
    All are his care, those chiefliest on whose birth
    He smiled:  exceeding glory waits on them: 
    Theirs is the sovereignty of land and sea. 
    But if a myriad realms spread far and wide
    O’er earth, if myriad nations till the soil