The Theban matrons their loved queen pursued, + 

And tracing to the rock, her footsteps view’d. + 

Too certain of her fate, they rend the skies + 

With piteous shrieks, and lamentable cries; + 

All beat their breasts, and Juno all upbraid, + 

Who still remember’d a deluded maid, + 

Who, still revengeful for one stolen embrace, + 

Thus wreak’d her hate on the Cadmean race. + 

This Juno heard: “And shall such elfs,” she cried + 

“Dispute my justice, or my power deride? + 

You too shall feel my wrath not idly spent; + 

A goddess never for insults was meant.” + 

She who loved most, and who most loved had been, + 

Said: “Not the waves shall part me from my queen.” + 

She strove to plunge into the roaring flood, + 

Fix’d to the stone, a stone herself she stood; + 

This, on her breast would fain her blows repeat; + 

Her stiffen’d hands refused her breast to beat; + 

That stretch’d her arms unto the seas, in vain + 

Her arms she labour’d to unstretch again. + 

To tear her comely locks another tried; + 

Both comely locks and fingers petrified. + 

Part thus; but Juno, with a softer mind, + 

Part doom’d to mix among the feather’d kind. + 

Transform’d, the name of Theban birds they keep, + 

And skim the surface of that fatal deep. + 