So then: a lone island, planted with no shelter. No passage away from sea lies open, since the waves surround. There's no idea of escape, no hope. All is mute. All is empty. All points to extinction. Yet my eyes will not cloud in death, feeling will not leave my exhausted body, before I--betrayed!--demand just vengeance by the gods and entreat the good faith of those above in my last hour. Therefore, you that punish with avenging price men's crimes, Furies, Eumenides, whose brows, bound with serpents for tresses, announce the rages of your panting chests, Be here! Be here! Respond to my complaints which I--pitiful I--am forced to bring out from my very bones, helpless, burning, blind with mindless rage. Since those are true-born from my deepest heart, do not allow my suffering to gutter out. Goddesses, may the same intent that left me behind, alone, defile Theseus himself and his own with death.
Catullus, poem 64, translated by Thomas Banks
