The gentle damsel had not past fourteen, Was beautiful and fresh, and like a rose, When this first opening from its bud is seen, And with the vernal sun expands and grows.
To say Bireno loved the youthful queen Were little; with less blaze lit tinder glows, Or ripened corn, wherever envious hand Of foe amid the grain has cast a brand, XII
Than that which on Bireno's bosom fed, And to his marrow burned; when, weeping sore The fate of her unhappy father dead, He saw her bathed in ceaseless tears deplore:
And, as cold water, on the cauldron shed, Shops short the bubbling wave, which boiled before;
So was the raging rife Olympia blew Within his breast, extinguished by a new.
