[I tell you I am miserable,]
Gongyla …
in fact an omen …
[I dreamt that Hermes] appeared before me:
‘Lord,’ I told him, ‘I swear by the blessed goddess‡
that I can find no pleasure here on earth
but I am possessed by a strange longing to die,
to see the river at the gates of hell,
whose banks are overgrown with lotus, wet with dew,
the Acheron …’
*****
‡ the blessed goddess: Aphrodite.