Selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

BOOK I

¹My intention is to tell of bodies changed

To different forms; the gods, who made the changes,

Will help me—or I hope so—with a poem

That runs from the world's beginning to our own days.

Reading for the Flood Story:  Creation

⁵Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,

Nature was all alike, a shapelessness,

Chaos, so-called, all rude and lumpy matter,

Nothing but bulk, inert, in whose confusion

Discordant atoms warred: there was no sun

¹⁰To light the universe; there was no moon

With slender silver crescents filling slowly;

No earth hung balanced in surrounding air;

No sea reached far along the fringe of shore.

Land, to be sure, there was, and air, and ocean,

¹⁵But land on which no man could stand, and water                

No man could swim in, air no man could breathe,

Air without light, substance forever changing,

Forever at war: within a single body

Heat fought with cold, wet fought with dry, the hard

²⁰Fought with the soft, things having weight contended

With weightless things.

Till God, or kindlier Nature,

Settled all argument, and separated

Heaven from earth, water from land, our air

²⁵From the high stratosphere, a liberation

So things evolved, and out of blind confusion

Found each its place, bound in eternal order.

The force of fire, that weightless element,

Leaped up and claimed the highest place in heaven;

³⁰Below it, air; and under them the earth

Sank with its grosser portions; and the water,

Lowest of all, held up, held in, the land.

Whatever god it was, who out of chaos                        

Brought order to the universe, and gave it

³⁵Division, subdivision, he molded earth,

In the beginning, into a great globe,

Even on every side, and bade the waters

To spread and rise, under the rushing winds,

Surrounding earth; he added ponds and marshes,

⁴⁰He banked the river-channels, and the waters

Feed earth or run to sea, and that great flood

Washes on shores, not banks. He made the plains       

Spread wide, the valleys settle, and the forest

Be dressed in leaves; he made the rocky mountains     

⁴⁵Rise to full height, and as the vault of Heaven

Has two zones, left and right, and one between them

Hotter than these, the Lord of all Creation

Marked on the earth the same design and pattern.

The torrid zone too hot for men to live in,

⁵⁰The north and south too cold, but in the middle

Varying climate, temperature and season.

Above all things the air, lighter than earth,

Lighter than water, heavier than fire,

Towers and spreads; there mist and cloud assemble,

⁵⁵And fearful thunder and lightning and cold winds,

But these, by the Creator's order, held

No general dominion; even as it is,

These brothers brawl and quarrel; though each one

Has his own quarter, still, they come near tearing

⁶⁰The universe apart. Eurus is monarch

Of the ₁lands of dawn, the realms of Arabia,     ₁ the east

The Persian ridges under the rays of morning.

Zephyrus holds the west that glows at sunset,

Boreas, who makes men shiver, holds the north,

⁶⁵Warm Auster governs in the misty southland,

And over them all presides the weightless ether,

Pure without taint of earth.

These boundaries given,

Behold, the stars, long hidden under darkness,

⁷⁰Broke through and shone, all over the spangled heaven,         

Their home forever, and the gods lived there,

And shining fish were given the waves for dwelling

And beasts the earth, and birds the moving air.

But something else was needed, a finer being,

⁷⁵More capable of mind, a sage, a ruler,

So Man was born, it may be, in God's image,

Or Earth, perhaps, so newly separated

From the old fire of Heaven, still retained

Some seed of the celestial force which fashioned

⁸⁰Gods out of living clay and running water.

All other animals look downward; Man,

Alone, erect, can raise his face toward Heaven.

Flood, continued:  The Four Ages

The Golden Age was first, a time that cherished

Of its own will, justice and right; no law.

⁸⁵No punishment, was called for; fearfulness

Was quite unknown, and the bronze tablets held

No legal threatening; no suppliant throng

Studied a judge's face; there were no judges,                             

There did not need to be. Trees had not yet

⁹⁰Been cut and hollowed, to visit other shores.

Men were content at home, and had no towns

With moats and walls around them; and no trumpets

Blared out alarums; things like swords and helmets

Had not been heard of. No one needed soldiers.

⁹⁵People were unaggressive, and unanxious;

The years went by in peace. And Earth, untroubled,

Unharried by hoe or plowshare, brought forth all

That men had need for, and those men were happy,

Gathering berries from the mountain sides,

¹⁰⁰Cherries, or blackcaps, and the edible acorns.

Spring was forever, with a west wind blowing

Softly across the flowers no man had planted,                           

And Earth, unplowed, brought forth rich grain; the field,

Unfallowed, whitened with wheat, and there were rivers

¹⁰⁵Of milk, and rivers of honey, and golden nectar

Dripped from the dark-green oak-trees.

                           After Saturn

Was driven to the shadowy land of death,

And the world was under Jove, the Age of Silver

¹¹⁰Came in, lower than gold, better than bronze.

Jove made the springtime shorter, added winter,

Summer, and autumn, the seasons as we know them.

That was the first time when the burnt air glowed

White-hot, or icicles hung down in winter.

¹¹⁵And men built houses for themselves; the caverns,

The woodland thickets, and the bark-bound shelters   

No longer served; and the seeds of grain were planted                       

In the long furrows, and the oxen struggled

Groaning and laboring under the heavy yoke.

¹²⁰Then came the Age of Bronze, and dispositions

Took on aggressive instincts, quick to arm,

Yet not entirely evil. And last of all

The Iron Age succeeded, whose base vein

Let loose all evil: modesty and truth

¹²⁵And righteousness fled earth, and in their place

Came trickery and slyness, plotting, swindling,

Violence and the damned desire of having.

Men spread their sails to winds unknown to sailors,

The pines came down their mountain-sides, to revel

¹³⁰And leap in the deep waters, and the ground,

Free, once, to everyone, like air and sunshine,

Was stepped off by surveyors. The rich earth,

Good giver of all the bounty of the harvest,

Was asked for more; they dug into her vitals,

¹³⁵Pried out the wealth a kinder lord had hidden

In Stygian shadow, all that precious metal,

The root of evil. They found the guilt of iron,

And gold, more guilty still. And War came forth

That uses both to fight with; bloody hands

¹⁴⁰Brandished the clashing weapons. Men lived on plunder.

Guest was not safe from host, nor brother from brother,

A man would kill his wife, a wife her husband,

Stepmothers, dire and dreadful, stirred their brews

With poisonous aconite, and sons would hustle

¹⁴⁵Fathers to death, and Piety lay vanquished,

And the maiden Justice, last of all immortals,

Fled from the bloody earth.

Heaven was no safer.

Giants attacked the very throne of Heaven,

¹⁵⁰Piled Pelion on Ossa, mountain on mountain

Up to the very stars. Jove struck them down

With thunderbolts, and the bulk of those huge bodies

Lay on the earth, and bled, and Mother Earth,

Made pregnant by that blood, brought forth new bodies,

¹⁵⁵And gave them, to recall her older offspring,

The forms of men. And this new stock was also

Contemptuous of gods, and murder-hungry

¹⁵⁸And violent. You would know they were sons of blood.

Intro to The Flood

He was about to hurl his thunderbolts

¹⁶⁰At the whole world, but halted, fearing Heaven

Would burn from fire so vast, and pole to pole

Break out in flame and smoke, and he remembered

The fates had said that some day land and ocean,

The vault of Heaven, the whole world's mighty fortress,

¹⁶⁵Besieged by fire, would perish. He put aside

The bolts made in Cyclopean workshops; better,

He thought, to drown the world by flooding water.                         

The Flood

So, in the cave of Aeolus, he prisoned

The North-wind, and the West-wind, and such others

¹⁷⁰As ever banish cloud, and he turned loose

The South-wind, and the South-wind came out streaming

With dripping wings, and pitch-black darkness veiling

His terrible countenance. His beard is heavy

With rain-cloud, and his hoary locks a torrent,

¹⁷⁵Mists are his chaplet, and his wings and garments

Run with the rain. His broad hands squeeze together

Low-hanging clouds, and crash and rumble follow

Before the cloudburst, and the rainbow, Iris,

Draws water from the teeming earth, and feeds it

¹⁸⁰Into the clouds again. The crops are ruined,

The farmers' prayers all wasted, all the labor

Of a long year, comes to nothing.

And Jove's anger,

Unbounded by his own domain, was given

¹⁸⁵Help by his dark-blue brother. Neptune called

His rivers all, and told them, very briefly,

To loose their violence, open their houses,

Pour over embankments, let the river horses

Run wild as ever they would. And they obeyed him.

¹⁹⁰His trident struck the shuddering earth; it opened

Way for the rush of waters. The leaping rivers

Flood over the great plains. Not only orchards

Are swept away, not only grain and cattle,

Not only men and houses, but altars, temples,

¹⁹⁵And shrines with holy fires. If any building

Stands firm, the waves keep rising over its roof-top,

Its towers are under water, and land and ocean

Are all alike, and everything is ocean,

An ocean with no shore-line.

²⁰⁰                         Some poor fellow

Seizes a hill-top; another, in a dinghy,

Rows where he used to plough, and one goes sailing

Over his fields of grain or over the chimney

Of what was once his cottage. Someone catches

²⁰⁵Fish in the top of an elm-tree, or an anchor

Drags in green meadow-land, or the curved keel brushes

Grape-arbors under water. Ugly sea-cows

Float where the slender she-goats used to nibble

The tender grass, and the Nereids come swimming

²¹⁰With curious wonder, looking, under water,

At houses, cities, parks, and groves. The dolphins

Invade the woods and brush against the oak-trees;

The wolf swims with the lamb; lion and tiger

Are borne along together; the wild boar

²¹⁵Finds all his strength is useless, and the deer

Cannot outspeed that torrent; wandering birds

Look long, in vain, for landing-place, and tumble,

Exhausted, into the sea. The deep's great license

Has buried all the hills, and new waves thunder

²²⁰Against the mountain-tops. The flood has taken

All things, or nearly all, and those whom water,

By chance, has spared, starvation slowly conquers.

Deucalion and Pyrrha

Phocis, a fertile land, while there was land,

Marked off Oetean from Boeotian fields.

²²⁵It was ocean now, a plain of sudden waters.

There Mount Parnassus lifts its twin peaks skyward,

High, steep, cloud-piercing. And Deucalion came there

Rowing his wife. There was no other land,

The sea had drowned it all. And here they worshipped

²³⁰First the Corycian nymphs and native powers,

Then Themis, oracle and f ate-revealer.

There was no better man than this Deucalion,

No one more fond of right; there was no woman

More scrupulously reverent than Pyrrha.

²³⁵So, when Jove saw the world was one great ocean,

Only one woman left of all those thousands,

And only one man left of all those thousands,

Both innocent and worshipful, he parted

The clouds, turned loose the North-wind, swept them off,

²⁴⁰Showed earth to heaven again, and sky to land,

And the sea's anger dwindled, and King Neptune

Put down his trident, calmed the waves, and Triton,

Summoned from far down under, with his shoulders

Barnacle-strewn, loomed up above the waters,

²⁴⁵The blue-green sea-god, whose resounding horn

Is heard from shore to shore. Wet-bearded, Triton

Set lip to that great shell, as Neptune ordered,

Sounding retreat, and all the lands and waters

Heard and obeyed. The sea has shores; the rivers,

²⁵⁰Still running high, have channels; the floods dwindle,

Hill-tops are seen again; the trees, long buried,

Rise with their leaves still muddy. The world returns.

Deucalion saw that world, all desolation,

All emptiness, all silence, and his tears

²⁵⁵Rose as he spoke to Pyrrha: "O my wife,

The only woman, now, on all this earth,

My consort and my cousin and my partner

In these immediate dangers, look! Of all the lands

To East or West, we two, we two alone,

²⁶⁰Are all the population. Ocean holds

Everything else; our foothold, our assurance,

Are small as they can be, the clouds still frightful.

Poor woman—well, we are not all alone—

Suppose you had been, how would you bear your fear?

²⁶⁵Who would console your grief? My wife, believe me,

Had the sea taken you, I would have followed.

If only I had the power, I would restore

The nations as my father did, bring clay

To life with breathing. As it is, we two

²⁷⁰Are all the human race, so Heaven has willed it,

Samples of men, mere specimens."

They wept,

And prayed together, and having wept and prayed,

Resolved to make petition to the goddess

²⁷⁵To seek her aid through oracles. Together

They went to the river-water, the stream Cephisus,

Still far from clear, but flowing down its channel,

And they took river-water, sprinkled foreheads,

Sprinkled their garments, and they turned their steps

²⁸⁰To the temple of the goddess, where the altars

Stood with the fires gone dead, and ugly moss

Stained pediment and column. At the stairs

They both fell prone, kissed the chill stone in prayer:

"If the gods' anger ever listens

²⁸⁵To righteous prayers, O Themis, we implore you,

Tell us by what device our wreck and ruin

May be repaired. Bring aid, most gentle goddess,

To sunken circumstance."

And Themis heard them,

²⁹⁰And gave this oracle: "Go from the temple,

Cover your heads, loosen your robes, and throw

Your mother's bones behind you!" Dumb, they stood

In blank amazement, a long silence, broken

By Pyrrha, finally: she would not do it!

²⁹⁵With trembling lips she prays whatever pardon

Her disobedience might merit, but this outrage

She dare not risk, insult her mother's spirit

By throwing her bones around. In utter darkness

They voice the cryptic saying over and over,

³⁰⁰What can it mean? They wonder. At last Deucalion

Finds the way out: "I might be wrong, but surely

The holy oracles would never counsel

A guilty act. The earth is our great mother,

And I suppose those bones the goddess mentions

³⁰⁵Are the stones of earth; the order means to throw them,

The stones, behind us."

She was still uncertain,

And he by no means sure, and both distrustful

Of that command from Heaven; but what damage,

⁴⁰⁰What harm, would there be in trying? They descended,

Covered their heads, loosened their garments, threw

The stones behind them as the goddess ordered.

The stones—who would believe it, had we not

The unimpeachable witness of Tradition?—

⁴⁰⁵Began to lose their hardness, to soften, slowly,

To take on form, to grow in size, a little,

Become less rough, to look like human beings,

Or anyway as much like human beings

As statues do, when the sculptor is only starting,

⁴¹⁰Images half blocked out. The earthy portion,

Damp with some moisture, turned to flesh, the solid

Was bone, the veins were as they always had been.

The stones the man had thrown turned into men,

The stones the woman threw turned into women,

⁴¹⁵Such being the will of God. Hence we derive

The hardness that we have, and our endurance

Gives proof of what we have come from.

Other forms

Of life came into being, generated

⁴²⁰Out of the earth: the sun burnt off the dampness,

Heat made the slimy marshes swell; as seed

Swells in a mother's womb to shape and substance,

So new forms came to life. When the Nile river

Floods and recedes and the mud is warmed by sunshine,

⁴²⁵Men, turning over the earth, find living things,

And some not living, but nearly so, imperfect,

On the verge of life, and often the same substance

Is part alive, part only clay. When moisture

Unites with heat, life is conceived; all things

⁴³⁰Come from this union. Fire may fight with water,

But heat and moisture generate all things,

Their discord being productive. So when earth,

After that flood, still muddy, took the heat,

Felt the warm fire of sunlight, she conceived,

⁴³⁵Brought forth, after their fashion, all the creatures,

Some old, some strange and monstrous.

One, for instance,

She bore unwanted, a gigantic serpent,

Python by name, whom the new people dreaded.

A huge bulk on the mountain-side. Apollo,

⁴⁴⁰God of the glittering bow, took a long time

To bring him down, with arrow after arrow

He had never used before except in hunting

Deer and the skipping goats. Out of the quiver

Sped arrows by the thousand, till the monster,

⁴⁴⁵Dying, poured poisonous blood on those black wounds.

In memory of this, the sacred games,

Called Pythian, were established, and Apollo

Ordained for all young winners in the races,

On foot or chariot, for victorious fighters,

⁴⁵⁰The crown of oak. That was before the laurel,

That was before Apollo wreathed his forehead

With garlands from that tree, or any other.

The Story of Apollo and Daphne

Now the first girl Apollo loved was Daphne,      
Whose father was the river-god Peneus,                                                     '
⁴⁵⁵And this was no blind chance, but Cupid's malice.
Apollo, with pride and glory still upon him
Over the Python slain, saw Cupid bending

His tight-strung little bow. "O silly youngster,"

He said, "What are you doing with such weapons?

⁴⁶⁰Those are for grown-ups! The bow is for my shoulders;

I never fail in wounding beast or mortal,

And not so long ago I slew the Python

With countless darts; his bloated body covered

Acre on endless acre, and I slew him!

⁴⁶⁵The torch, my boy, is enough for you to play with,

To get the love-fires burning. Do not meddle

With honors that are mine!" And Cupid answered:

"Your bow shoots everything, Apollo—maybe—

But mine will fix you! You are far above

⁴⁷⁰All creatures living, and by just that distance

Your glory less than mine." He shook his wings,

Soared high, came down to the shadows of Parnassus,

Drew from his quiver different kinds of arrows,

One causing love, golden and sharp and gleaming,

⁴⁷⁵The other blunt, and tipped with lead, and serving

To drive all love away, and this blunt arrow

He used on Daphne, but he fired the other,

The sharp and golden shaft, piercing Apollo

Through bones, through marrow, and at once he loved

⁴⁸⁰And she at once fled from the name of lover,

Rejoicing in the woodland hiding places

And spoils of beasts which she had taken captive,

A rival of Diana, virgin goddess.

She had many suitors, but she scorned them all;

⁴⁸⁵Wanting no part of any man, she travelled

The pathless groves, and had no care whatever

For husband, love, or marriage. Her father often

Said, "Daughter, give me a son-in-law!" and "Daughter,

Give me some grandsons!" But the marriage torches

⁴⁹⁰Were something hateful, criminal, to Daphne,

So she would blush, and put her arms around him,

And coax him: "Let me be a virgin always;

Diana's father said she might. Dear father!

Dear father—please!" He yielded, but her beauty

⁴⁹⁵Kept arguing against her prayer. Apollo

Loves at first sight; he wants to marry Daphne,

He hopes for what he wants—all wishful thinking!—

Is fooled by his own oracles. As stubble

Burns when the grain is harvested, as hedges

⁵⁰⁰Catch fire from torches that a passer-by

Has brought too near, or left behind in the morning,

So the god burned, with all his heart, and burning

Nourished that futile love of his by hoping.

He sees the long hair hanging down her neck

⁵⁰⁵Uncared for, says, "But what if it were combed?"

He gazes at her eyes—they shine like stars!

He gazes at her lips, and knows that gazing

Is not enough. He marvels at her fingers,

Her hands, her wrists, her arms, bare to the shoulder,

⁵¹⁰And what he does not see he thinks is better.

But still she flees him, swifter than the wind,

And when he calls she does not even listen:

"Don't run away, dear nymph! Daughter of Peneus,

Don't run away! I am no enemy,

⁵¹⁵Only your follower: don't run away!

The lamb flees from the wolf, the deer the lion,

The dove, on trembling wing, flees from the eagle.

All creatures flee their foes. But I, who follow,

Am not a foe at all. Love makes me follow,

⁵²⁰Unhappy fellow that I am, and fearful

You may fall down, perhaps, or have the briars

Make scratches on those lovely legs, unworthy

To be hurt so, and I would be the reason.

The ground is rough here. Run a little slower,

⁵²⁵And I will run, I promise, a little slower.

Or wait a minute: be a little curious

Just who it is you charm. I am no shepherd,

No mountain-dweller, I am not a ploughboy,

Uncouth and stinking of cattle. You foolish girl,

⁵³⁰You don't know who it is you run away from,

That must be why you run. I am lord of Delphi

And Tenedos and Claros and Patara.

Jove is my father. I am the revealer

Of present, past and future; through my power

⁵³⁵The lyre and song make harmony; my arrow

Is sure in aim—there is only one arrow surer,

The one that wounds my heart. The power of healing

Is my discovery; I am called the Healer

Through all the world: all herbs are subject to me.

⁵⁴⁰Alas for me, love is incurable

With any herb; the arts which cure the others

Do me, their lord, no good!"

He would have said

Much more than this, but Daphne, frightened, left him

⁵⁴⁵With many words unsaid, and she was lovely

Even in flight, her limbs bare in the wind,

Her garments fluttering, and her soft hair streaming,

More beautiful than ever. But Apollo,

Too young a god to waste his time in coaxing,

⁵⁵⁰Came following fast. When a hound starts a rabbit

In an open field, one runs for game, one safety,

He has her, or thinks he has, and she is doubtful

Whether she's caught or not, so close the margin,

So ran the god and girl, one swift in hope,

⁵⁵⁵The other in terror, but he ran more swiftly,

Borne on the wings of love, gave her no rest,

Shadowed her shoulder, breathed on her streaming hair.

Her strength was gone, worn out by the long effort

Of the long flight; she was deathly pale, and seeing

⁵⁶⁰The river of her father, cried "O help me,

If there is any power in the rivers,

Change and destroy the body which has given

Too much delight!" And hardly had she finished,

When her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts

⁵⁶⁵Were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,

Her arms were branches, and her speedy feet

Rooted and held, and her head became a tree top,

Everything gone except her grace, her shining.

Apollo loved her still. He placed his hand

⁵⁷⁰Where he had hoped and felt the heart still beating

Under the bark; and he embraced the branches

As if they still were limbs, and kissed the wood,

And the wood shrank from his kisses, and the god

Exclaimed: "Since you can never be my bride,

⁵⁷⁵My tree at least you shall be! Let the laurel

Adorn, henceforth, my hair, my lyre, my quiver:

Let Roman victors, in the long procession,

Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation.

Beside Augustus' portals let the laurel

⁵⁸⁰Guard and watch over the oak, and as my head

Is always youthful, let the laurel always

Be green and shining!" He said no more. The laurel,

Stirring, seemed to consent, to be saying Yes.

Introduction to the Jove and Io Story

There is a grove in Thessaly, surrounded

⁵⁸⁵By woodlands -with steep slopes; men call it Tempe.

Through this the Peneus River's foamy waters

Rise below Pindus mountain. The cascades

Drive a fine smoky mist along the tree tops,

Frail clouds, or so it seems, and the roar of the water

⁵⁹⁰Carries beyond the neighborhood. Here dwells

The mighty god himself, his holy of holies

Is under a hanging rock; it is here he gives

Laws to the nymphs, laws to the very water.

And here came first the streams of his own country

⁵⁹⁵Not knowing what to offer, consolation

Or something like rejoicing: crowned with poplars

Sperchios came, and restless Enipeus,

Old Apidanus, Aeas, and Amphrysos

The easy-going. And all the other rivers

⁶⁰⁰That take their weary waters into oceans

All over the world, came there, and only one

Was absent, Inachus, hiding in his cavern,

Salting his stream with tears, oh, most unhappy,

Mourning a daughter lost. Her name was lo,

⁶⁰⁵Who might, for all he knew, be dead or living,

But since he can not find her anywhere

He thinks she must be nowhere, and his sorrow

Fears for the worst.

The Jove and lo Story

Jove had seen Io coming

⁶¹⁰From the river of her father, and had spoken:

"O maiden, worthy of the love of Jove,

And sure to make some lover happy,

Come to the shade of these deep woods" (he showed them)

"Come to the shade, the sun is hot and burning,

⁶¹⁵No beasts will hurt you there, I will go with you,

If a god is at your side, you will walk safely

In the very deepest woods. I am a god,

And no plebeian godling, either, but the holder

Of Heaven's scepter, hurler of the thunder.

⁶²⁰Oh, do not flee me!" She had fled already

Leaving Lyrcea's plains, and Lerna's meadows,

When the god hid the lands in murk and darkness

And stayed her flight, and took her.

Meanwhile Juno

⁶²⁵Looked down on Argos: what could those clouds be doing

In the bright light of day? They were not mists

Rising from rivers or damp ground. She wondered,

Took a quick look around to see her husband,

Or see where he might be—she knew his cheating!

⁶³⁰So when she did not find him in the heaven,

She said, "I am either wrong, or being wronged,"

Came gliding down from Heaven, stood on earth,

Broke up the clouds. But Jove, ahead of time,

Could tell that she was coming; he changed lo

⁶³⁵Into a heifer, white and shining, lovely

Even in altered form, and even Juno

Looked on, though hating to, with admiration,

And asked whom she belonged to, from what pasture,

As if she did not know! And Jove, the liar,

⁶⁴⁰To put a stop to questions, said she had sprung

Out of the earth, full-grown. Then Juno asked him,

"Could I have her, as a present?" What could he do?

To give his love away was surely cruel,

To keep her most suspicious. Shame on one side

⁶⁴⁵Says Give her up! and love says Don't! and shame

Might have been beaten by love's argument,

But then, if he refused his wife the heifer,

So slight a present—if he should refuse it,

Juno might think perhaps it was no heifer!

⁶⁵⁰Her rival thus disposed of, still the goddess

Did not at once abandon all suspicion.

Afraid of Jove, and worried over his cheating,

She turned her over to the keeping of Argus

Who had a hundred eyes; two at a time,

⁶⁵⁵No more than two, would ever close in slumber,

The rest kept watch. No matter how he stood,

Which way he turned, he always looked at Io,

Always had lo in sight. He let her graze

By daylight, but at sundown locked her in,

⁶⁶⁰Hobbled and haltered. She would feed on leaves

And bitter grasses, and her couch, poor creature,

Was ground, not always grassy, and the water

She drank was muddy, often. When she wanted

To reach toward Argus her imploring arms,

⁶⁶⁵She had no arms to reach with; when she tried

To plead, she only lowed, and her own voice

Filled her with terror. When she came to the river.

Her father's, where she used to play, and saw,

Reflected in the stream, her jaws and horns,

⁶⁷⁰She fled in panic. None of her sisters knew her,

And Inachus, her father, did not know her,

But following them, she let them pet and praise her.

Old Inachus pulled grass and gave it to her,

And she licked his hand and tried to give it kisses,

⁶⁷⁵Could not restrain her tears. If she could talk,

She would ask for help, and tell her name and sorrow,

But as it was, all she could do was furrow

The dust with one forefoot, and make an I,

And then an O beside it, spelling her name,

⁶⁸⁰Telling the story of her changed condition.

Her father knew her, cried, "Alas for me!"

Clung to her horns and snowy neck, poor heifer,

Crying, "Alas for me! I have sought you, daughter,

All over the world, and now that I have found you,

⁶⁸⁵I have found a greater grief. You do not answer,

And what you think is sighing comes out mooing!

And all the while I, in my ignorance, counted

On marriage for you, wanting, first, a son,

Then, later, grandsons; now your mate must be

⁶⁹⁰Selected from some herd, your son a bullock.

Not even death can end my heavy sorrow.

It hurts to be a god; the door of death,

Shut in my face, prolongs my grief forever."

And both of them were weeping, but their guardian,

⁶⁹⁵Argus the star-eyed, drove her from her father

To different pasture-land, and sat there, watching,

Perched on a mountain-top above the valley.

Jove could not bear her sorrows any longer;

He called his son, born of the shining Pleiad,

⁷⁰⁰Told him Kill Argus! And Mercury came flying

On winged sandals, wearing the magic helmet,

Bearing the sleep-producing wand, and lighted

On earth, and put aside the wings and helmet

Keeping the wand. With this he plays the shepherd

⁷⁰⁵Across the pathless countryside, a driver

Of goats, collected somewhere, and he goes

Playing a little tune on a pipe of reeds,

And this new sound is wonderful to Argus.

"Whoever you are, come here and sit beside me,"

⁷¹⁰He says, "This rock is in the shade; the grass

Is nowhere any better." And Mercury joins him,

Whiling the time away with conversation

And soothing little melodies, and Argus

Has a hard fight with drowsiness; his eyes,

⁷¹⁵Some of them, close, but some of them stay open.

To keep himself awake by listening,

He asks about the pipe of reeds, how was it

This new invention came about?

The god

⁷²⁰Began the story: "On the mountain slopes

Of cool Arcadia, a woodland nymph

Once lived, with many suitors, and her name

Was Syrinx. More than once the satyrs chased her,

And so did other gods of field or woodland,

⁷²⁵But always she escaped them, virgin always

As she aspired to be, one like Diana,

Like her in dress and calling, though her bow

Was made of horn, not gold, but even so,

She might, sometimes, be taken for the goddess.

⁷³⁰Pan, with a wreath of pine around his temples,

Once saw her coming back from Mount Lycaeus,

And said—" and Mercury broke off the story

And then went on to tell what Pan had told her,

How she said No, and fled, through pathless places,

⁷³⁵Until she came to Ladon's river, flowing

Peaceful along the sandy banks, whose water

Halted her flight, and she implored her sisters

To change her form, and so, when Pan had caught her

And thought he held a nymph, it was only reeds

⁷⁴⁰That yielded in his arms, and while he sighed,

The soft air stirring in the reeds made also

The echo of a sigh. Touched by this marvel,

Charmed by the sweetness of the tone, he murmured

This much I have! and took the reeds, and bound them

⁷⁴⁵With wax, a tall and shorter one together,

And called them Syrinx, still.

And Mercury

Might have told more, but all the eyes of Argus,

He saw, had closed, and he made the slumber deeper

⁷⁵⁰With movements of the wand, and then he struck

The nodding head just where it joins the shoulder,

Severed it with the curving blade, and sent it

Bloody and rolling over the rocks. So Argus

Lay low, and all the light in all those eyes

⁷⁵⁵Went out forever, a hundred eyes, one darkness.

And Juno took the eyes and fastened them

On the feathers of a bird of hers, the peacock,

So that the peacock's tail is spread with jewels,

And Juno, very angry, sent a fury

⁷⁶⁰To harass Io, to drive her mad with terror,

In flight all over the world. At last a river

Halted her flight, the Nile, and when she came there

She knelt beside the stream, lifted her head,

The only gesture she could make of praying,

⁷⁶⁵And seemed, with groans and tears and mournful lowing,

To voice complaint to Jove, to end her sorrows,

And he was moved to pity; embracing Juno

He begged her: "End this punishment; hereafter

Io, I swear, will never cause you anguish,"

⁷⁷⁰And what he swore he called the Styx to witness.

And Juno was appeased. Io became

What once she was, again; the bristles vanish,

The horns are gone, the great round eyes grow smaller,

The gaping jaws are narrower, the shoulders

⁷⁷⁵Return, she has hands again, and toes and fingers,

The only sign of the heifer is the whiteness.

She stands erect, a nymph again, still fearful

That speech may still be mooing, but she tries

And little by little gains back the use of language.

⁷⁸⁰Now people, robed in linen, pay her homage,

A very goddess, and a son is born,

Named Epaphus, the seed of Jove; his temples

Are found beside his mother's in many cities.

Introduction to Phaëthon (finished in Book 2)

His boon companion was young Phaethon,

⁷⁸⁵Son of the Sun-god, given to speaking proudly,

Boasting about his parentage, till one day

Epaphus said: "You are a silly fellow,

Believing every word your mother tells you,

And all swelled up about your phony father!"

⁷⁹⁰Phaethon flushed, made no retort, but carried

The insult to his mother, the nymph Clymene,

And told her: "Mother, to make it all the worse,

There was nothing I could answer back. I tell you

It is shameful for a fellow with any spirit,

⁷⁹⁵And I think I have plenty, to have to listen

To such insulting slanders, and have no answer.

Give me some proof that my father was the Sun-god,

Really and truly!" He put his arms about her,

Pleading, imploring, in his own name, his brother's,

⁸⁰⁰His married sisters', for complete assurance.

Clymene, moved, by her son's prayers, or maybe

By anger at her damaged reputation,

Stretched out both arms to Heaven, raised her eyes

To the bright sun, and cried: "By that bright splendor

⁸⁰⁵Which hears and sees us both, I swear, my son,

You are his son too, the son of that great presence

Whom you behold with me, the radiant ruler

Of all the world. If I am lying to you,

May I never see his light again, this day

⁸¹⁰Be the last time I ever look upon him.

And you can find his house with no great trouble;

His rising is not far from here: go thither,

Ask him yourself!" And Phaethon, delighted,

Already imagining himself in Heaven,

⁸¹⁵Crosses beyond his own frontiers to India,

The nearest land to the starry fires of Heaven,

And comes, exulting, to his father's palace.

BOOK II

The Story of Phaethon

¹The royal palace of the Sun rose high

On lofty columns, bright with flashing gold,

With bronze that glowed like fire, and ivory crowned &

The gables, and the double folding-doors

⁵Were radiant with silver. Manner there

Had conquered matter, for the artist Vulcan

Carved, in relief, the earth-encircling waters,

The wheel of earth, the overarching skies.

The sea holds blue-green gods, resounding Triton,

¹⁰Proteus who changes always, and Aegaeon

Gripping the backs of whales, the sea-nymph Doris

And all her daughters, swimming, some, and others

Sitting on sea-wet rocks, their green hair drying,

And others riding fishes. All the sea-girls

¹⁵Seem different, but alike, as sisters ought to.

And the land has men and cities, beasts and forests,

Rivers and nymphs and woodland gods. Above them

The image of the shining sky is fashioned,

Six of the zodiac symbols on the right,

²⁰Six on the left.

And here ₂Clymene's son         _{2Phaëthon’s mother}

Came climbing, up the stairway to the palace,

Entered the palace which might be his father's,

Turned toward the face that might have been his father's,

²⁵And stopped, far off; he could not bear that radiance.

Clothed in a robe of crimson, there was Phoebus

High on the throne, with brightest emeralds gleaming,

To left and right the Days, the Months, the Years,

The Centuries, stood, and the Hours, at even spaces,

³⁰Young Spring was there, wearing a crown of flowers,

And naked Summer, carrying sheaves of grain,

And Autumn, stained with trodden grapes, and Winter,

Icy, with hoary hair.

And from their center

³⁵The all-seeing Sun saw this young man, who trembled

At all the strangeness. "Phaethon," he said,

"What have you come here for, to this high dwelling?

What do you seek, O Phaethon, my son,

Undoubtedly my son?" And the boy answered:

⁴⁰"O common light of the great universe,

Phoebus, my father, if I have the right

To use that name, and my mother is not lying

To hide some guilt with false pretence, my father,

Give me a proof, so people will believe me,

⁴⁵Know me for what I am, and let my mind

Be free from doubting!" As he spoke, the Sun-god

Put off his diadem of light, and called him

Closer and held him fast, and said, "My son,

You are worthy of acknowledgment; your mother

⁵⁰Has told no lies about your birth. To prove it,

To make you doubt the less, ask any favor,

Whatever you will; it surely will be granted,

I swear by Styx. I have never seen that river,

But no god takes his name in vain, so let him

⁵⁵Be witness of my promise."

As he ended,

Or even before, the boy asked for the chariot,

Control, for one day, over the winged horses.

Too late to take the oath back, but the father

⁶⁰Repented having sworn it; over and over

He shook his shining head. "Your words," he said,

"Have made mine rash: could I take back the promise,

This is the only thing I would deny you.

So, let me try persuasion. What you want,

⁶⁵My son, is dangerous; you ask for power

Beyond your strength and years: your lot is mortal,

But what you ask beyond the lot of mortals.

Poor ignorant boy, you ask for more than gods

Have any claim on. Each of them may do

⁷⁰Much as he will, but none of them has power,

With one exception, your father, to hold the reins

Riding that fiery car. Not even Jove,

Hurler of thunderbolts, could drive this chariot,

And who is greater than Jove? The road at first

⁷⁵Is steep, up-hill, and the horses hardly make it

With all their morning ardor fresh upon them.

Then it runs very high across mid-Heaven,

So very high that I myself am frightened

Sometimes, to see the world so far below me.

⁸⁰Last it descends as steeply as it rises,

Needing the tightest kind of rein: the goddess,

Tethys, who takes me to her ocean waters,

Has often feared for me in that downward plunging.

To make bad matters worse, the sky is always

⁸⁵Whirling with dizzy motion, and the stars

Wheel with its speed. I make my way against it,

I drive against the turning systems, safely,

But you—suppose you had my chariot, could you

Keep the wheels steady, fight the spin of the world?

⁹⁰Do you think there are cities there, and lovely woodlands,

And temples rich with gifts? No, no, my son!

That highway runs through every lurking danger,

Past fearful monsters. Even on the course,

Even with no mistake at all, you must

⁹⁵Pass the Bull's lowered horns, the savage Archer,

The Lion, open-mouthed, the wicked Scorpion

Curving the sweep of his arms in one direction,

The Crab another. And it is not easy

To hold those horses, hot with fire, and snorting

¹⁰⁰From mouth and nostrils. I can hardly hold them

When they warm up for the work and fight the bridle.

Beware, my son! I do not want to give you

The gift of death; there is time to change your prayer.

Of course you want the most convincing proof

¹⁰⁵I am your father. That I give you, surely,

By fearing as I do. I am proved a father

By a father's fear. Look at me! You see my face;

Would you could see my heart and all the cares

Held there for you, my son. Or look about you,

¹¹⁰Ask something, anything, from all those riches

Of Heaven, earth, and ocean: you shall have it!

Only this one thing do not ask, I beg you;

A punishment, not a favor. Silly boy,

Why put those pleading arms around me? Doubt not,

¹¹⁵It will be given, whatever you choose. I swore it.

But choose more wisely!"

So his warning ended,

And did no good, as Phaethon insisted

On what he first had asked, to drive the chariot.

¹²⁰All that the father could do was keep him waiting,

But he finally consented, led him down

To where the chariot stood, the work of Vulcan,

Axle and pole of gold, and tires of gold,

And spokes of silver, and along the yoke

¹²⁵Chrysolites shone, and every kind of jewel

Gave back the bright reflection. And the boy

Was marveling at the craftsmanship, when, look you,

Aurora, watcher of the rosy morning,

Opened the crimson portals and the courtways

¹³⁰All full of roses, and the stars were gone,

Whom Lucifer, last of all to leave the heaven,

Marshalled along their way.

The Sun-god saw him,

Saw the world redden, and the moon's thin crescent

¹³⁵Vanish from sight, and bade the speedy Hours

To yoke the horses, and they did so, quickly,

Leading them from the lofty stalls, with fire

Breathed from the nostrils, and well-fed, on juices

Of rich ambrosial fodder. Then the harness

¹⁴⁰Was put in place, and the Sun-god, for protection,

Touched his son's face with holy medication,

Put on the radiant diadem, and sighed

From his foreboding heart, and said: "At least,

My son, perhaps you can obey a father's warning:

¹⁴⁵Go easy on the whip, hard on the reins;

They need no urging, the trouble is, to hold them.

Do not cut straight through the five zones of Heaven:

The course runs on a slant, a middle pathway

Missing the north and south. Follow the wheel-tracks,

¹⁵⁰You will see them clearly. Sky and earth both need

Equal degrees of heat: too low, you burn

The one, too high the other. The middle is safest.

Beware, on the right, the writhing of the Serpent,

Beware, on the left, the dangerous sunken Altar:

¹⁵⁵Keep between both. The rest I leave to Fortune

To help you, and to give you, or I hope so,

Better direction than you give yourself.

And now, while I am talking, dewy night

Has reached her goal in the West. We cannot linger.

¹⁶⁰Our call is on us. Look! The dawn is glowing,

The shadows gone. Here, take the reins, and hold them,

Or better still—there still is time—be taking

My counsel, not my chariot. Let me light

The world, and you stand there, on solid ground,

¹⁶⁵And watch in safety."

But while he was talking

The boy was in the car, and stood there proudly,

Holding the reins, all happiness, and thanking

His father for the gift he gave unwilling.

¹⁷⁰Meanwhile the horses, Pyrois, Eous,

Aethon, and Phlegon, filled the air with neighing,

Snorting, and pawing at their bars. And Tethys,

Ignorant of her grandson's fate, let fall

The barriers: they had their chance at Heaven,

¹⁷⁵The horses, now, and took it, and their hoofs

Cut through the clouds before them, and their wings

Bore them aloft, and they overtook the winds

That rose from the same east. But the weight was light,

Not such as they were used to, and the yoke

¹⁸⁰Without its usual pressure; so, as ₃schooners, _{3 boats}

₄Unballasted,  careen and roll and yaw            _{4 ship is too light}

Out of the proper course, so the bright chariot    _{and is tossed about}

Tosses and bounds, as if there were no driver.

It did not take the horses long to know it,

¹⁸⁵To run away, beyond control; the driver,

In panic, does not know in which direction

To turn the reins, does not know where the road is,

And even if he knew, he could do nothing

With those wild plunging animals. The Bear,

¹⁹⁰For the first time in all his life, grew hot

And tried, in vain, to seek forbidden oceans

For coolness, and the Serpent, near the pole,

Torpid and harmless with the chill upon him,

Burned into angry fury, and the Plow-Ox,

¹⁹⁵Clumsy and tame in the shafts of his heavy wagon,

Went dashing off in terror.

From the Heaven

The unhappy boy looked down. Far, far below him

He saw the lands, and he grew pale; his knees

²⁰⁰Trembled beneath him, and the darkness came

Into his eyes from too much light. He wishes

He had never touched those horses of his father.

To have learned his birth was nothing, to have gained

By pleading now seems worse than loss; he might be

²⁰⁵The son of Merops, he would be even eager

To have them call him so. But he is borne

Like a ship before a gale, unsteered, unmastered,

Abandoned to the gods and useless praying.

What should he do? Much of the sky behind him,

²¹⁰Much more is still ahead. Imagination

Measures them both, and his eyes, at times, look forward

To the West he will not reach, again look back

Eastward, and he is dazed and stunned and dazzled,

And neither drops the reins or really holds them.

²¹⁵He does not know the horses' names. And terror

Is doubled, tripled, as he sees around him

Strange figures in the sky and savage beasts,

The Scorpion, for instance, arms outreaching

In two half-circles, and the other members

²²⁰Spread over infinite acres, and black poison

Stinking and rank, and the threatening curved stinger.

Out of his senses, with cold fear upon him,

Phaethon dropped the reins.

And when the horses

²²⁵Feel them across their backs, and none to check them,

Bolting, they charge the air of unknown regions,

Wherever impulse hurls them, lawless, crashing

Against high stars; they keep the chariot bounding

Through pathless ways, now high, now low, toward Heaven

²³⁰Or plunging sheer toward earth. The Moon, in wonder,

Watches her brother's horses running lower

Than her own steeds. The scorched clouds smoke. The

mountains

Of earth catch fire, the prairies crack, the rivers

²³⁵Dry up, the meadows are white-hot, the trees,

The leaves, burn to a crisp, the crops are tinder.

I grieve at minor losses. The great cities

Perish, and their great walls; and nations perish

With all their people: everything is ashes.

²⁴⁰The woods and mountains burn, Athos and Taurus,

Tmolus and Oete; all the springs of Ida

Dry up, and Helicon, home of the Muses,

Haemus and Aetna blaze, twin-peaked Parnassus,

And Eryx, Cynthus, Othrys. The snow is gone

²⁴⁵From Rhodope at last; Dindyma, Mimas,

Mycale, burn, and holiest Cithaeron.

The cold cannot save Scythia, whose landmark,

Caucasus, burns, and Ossa burns, and Pindus,

And Mount Olympus, greater than both together,

²⁵⁰The Alps, the cloud-topped Apennines, are burning.

And Phaethon sees the earth on fire; he cannot

Endure this heat, the blast of some great furnace.

Under his feet he feels the chariot glowing

White-hot; he cannot bear the sparks, the ashes,

²⁵⁵The soot, the smoke, the blindness. He is going

Somewhere, that much he knows, but where he is

He does not know. They have their way, the horses.

And that was when, or so men think, the people

Of Africa turned black, since the blood was driven

²⁶⁰By that fierce heat to the surface of their bodies,

And Libya was desert, and the nymphs

Mourned for their pools and fountains. And the rivers,

Wide though they might have been, had no more safety:

The Don was smoking, and the Erymanthus,

²⁶⁵And Xanthus, which would know a second burning

In years to come, the serpentine Maeander,

Yellow Lycormas, Thracian Melas, perish,

And Sparta sees Eurotas burn: Orontes,

Thermodon, Danube, Bablyon's Euphrates,

²⁷⁰From Ganges to the golden sands of Tagus,

All burning, burning: the Maeonian swans

Whose melodies were heard along Cayster

Were heard no more. And the Nile fled in terror

And hid its head in earth, and it stays hidden,

²⁷⁵No man to-day knows where. The seven mouths

Are empty, filled with dust, seven dry channels.

Hebrus and Strymon dry up, and the Western rivers,

The Po, the Rhine, the Rhone, the very Tiber

Promised dominion over all the world.

²⁸⁰The earth gapes open and the light goes down

Deep to the underworld, whose king and queen

Blink in their terror of it. Even the ocean

Shrinks to a plain of sand; the hidden mountains

Emerge to join the Cyclades; the dolphins

²⁸⁵Dare leap and curve in the high air no longer;

The fish dive deep, and the dead seals are floating,

White-bellied, on the surface. The story has it

That Nereus and Doris and their daughters

Found even their deep-sea caverns hot and stifling.

²⁹⁰Neptune, with scowling countenance, dared lift

His arms, three times, above the waves; three times

He could not bear the fiery air.

And Earth,

Our mother, circled by the ocean,

²⁹⁵Amid the waters and the shrinking fountains

Contracting into her darkness, parched by heat,

Raised up her stifled face, and put a hand

To shield her forehead, and her trembling made

Everything shudder. She sank down again,

³⁰⁰Lower than ever before, and then she spoke:

"O greatest of the gods, if this is pleasing

And I deserve it, why hold back the lightning?

If I must die by fire, then let me perish

By fire you send, and lighten the destruction

³⁰⁵Because you are its author. I can hardly"—

The smoke was suffocating—"open my lips to speak;

Look at my hair, burned crisp; look at the ashes

In eyes and face! Is this what I am given

For being fruitful, dutiful? for bearing

³¹⁰The wounds of harrow and plowshare, year on year?

Is this my due reward for giving fodder

To flocks and herds, and corn to men, and incense

For the gods' altars? Maybe I deserve it,

But what about the ocean, and your brother?

³¹⁵Neptune's allotted waters ebb and vanish,

Farther and farther from Heaven. Well; never mind him,

Never mind me, but have a little pity

For your own skies. Look! On both sides the poles

Are smoking. If that fire corrupts the heavens

³²⁰Your palaces will topple. Even Atlas

Strains and can hardly bear his white-hot burden.

If sea and land and sky are lost, we are hurled

Into the ancient chaos. Save us, father;

Preserve this residue; take thought, take counsel

³²⁵For the sum of things."

The Earth could say no more,

So fierce the smothering heat, and she sank deeper

Into the caverns nearer the world below us.

But the almighty father called for witness

³³⁰All of the gods, and most of all the Sun-god

Who had given his son the chariot, that all things

Would perish if he did not help, and quickly.

And then he sought the citadel of Heaven,

Its very peak and pinnacle, whence he spreads

³³⁵Clouds over the world and sets his thunder rolling

And hurls his lightning-bolts. But now he has

No clouds to veil the earth with, and no rainfall:

But he makes thunder sound, and poises lightning

Head-high in his right hand, and flings it from him,

³⁴⁰Striking the charioteer, and the bolt smashes

His car, his life. So fire extinguished fire,

And the mad horses leapt, tore loose the yoke,

Broke from the broken reins. The axle lies

Far from the pole, the spokes and wheels are shattered,

³⁴⁵The wreckage scatters far.

And Phaethon,

His ruddy hair on fire, falls streaming down

The long trail of the air. A star, sometimes,

Falls from clear heaven, so, or seems to fall.

³⁵⁰And far from home, a river-god receives him,

Bathes his poor burning face, and the Western Naiads

Give burial to the broken body, smoking

With the fire of that forked bolt, and on the stone

They carve an epitaph:

³⁵⁵                         Here Phaethon lies,

Who drove his father's chariot: if he did not

Hold it, at least he fell in splendid daring.

And his poor father, sick at heart, refused

To show his countenance, and one whole day,

³⁶⁰Or so men say, went by without the sun.

The fire supplied what light there was—how useful!

And the boy's mother, after she had said

Whatever could be said on such occasions,

Out of her mind with grief, tearing her bosom,

³⁶⁵Went wandering over the world, to find the body,

Or anyway the bones, and found the bones,

At last, but buried by a foreign river.

She threw herself beside the tomb, her tears

Fell on the letters graven in the marble

³⁷⁰Where she could read his name, and her arms fondled

The gravestone to her breast. And all her daughters

Joined in her useless ritual of sorrow.

By night and day they call upon their brother

Who will not hear them, ever, and they lie there,

³⁷⁵Before the sepulchre, and the moon filled

And waned, and filled, four times, and in their custom

(By now it was a custom) still they sorrowed,

Wanted to fling herself to earth, and could not

Till one day Phaethusa, the oldest daughter,

³⁸⁰Because, she made complaint, her feet had stiffened;

Lampetia, the fair one, tried to help her

And could not move at all, suddenly rooted

In earth; another sister, tearing her hair,

Pulled leaves away, and another, and another,

³⁸⁵Found shins and ankles were wood, and arms were branches,

And as they looked at these, in grief and wonder,

Bark closed around their loins, their breasts, their shoulders,

Their hands, but still their lips kept calling Mother!

What could Clymene do but follow impulse,

³⁹⁰Run every which way, try to kiss each daughter,

Tear loose the bark, break off the little twigs

At the fingers' ends? But the broken twigs were bleeding,

And each one, wounded, cried, "Don't hurt me, mother!

That is no tree you are tearing, but my body.

³⁹⁵Farewell, farewell!" And then the bark closed over

The last words each one said, but still their tears

Kept flowing down, till, hardened in the sunlight,

They turned to amber, and the shining river

Receives them, bears them on, to be the jewels

⁴⁰⁰Of Roman brides, hereafter.

Cygnus saw it,

The son of Sthenelus, a distant cousin

Of Phaethon, but closer bound in spirit,

And he too mourned, and left behind his kingdom,

⁴⁰⁵Liguria, which he ruled with her great cities,

And went lamenting by green banks and waters,

And through the woods, with the new young trees,

the sisters,

And as he went, his voice grew thinner, shriller,

⁴¹⁰White feathers hid his hair, and his neck lengthened,

A web began to join his ruddy fingers,

Wings came along his sides, his lips extended

Into a blunted beak: what once was Cygnus

Was a new bird, the swan. But he remembers

⁴¹⁵The fire that Jove, unjustly, sent from Heaven,

And so distrusts the sky, and haunts low water,

The pools, the spreading lakes; hater of fire,

He chose to cherish water.

And the Sun-god,

⁴²⁰All this long while, remained in deepest mourning,

Gloomy, without his brightness, darkened always

As in eclipse, and hates himself and daylight,

Gives way to grief, to grief adds rage, refusing

His duty to the world. "From time's beginning

⁴²⁵I have had no rest," he says, "and I am weary

Of all this thankless toil, this endless labor.

Let anybody else who wants to drive it,

The chariot of light; if no one wants to,

If all the gods admit they cannot do it,

⁴³⁰Then let Jove take the trouble himself, and some day,

Perhaps, he will be, for once, too busy holding

The reins, and have to put aside his lightning,

Those evil bolts that murder sons for fathers.

Then he will learn, once he himself discovers

⁴³⁵How strong they are, those fiery-footed horses,

A boy who did not guide them well should hardly

Pay for his crime with death."

As he was speaking

The gods all stood around, and pleaded, humbly,

⁴⁴⁰That he should not spread darkness over the world.

And even Jove asks pardon for that lightning,

Adding a royal threat or so. The Sun-god

Yokes the two teams again, still wild and trembling,

Yanks at the bit, cuts with the lash; he blames them,

⁴⁴⁵Puts all the blame on them, for his son's downfall.

BOOK III

The Story of Cadmus

Zeus, in the form of a bull, has tricked a girl named Europa into getting onto his back and he has carried her to Crete.  Europa’s father has been looking for her.

¹And now the god put off the bull's disguise,

Revealed himself at last. They had reached the shores

Of Crete, when the girl's father, King Agenor,

Unknowing what had happened to his daughter,

⁵Ordered his son, named Cadmus, to go and find her,

Threatening exile as a punishment

For failure, in that single action showing

Devotion toward his daughter, toward his son

Harsh wickedness. And Cadmus roamed the world

¹⁰In vain—for who is good enough detective

To catch Jove cheating?—and became an exile

Leaving both fatherland and father's anger.

He sought Apollo's oracle, a suppliant

Asking what land to live in, and Apollo

¹⁵Replied: "In lonely lands there will come to meet you

A heifer, one who has never worn the yoke

Nor drawn the curve of the plough. Follow the creature

Till she lies down to rest, and there establish

The city walls, and call the land Boeotia."

²⁰Scarcely had Cadmus left the sacred cavern

When he saw the heifer, moving slow, unguarded,

Wearing no mark of servitude. He followed

Slowly, and silently adored Apollo

For showing him the way. And now the heifer

²⁵Had passed Cephisus and Panopean acres,

Halted and raised her handsome head, with horns

Wide spread, and lowed, and looked back at those people

Coming behind, and kneeled, and let her side

Sink down in the green meadow-land, and

³⁰Cadmus Gave thanks, and kissed that foreign ground, and greeted

The unknown fields and mountains.

For libation

To Jove, he ordered serving-men to go

Find living water for the sacrifice.

³⁵An ancient  forest stood there, undespoiled

By any axe, and in its midst a cave

Thick set with bushes. Tightly-fitted stones

Made a low archway, under which the water

Poured from abundant springs, and there a serpent,

⁴⁰Sacred to Mars, was dwelling. His crest was gold,

His eyes flashed fire, his body swelled with poison;

Three darting tongues he had, three rows of teeth.

The men of Cadmus reached this grove, ill-omened;

Their lowered vessels broke the water's silence,

⁴⁵Answered by hissing, for the long head, thrusting,

Reached out from the long darkness of the cavern.

The urns sank through the water, and the men

Felt blood run cold and limbs turn weak and tremble.

Twisting his scaly coils in writhing loops,

⁵⁰Curving in undulant arcs and semicircles,

The serpent lifts himself erect; he towers,

Half of him anyway, as high, as huge,

As the great serpent of the constellations.

The whole wood lies beneath him, and he strikes,

⁵⁵Coils, or constricts, and all the men are victims.

It makes no difference what they try, to fight,

To run, to stand, too numb for either.

High noon arrived, with shadows at their shortest.

Cadmus began to wonder: what had happened,

⁶⁰Why had they not come back? He went to find them.

For shield, he had a lion's skin, for weapon,

A lance with shining point of steel, a javelin,

And, his best armor, a courageous spirit.

He entered the dark wood, he saw the bodies,

⁶⁵He saw the great victorious serpent, gloating,

Licking the wounds with bloody tongue. He cried:

"I will avenge your death, poor faithful bodies,

Or be your comrade in that death!" So saying,

With all the strength he had, he raised a boulder,

⁷⁰Lifted it shoulder-high, and hurled it from him

With force that would have shattered walls and towers,

But the serpent took no wound at all, protected

By scales of iron and the skin's dark hardness,

Not hard enough, however, for the javelin

⁷⁵Which pierced the middle of the back, the steel

Biting down into the middle of the belly.

He is wild with pain, twists back his head, he sees

The wounds, he bites the spear-shaft, and he loosens

Wood from the iron, but the iron stays there,

⁸⁰Stuck in the spine. His rage is more than doubled,

The throat is swollen, veins stand out, the jaws

Froth with white poison, and the sound of metal

Clangs from the ground as the great scales rasp across it.

The smell of his breath infects the noisome air.

⁸⁵He coils, he writhes, he straightens, like a beam

Or battering-ram, comes on, like a flooding river

Sweeping the trees before it. Cadmus yields

Only a little, holding up against him

The lion's skin, and jabbing with the spear-point.

⁹⁰Maddened, the serpent snaps the steel, and catches

The point between the teeth. The poisonous mouth

Begins to dribble blood, and the green grass

Is sprayed another color, but the wound

Is slight, the monster yielding, going with it,

⁹⁵And Cadmus, following hard, keeps pointing, pressing,

Backing the serpent up against an oak-tree,

Pinning him there, and the oak-tree bends, protesting

Under that weight and all that furious lashing.

And as he stood there, gazing at his victim,

¹⁰⁰A voice was heard, coming from where, he knew not,

But he could hear it saying: "Why, O Cadmus,

Stare at the serpent slain? You also, some day,

Will be a serpent for mortal men to stare at."

For a long time he stood there, pale and trembling

¹⁰⁵And cold with apprehension, but a helper,

Minerva, through the air descending, came

And stood beside him, and she gave him orders

To plow the earth, to sow the teeth of the serpent

Which would become the seed of future people.

¹¹⁰Cadmus obeyed; he opened the long furrows

And sowed the mortal seed. Could you believe it?

The covered earth broke open, and the clods

Began to stir, and first the points of spears

Rose from the ground, then colored plumes, and helmets,

¹¹⁵Shoulders of men, and chests, arms full of weapons,

A very harvest of the shields of warriors,

The opposite of the way a curtain rises,

Showing feet first, then knees, and waists, and bodies

And faces last of all.

¹²⁰                         Cadmus was frightened

By this new menace, got his weapons ready,

And heard a cry, one of the earth-born people

Calling out, "Do not arm! Keep out of this,

Our civil warfare." As he spoke, he struck

¹²⁵One of his brothers, and himself was murdered

By a dart, flung far, whose thrower, too, went down

Dying as soon as living. And that madness

Raged through them all; the sudden brothers perished

By wounds they gave each other, and the earth,

¹³⁰Their mother, felt their short-lived blood upon her,

Warm from their brief existence. Only five

Were left at last, and one of these, Echion,

Let fall his weapons, as Minerva ordered,

Asked peace, and won it, from the other brothers,

¹³⁵And Cadmus found them helpers and companions

In the building of the town Apollo promised.

That was the city Thebes, and now the exile

Might seem a happy man. Venus and Mars

Were parents of his bride, and there were children

¹⁴⁰Who turned out well, and children of the children,

Grown to maturity. But always, always,

A man must wait the final day, and no man

Should ever be called happy before burial.

The Story of Echo and Narcissus

And so Tiresias,

¹⁴⁵Famous through all Aonian towns and cities,

Gave irreproachable answers to all comers

Who sought his guidance. One of the first who tested

The truths he told was a naiad of the river,

Liriope, whom the river-god, Cephisus

¹⁵⁰Embraced and ravished in his watery dwelling.

In time she bore a child, most beautiful

Even as child, gave him the name Narcissus,

And asked Tiresias if the boy would ever

Live to a ripe old age. Tiresias answered:

¹⁵⁵"Yes, if he never knows himself." How silly

Those words seemed, for how long! But as it happened,

Time proved them true—the way he died, the strangeness

Of his infatuation.

Now Narcissus

¹⁶⁰Was sixteen years of age, and could be taken

Either for boy or man; and boys and girls

Both sought his love, but in that slender stripling

Was pride so fierce no boy, no girl, could touch him.

He was out hunting one day, driving deer

¹⁶⁵Into the nets, when a nymph named Echo saw him,

A nymph whose way of talking was peculiar

In that she could not start a conversation

Nor fail to answer other people talking.

Up to this time Echo still had a body,

¹⁷⁰She was not merely voice. She liked to chatter,

But had no power of speech except the power

To answer in the words she last had heard.

Juno had done this: when she went out looking

For Jove on top of some nymph among the mountains,

¹⁷⁵Echo would stall the goddess off by talking

Until the nymphs had fled. Sooner or later

Juno discovered this and said to Echo:

"The tongue that made a fool of me will shortly

Have shorter use, the voice be brief hereafter."

¹⁸⁰Those were not idle words; now Echo always

Says the last thing she hears, and nothing further.

She saw Narcissus roaming through the country,

Saw him, and burned, and followed him in secret,

Burning the more she followed, as when sulphur

¹⁸⁵Smeared on the rim of torches, catches fire

When other fire comes near it. Oh, how often

She wanted to come near with coaxing speeches,

Make soft entreaties to him! But her nature

Sternly forbids; the one thing not forbidden

¹⁹⁰Is to make answers. She is more than ready

For words she can give back. By chance Narcissus

Lost track of his companions, started calling

"Is anybody here?" and "Here!" said Echo.

He looked around in wonderment, called louder

¹⁹⁵"Come to me!" "Come to me!" came back the answer.

He looked behind him, and saw no one coming;

"Why do you run from me?" and heard his question

Repeated in the woods. "Let us get together!"

There was nothing Echo would ever say more gladly,

²⁰⁰"Let us get together!" And, to help her words,

Out of the woods she came, with arms all ready

To fling around his neck. But he retreated:

"Keep your hands off," he cried, "and do not touch me!

I would die before I give you a chance at me."

²⁰⁵"I give you a chance at me," and that was all

She ever said thereafter, spurned and hiding,

Ashamed, in the leafy forests, in lonely caverns.

But still her love clings to her and increases

And grows on suffering; she cannot sleep,

²¹⁰She frets and pines, becomes all gaunt and haggard,

Her body dries and shrivels till voice only

And bones remain, and then she is voice only

For the bones are turned to stone. She hides in woods

And no one sees her now along the mountains,

²¹⁵But all may hear her, for her voice is living.

She was not the only one on whom Narcissus

Had visited frustration; there were others,

Naiads or Oreads, and young men also

Till finally one rejected youth, in prayer,

²²⁰Raised up his hands to Heaven: "May Narcissus

Love one day, so, himself, and not win over

The creature whom he loves!" Nemesis heard him,

Goddess of Vengeance, and judged the plea was righteous.

There was a pool, silver with shining water,

²²⁵To which no shepherds came, no goats, no cattle,

Whose glass no bird, no beast, no falling leaf

Had ever troubled. Grass grew all around it,

Green from the nearby water, and with shadow

No sun burned hotly down on. Here Narcissus,

²³⁰Worn from the heat of hunting, came to rest

Finding the place delightful, and the spring

Refreshing for the thirsty. As he tried

To quench his thirst, inside him, deep within him,

Another thirst was growing, for he saw

²³⁵An image in the pool, and fell in love

With that unbodied hope, and found a substance

In what was only shadow. He looks in wonder,

Charmed by himself, spell-bound, and no more moving

Than any marble statue. Lying prone

²⁴⁰He sees his eyes, twin stars, and locks as comely

As those of Bacchus or the god Apollo,

Smooth cheeks, and ivory neck, and the bright beauty

Of countenance, and a flush of color rising

In the fair whiteness. Everything attracts him

²⁴⁵That makes him so attractive. Foolish boy,

He wants himself; the loved becomes the lover,

The seeker sought, the kindler burns. How often

He tries to kiss the image in the water,

Dips in his arms to embrace the boy he sees there,

²⁵⁰And finds the boy, himself, elusive always,

Not knowing what he sees, but burning for it,

The same delusion mocking his eyes and teasing.

Why try to catch an always fleeing image,

Poor credulous youngster? What you seek is nowhere,

²⁵⁵And if you turn away, you will take with you

The boy you love. The vision is only shadow,

Only reflection, lacking any substance.

It comes with you, it stays with you, it goes

Away with you, if you can go away.

²⁶⁰No thought of food, no thought of rest, can make him

 Forsake the place. Stretched on the grass, in shadow,

He watches, all unsatisfied, that image

Vain and illusive, and he almost drowns

In his own watching eyes. He rises, just a little,

²⁶⁵Enough to lift his arms in supplication

To the trees around him, crying to the forest:

"What love, whose love, has ever been more cruel?

You woods should know: you have given many lovers

Places to meet and hide in; has there ever,

²⁷⁰Through the long centuries, been anyone

Who has pined away as I do? He is charming,

I see him, but the charm and sight escape me.

I love him and I cannot seem to find him!

To make it worse, no sea, no road, no mountain,

²⁷⁵No city-wall, no gate, no barrier, parts us

But a thin film of water. He is eager

For me to hold him. When my lips go down

To kiss the pool, his rise, he reaches toward me.

You would think that I could touch him—almost nothing

²⁸⁰Keeps us apart. Come out, whoever you are!

Why do you tease me so? Where do you go

When I am reaching for you? I am surely

Neither so old or ugly as to scare you,

And nymphs have been in love with me. You promise,

²⁸⁵I think, some hope with a look of more than friendship.

You reach out arms when I do, and your smile

Follows my smiling; I have seen your tears

When I was tearful; you nod and beckon when I do;

Your lips, it seems, answer when I am talking

²⁹⁰Though what you say I cannot hear. I know

The truth at last. He is myself! I feel it,

I know my image now. I burn with love

Of my own self; I start the fire I suffer.

What shall I do? Shall I give or take the asking?

²⁹⁵What shall I ask for? What I want is with me,

My riches make me poor. If I could only

Escape from my own body! if I could only-

How curious a prayer from any lover-

Be parted from my love! And now my sorrow

³⁰⁰Is taking all my strength away; I know

I have not long to live, I shall die early,

And death is not so terrible, since it takes

My trouble from me; I am sorry only

The boy I love must die: we die together."

³⁰⁵He turned again to the image in the water,

Seeing it blur through tears, and the vision fading,

And as he saw it vanish, he called after:

"Where are you going? Stay: do not desert me,

I love you so. I cannot touch you; let me

³¹⁵Keep looking at you always, and in looking

Nourish my wretched passion!" In his grief

He tore his garment from the upper margin,

Beat his bare breast with hands as pale as marble,

And the breast took on a glow, a rosy color,

³²⁰As apples are white and red, sometimes, or grapes

Can be both green and purple. The water clears,

He sees it all once more, and cannot bear it.

As yellow wax dissolves with warmth around it,

As the white frost is gone in morning sunshine,

³²⁵Narcissus, in the hidden fire of passion,

Wanes slowly, with the ruddy color going,

The strength and hardihood and comeliness,

Fading away, and even the very body

Echo had loved. She was sorry for him now,

³³⁰Though angry still, remembering; you could hear her

Answer "Alas!" in pity, when Narcissus

Cried out "Alas!" You could hear her own hands beating

Her breast when he beat his. "Farewell, dear boy,

Beloved in vain!" were his last words, and Echo

³³⁵Called the same words to him. His weary head

Sank to the greensward, and death closed the eyes

That once had marveled at their owner's beauty.

And even in Hell, he found a pool to gaze in,

Watching his image in the Stygian water.

³⁴⁰While in the world above, his naiad sisters

Mourned him, and dryads wept for him, and Echo

Mourned as they did, and wept with them, preparing

The funeral pile, the bier, the brandished torches,

But when they sought his body, they found nothing,

³⁴⁵Only a flower with a yellow center Surrounded with white petals.

BOOK IV

The Story of Pyramus and Thisbe

¹And then there was the story  

About how the mulberry-tree

Changed the fruit's color from white to the deep crimson,

From the stain of blood. This story is    

⁵Not known too well. And so I think I’ll tell it now:

"Next door to each other, in the brick-walled city

Built by Semiramis, lived a boy and girl,

Pyramus, a most handsome fellow, Thisbe,

Loveliest of all those Eastern girls. Their nearness

¹⁰Made them acquainted, and love grew, in time,

So that they would have married, but their parents

Forbade it. But their parents could not keep them

From being in love: their nods and gestures showed it—

You know how fire suppressed burns all the fiercer.

¹⁵There was a chink in the wall between the houses,

A flaw the careless builder had never noticed,

Nor anyone else, for many years, detected,

But the lovers found it—love is a finder, always-

Used it to talk through, and the loving whispers

²⁰Went back and forth in safety. They would stand

One on each side, listening for each other,

Happy if each could hear the other's breathing,

And then they would scold the wall: 'You envious barrier,

Why get in our way? Would it be too much to ask you

²⁵To open wide for an embrace, or even

Permit us room to kiss in? Still, we are grateful,

We owe you something, we admit; at least

You let us talk together.' But their talking

Was futile, rather; and when evening came

³⁰They would say Good-night! and give the good-night kisses

That never reached the other.

"The next morning

Came, and the fires of night burnt out, and sunshine

Dried the night frost, and Pyramus and Thisbe

³⁵Met at the usual place, and first, in whispers,

Complained, and came—high time!—to a decision.

That night, when all was quiet, they would fool

Their guardians, or try to, come outdoors,

Run away from home, and even leave the city.

⁴⁰And, not to miss each other, as they wandered

In the wide fields, where should they meet? At Ninus'

Tomb, they supposed, was best; there was a tree there,

A mulberry-tree, loaded with snow-white berries,

Near a cool spring. The plan was good, the daylight

⁴⁵Was very slow in going, but at last

The sun went down into the waves, as always,

And the night rose, as always, from those waters.

And Thisbe opened her door, so sly, so cunning,

There was no creaking of the hinge, and no one

⁵⁰Saw her go through the darkness, and she came,

Veiled, to the tomb of Ninus, sat there waiting

Under the shadow of the mulberry-tree.

Love made her bold. But suddenly, here came something!—

A lioness, her jaws a crimson froth

⁵⁵With the blood of cows, fresh-slain, came there for water,

And far off through the moonlight Thisbe saw her

And ran, all scared, to hide herself in a cave,

And dropped her veil as she ran. The lioness,

Having quenched her thirst, came back to the woods, and saw

⁶⁰The girl's light veil, and mangled it and mouthed it

With bloody jaws. Pyramus, coming there

Too late, saw tracks in the dust, turned pale, and paler

Seeing the bloody veil. 'One night,' he cried,

'Will kill two lovers, and one of them, most surely,

⁶⁵Deserved a longer life. It is all my fault,

I am the murderer, poor girl; I told you

To come here in the night, to all this terror,

And was not here before you, to protect you.

Come, tear my flesh, devour my guilty body,

⁷⁰Come, lions, all of you, whose lairs lie hidden

Under this rock! I am acting like a coward,

Praying for death.' He lifts the veil and takes it

Into the shadow of their tree; he kisses

The veil he knows so well, his tears run down

⁷⁵Into its folds: 'Drink my blood too!' he cries,

And draws his sword, and plunges it into his body,

And, dying, draws it out, warm from the wound.

As he lay there on the ground, the spouting blood

Leaped high, just as a pipe sends water spurting

⁸⁰Through a small hissing opening, when broken

With a flaw in the lead, and all the air is sprinkled.

The fruit of the tree, from that red spray, turned crimson,

And the roots, soaked with the blood, dyed all the berries

The same dark hue.

⁸⁵                                            "Thisbe came out of hiding,

Still frightened, but a little fearful, also,

To disappoint her lover. She kept looking

Not only with her eyes, but all her heart,

Eager to tell him of those terrible dangers,

⁹⁰About her own escape. She recognized

The place, the shape of the tree, but there was something

Strange or peculiar in the berries' color.

Could this be right? And then she saw a quiver

Of limbs on bloody ground, and started backward,

⁹⁵Paler than boxwood, shivering, as water

Stirs when a little breeze ruffles the surface.

It was not long before she knew her lover,

And tore her hair, and beat her innocent bosom

With her little fists, embraced the well-loved body,

¹⁰⁰Filling the wounds with tears, and kissed the lips

Cold in his dying. 'O my Pyramus,'

She wept, 'What evil fortune takes you from me?

Pyramus, answer me! Your dearest Thisbe

Is calling you. Pyramus, listen! Lift your head!'

¹⁰⁵He heard the name of Thisbe, and he lifted

His eyes, with the weight of death heavy upon them,

And saw her face, and closed his eyes.

"And Thisbe

Saw her own veil, and saw the ivory scabbard

¹¹⁰With no sword in it, and understood. 'Poor boy,'

She said, 'So, it was your own hand,

Your love, that took your life away. I too

Have a brave hand for this one thing, I too

Have love enough, and this will give me strength

¹¹⁵For the last wound. I will follow you in death,

Be called the cause and comrade of your dying.

Death was the only one could keep you from me,

Death shall not keep you from me. Wretched parents

Of Pyramus and Thisbe, listen to us,

¹²⁰Listen to both our prayers, do not begrudge us,

Whom death has joined, lying at last together

In the same tomb. And you, O tree, now shading

The body of one, and very soon to shadow

The bodies of two, keep in remembrance always

¹²⁵The sign of our death, the dark and mournful color.'

She spoke, and fitting the sword-point at her breast,

Fell forward on the blade, still warm and reeking

With her lover's blood. Her prayers touched the gods,

And touched her parents, for the mulberry fruit

¹³⁰Still reddens at its ripeness, and the ashes

Rest in a common urn."

Book VI:The Story of Arachne

¹Minerva heard the story, and praised the song

And praised the righteous anger, but was thinking:

"It is very well, this praise, but I myself

Deserve some praise; I too should show resentment

⁵Toward those who flout my power." She was thinking

About Arachne, a Maeonian girl,

Who, she had heard, was boasting of her talent,

Calling it better even than Minerva's,

In spinning and weaving wool. The girl was no one

¹⁰In birth, nor where she came from; her father,

Idmon, Was a dyer, steeping thirsty wool with crimson.

Her mother was dead, a common sort of person,

With the same sort of husband, but the daughter

Was famous for her skill, and it had traveled

¹⁵Through all the Lydian towns, though she herself

Lived in the little village of Hypaepa.

The nymphs themselves would often watch in wonder,

Leaving their vineyards or the river waters,

To see her finished work, or watch her working

²⁰With such deft gracefulness. It did not matter

Whether she wound the yarn in balls, or shaped it

With skillful fingers, reaching to the distaff

For more material, all soft and cloudy,

Transfigured to long threads, or whether she twisted

²⁵The spindle with quick thumb, or plied the needle.

You would know, most surely, that Minerva taught her,

Yet she would not admit it, seemed offended

At the suggestion of so great a teacher:

"I challenge her, and if I lose, there's nothing

³⁰I would refuse to pay!"

Disguised, Minerva

Came, an old woman with gray hair, half crippled,

Hobbling along with a cane to help her footsteps,

Telling Arachne: "Old age, let me tell you,

³⁵Has some things we should never run away from:

Experience comes with time; hear my advice:

Confine your reputation as a weaver

To human beings, but defer to a goddess,

Be humble in her presence, ask her pardon,

⁴⁰You reckless creature, for your arrogance.

She will be gracious, if you only ask it." But no:

Arachne glowered, stared her down,

Let fall her threads to free her hands for striking,

Controlled herself a little, but spoke in anger:

⁴⁵"You silly old fool, to come to me! Your trouble

Is having lived too long. Your daughters, maybe,

Or your sons' wives, perhaps, might listen to you.

I can look after myself; you are getting nowhere,

You cannot change my mind with all that nonsense.

⁵⁰As for your wonderful goddess, why, where is she?

Why does she dodge the challenge I have offered?"

"She is here," Minerva answered. She was there,

No longer an old woman, but a presence

Whom the nymphs worshipped and the native women.

⁵⁵Arachne was not awed, though she was startled,

Blushing and paling, as the sky at morning

Shows crimson first, then whitens. Still Arachne

Maintains defiance, with a stupid passion

Rushing to doom. Minerva takes the challenge,

⁶⁰Abandons admonition. The looms are set,

The fine warp stretched, the web is bound to the beam,

Reeds keep the threads apart, the shuttle threads

Shrill through the woof, the busy fingers plying.

With robes tucked up they speed the work, their hands,

⁶⁵Deft at the task, fly back and forth, the labor

Made less by eagerness. From the dark purple

The threads shade off to lighter pastel colors,

Like rainbow after storm, a thousand colors

Shining and blending, so the eye could never

⁷⁰Detect the boundary line, and yet the arcs

Are altogether different. Threads of gold

Were woven in, and each loom told a story.

Minerva showed the hill of Mars in Athens

And that old conflict over the name of the land.

⁷⁵There sat the twelve great gods of the high Heaven,

On lofty thrones in majesty, and Jove

Presiding, royal, above the well-known faces.

And there stood Neptune, smiting with his trident

The cliff of rock, and the gush of the sea-water

⁸⁰Proving his title to the rule of the city.

To herself Minerva gave the spear, the helmet,

The aegis for her breastplate, and the earth,

Under her spear, produced the gray-green olive,

Hung thick with fruit, and the gods looked on in wonder.

⁸⁵The work has Victory's ultimatum in it,

But that her challenger may have full warning

What her reward will be for her daring rashness,

In the four corners the goddess weaves four pictures,

Bright in their color, each one saying Danger!

⁹⁰In miniature design. One corner shows

Haemus and Rhodope, cold mountains now,

Who once, audacious mortals, had assumed

The names of gods most high; a second corner

Portrays the fate of the Pygmy queen, whom Juno

⁹⁵Turned into a crane, made to attack the people

She once ruled over. And she showed, beside,

Antigone, who dared compete with Juno,

Whom Juno made a stork, white-winged, and clashing

Her clacking bill; much good it did her

¹⁰⁰That she was born in Troy, or that her father

Was king Laomedon. In the fourth corner

Cinyras tried to embrace the temple-steps

That once had been his daughters; he lies on stone,

He seems to weep. All this the goddess ended

¹⁰⁵With a border of peaceful olive-wreath around it,

Her very signature.

Arachne also

Worked in the gods, and their deceitful business

With mortal girls. There was Europa, cheated

¹¹⁰By the bull's guise; you would think him real, the creature,

Real as the waves he breasted, and the girl

Seems to be looking back to the lands of home,

Calling her comrades, lifting her feet a little

To keep them above the lift and surge of the water.

¹¹⁵There was Asterie, held by the eagle,

And Leda, lying under the wings of the swan,

Antiope, pregnant with twins, whose father

Was a satyr, so she thought, but it was really

Jove in disguise again; he took Alcmena

¹²⁰In the semblance of Amphitryon; he came

To Danae in a shower of gold; he was

A flame to Aegina, to Mnemosyne

A shepherd, a mottled snake to Deo's daughter.

Neptune, Jove's brother, was another cheater,

¹²⁵A bull to one Aeolian girl, a river

To another, or a ram; a stallion to Ceres,

The fair-haired gentle mother of the grain;

The snake-haired mother of the winged horse

Received him as a winged bird; Melantho

¹³⁰Took him as dolphin. To them all Arachne

Gave their own features and a proper background.

Apollo, too, was there, a country boy

At times, or a shepherd, deluding Isse so,

At times a hawk, at times a tawny lion.

¹³⁵And she worked Bacchus in, whose bunch of grapes

Deceived Erigone, and there was Saturn,

As horse, to father Chiron. Flowers and ivy

Ran round the border as the work was ended.

Neither Minerva, no, nor even Envy

¹⁴⁰Could find a flaw in the work; the fair-haired goddess

Was angry now, indeed, and tore the web

That showed the crimes of the gods, and with her shuttle

Struck at Arachne's head, and kept on striking,

Until the daughter of Idmon could not bear it,

¹⁴⁵Noosed her own neck, and hung herself. Minerva

At last was moved to pity, and raised her, saying:

"Live, wicked girl; live on, but hang forever,

And, just to keep you thoughtful for the future,

This punishment shall be enforced for always

¹⁵⁰On all your generations." As she turned,

She sprinkled her with hell-bane, and her hair

Fell off, and nose and ears fell off, and head

Was shrunken, and the body very tiny,

Nothing but belly, with little fingers clinging

¹⁵⁵Along the side as legs, but from the belly

She still kept spinning; the spider has not forgotten

The arts she used to practice.

Book VIII:  The Story of Baucis and Philemon

¹                            An oak-tree stands

Beside a line tree, in the Phrygian hills.

There's a low wall around them. I have seen

The place myself; a prince once sent me there

⁵To land ruled by his father. Not far off

A great marsh lies, once habitable land,

But now a playground full of coots and divers.

Jupiter came here, once upon a time,

Disguised as mortal man, and Mercury,

¹⁰His son, came with him, having laid aside

Both wand and wings. They tried a thousand houses,

Looking for rest; they found a thousand houses

Shut in their face. But one at last received them,

A humble cottage, thatched with straw and reeds.

¹⁵A good old woman, Baucis, and her husband,

A good old man, Philemon, used to live there.

They had married young, they had grown old together

In the same cottage; they were very poor,

But faced their poverty with cheerful spirit

²⁰And made its burden light by not complaining.

It would do you little good to ask for servants

Or masters in that household, for the couple

Were all the house; both gave and followed orders.

So, when the gods came to this little cottage,

²⁵Ducking their heads to enter, the old man

Pulled out a rustic bench for them to rest on,

As Baucis spread a homespun cover for it.

And then she poked the ashes around a little,

Still warm from last night's fire, and got them going

³⁰With leaves and bark, and blew at them a little,

Without much breath to spare, and added kindling,

The wood split fine, and the dry twigs, made smaller

By breaking them over the knee, and put them under

A copper kettle, and then she took the cabbage

³⁵Her man had brought from the well-watered garden,

And stripped the outer leaves off. And Philemon

Reached up, with a forked stick, for the side of bacon,

That hung below the smoky beam, and cut it,

Saved up so long, a fair-sized chunk, and dumped it

⁴⁰In the boiling water. They made conversation

To keep the time from being too long, and brought

A couch with willow frame and feet, and on it

They put a sedge-grass mattress, and above it

Such drapery as they had, and did not use

⁴⁵Except on great occasions. Even so,

It was pretty worn, it had only cost a little

When purchased new, but it went well enough

With a willow couch. And so the gods reclined.

Baucis, her skirts tucked up, was setting the table

⁵⁰With trembling hands. One table-leg was wobbly;

A piece of shell fixed that. She scoured the table,

Made level now, with a handful of green mint,

Put on the olives, black or green, and cherries

Preserved in dregs of wine, endive and radish,

⁵⁵And cottage cheese, and eggs, turned over lightly

In the warm ash, with shells unbroken. The dishes,

Of course, were earthenware, and the mixing-bowl

For wine was the same silver, and the goblets

Were beech, the inside coated with yellow wax.

⁶⁰No time at all, and the warm food was ready,

And wine brought out, of no particular vintage,

And pretty soon they had to clear the table

For the second course: here there were nuts and figs

And dates and plums and apples in wide baskets-

⁶⁵Remember how apples smell?—and purple grapes

Fresh from the vines, and a white honeycomb

As centerpiece, and all around the table

Shone kindly faces, nothing mean or poor

Or skimpy in good will.

⁷⁰                          The mixing-bowl,

As often as it was drained, kept filling up

All by itself, and the wine was never lower.

And this was strange, and scared them when they saw it.

They raised their hands and prayed, a little shaky—

⁷⁵'Forgive us, please, our lack of preparation,

Our meagre fare!' They had one goose, a guardian,

Watchdog, he might be called, of their estate,

And now decided they had better kill him

To make their offering better. But the goose

⁸⁰Was swift of wing, too swift for slow old people

To catch, and they were weary from the effort,

And could not catch the bird, who fled for refuge,

Or so it seemed, to the presence of the strangers.

'Don't kill him,' said the gods, and then continued:

⁸⁵'We are gods, you know: this wicked neighborhood

Will pay as it deserves to; do not worry,

You will not be hurt, but leave the house, come with us,

Both of you, to the mountain-top!' Obeying,

With staff and cane, they made the long climb, slowly

⁹⁰And painfully, and rested, where a bowman

Could reach the top with a long shot, looked down,

Saw water everywhere, only their cottage

Standing above the flood. And while they wondered

And wept a little for their neighbors' trouble,

⁹⁵The house they used to live in, the poor quarters

Small for the two of them, became a temple:

Forked wooden props turned into marble columns;

The thatch grew brighter yellow; the roof was golden;

The doors were gates, most wonderfully carved;

¹⁰⁰The floor that used to be of earth was marble.

Jupiter, calm and grave, was speaking to them:

'You are good people, worthy of each other,

Good man, good wife—ask us for any favor,

And you shall have it.' And they hesitated,

¹⁰⁵Asked, 'Could we talk it over, just a little?'

And talked together, apart, and then Philemon

Spoke for them both: 'What we would like to be

Is to be priests of yours, and guard the temple,

And since we have spent our happy years together,

¹¹⁰May one hour take us both away; let neither

Outlive the other, that I may never see

The burial of my wife, nor she perform

That office for me.' And the prayer was granted.

As long as life was given, they watched the temple,

¹¹⁵And one day, as they stood before the portals,

Both very old, talking the old days over,

Each saw the other put forth leaves, Philemon

Watched Baucis changing, Baucis watched Philemon,

And as the foliage spread, they still had time

¹²⁰To say 'Farewell, my dear!' and the bark closed over

Sealing their mouths. And even to this day

The peasants in that district show the stranger

The two trees close together, and the union

Of oak and lime tree into one. The ones who told me

¹²⁵The story, sober ancients, were no liars,

Why should they be? And my own eyes have seen

The garlands people bring there; I brought new ones,

Myself, and said a verse: The gods look after

Good people still, and cherishers are cherished"

¹³⁰So Lelex' story ended, and they all

Were deeply moved, and Theseus asked for more,

More stories of the miracles of the gods,

So, leaning on his elbow, his host continued:

"O bravest hero, there are many people

¹³⁵Whose form has once been changed, who now remain

In their new state, and there are others, given

The power to change at will, Proteus, for instance,

Who lives in the sea that girds the world; he can

Be a young man, a lion, a raging boar,

¹⁴⁰Serpent or bull, a stone, a tree, a river,

A river's enemy, flame.

The Story of Erysichthon

Autolycus' wife,

Daughter of Erysichthon, had this power.

This monarch scorned the gods, and brought no incense,

¹⁴⁵No offering, to their altars, and one legend has it

He once attacked a sacred grove of Ceres,

Violent with steel against those ancient trees,

Among which stood an oak, centuries old,

A grove in itself, and round about it hung

¹⁵⁰Ex-votos, woolen fillets, wreaths of flowers,

And often underneath it nymphs, dancing,

Paid homage; it would take a dozen of them,

Or even more, linking their hands together,

To circle the great trunk, which towered above

¹⁵⁵The other trees as high as the nymphs stood

Above the little grass. But Erysichthon

Cared little for this, gave orders to his slaves

To fell the sacred oak. When they shrank back,

He grabbed an axe from one of them. 'This may be

¹⁶⁰The only tree the goddess loves; it may be

The goddess herself, no matter: its leafy crest

Shall touch the ground.' So saying, Erysichthon

Swung axe for the slanting stroke, and as he did so,

The oak-tree trembled, seemed to groan, and the leaves

¹⁶⁵And acorns paled, and the long boughs lost color,

And when the axe bit into the bark, blood issued

As from the neck of the bull at the sacrifice,

And all were stunned, and one man tried to stop him,

And paid for his devotion with his life,

¹⁷⁰As the axe of Erysichthon struck off his head,

Then turned to the tree again, lopping and hacking,

Till, from the oak, a voice was heard: 'A nymph

Most dear to Ceres, I dwell here under the wood,

And make my final prophecy now, my comfort

¹⁷⁵In the hour of my death: your punishment draws near!'

This did not stop him, either, and the oak-tree,

Weakened by blows, dragged down by rope and tackle,

Fell, and its falling weight laid low the woods

For miles around. And all the nymph sisters,

¹⁸⁰Stunned at their own, their forest's loss, went mourning,

Robed all in black, to Ceres; punish him,

They prayed, punish this impious Erysichthon!

The beautiful goddess nodded, and her nodding

Made the fields tremble with the ripening grain.

¹⁸⁵She planned an awful punishment, since awe

Was something Erysichthon had never shown

In any act of his; she would cut him down,

Rack him with terrible Famine. But she could not

Appeal to Famine herself; Ceres and Famine

¹⁹⁰Are never allowed to meet, and therefore Ceres

Summoned one of the mountain nymphs,

Saying: 'There is a place, on the outer rim

Of icy Scythia, a dismal soil,

A barren land, a treeless land, a land

¹⁹⁵Where no corn grows, but sluggish Cold lives there,

And Pallor, Fear, and the skinny goddess Famine.

Tell her that she must enter Erysichthon,

Hide in his body, and let no abundance

Of all the gifts I bring, give satisfaction

²⁰⁰Of any craving. The journey there is fearful;

Protect yourself against it with my chariot,

My winged dragons, soaring high.' She gave her

The reins, and the nymph, soaring high, came down

To Caucasus' bleak mountain-top, unyoking

²⁰⁵The dragons from the car. She looked for Famine

And found her, in a stony field, her nails

Digging the scanty grass, and her teeth gnawing

The tundra moss. Her hair hung down all matted,

Her face was ghastly pale, her eyes were hollow,

²¹⁰Lips without color, the throat rough and scaly,

The skin so tight the entrails could be seen,

The hip-bones bulging at the loins, the belly

Concave, only the place for a belly, really,

And the breasts seemed to dangle, held up, barely,

²¹⁵By a spine like a stick-figure's; and her thinness

Made all her joints seem large; the knees were swollen

Balloons, almost, the ankles lumpy tubers.

Keeping far off, the messenger of Ceres

Called her commands, and though she stayed no longer

²²⁰Than possible, and kept the utmost distance

Between them, still she seemed to feel pollution,

The taint of hunger, and soared high in air

And drove the dragons back to Thessaly.

Famine, whose task is always opposite

²²⁵To that of Ceres, none the less obeyed her,

Flew through the air on the wind's wings, and came

To Erysichthon's palace, where the king,

In the dead of the night, was lying sunk in slumber.

She twined her skinny arms around him, filled him

²³⁰With what she was, breathed into his lips, his throat,

And planted hunger in his hollow veins,

Then, with her duty done, fled from the land

Of harvests to her sterile home, the caverns

She knew so well.

²³⁵                         And Sleep, on peaceful wings,

Still hovering over Erysichthon, soothed him,

But in his sleep he dreamed of food, his jaws

Closing on nothing, and he ground his teeth

On nothing, and his throat kept swallowing nothing,

²⁴⁰His feast was empty air, and when he wakened,

He was ravenous. He called for all that sea

And land and air could furnish, and with tables

Heaped high before him, groans that he is starving,

Craves feast on feast. Enough to feed a city,

²⁴⁵Enough to feed a nation, is not enough

For Erysichthon's hunger. The more he wolves,

The more he wants, insatiable as ocean,

Insatiable as fire. All the food in him

Is appetizer only; he is filled

²⁵⁰With emptiness, and still consuming fire

Burns in his gullet, all his treasure is gone,

Is spent on foodstuff; he had nothing left

Except his daughter, and he tried to sell her,

But she refused a master, crying to Neptune,

²⁵⁵The god who had been her lover once, to save her

From slavery, and he heard her prayer, and gave her

A fisherman's look and dress. The man who bought her,

Or tried to, did not seem to recognize her,

But wished her luck in her fishing, and then asked her

²⁶⁰About the slave girl who had been there lately

And left no track, but was gone. 'Whoever you are,'

She answered, 'Pardon me; I have not taken

My eyes from the water, I have been too busy.

But for your information, and maybe comfort,

²⁶⁵So help me Neptune, there has been no woman,

No man here but myself.' And he believed her,

And Neptune gave her back her former figure,

And Erysichthon, learning that his daughter

Had power to change her form, sold her again,

²⁷⁰Sold her again and often, to many masters,

So she would go away, now mare, now heifer,

Now bird, and there would be more food for her father.

Till finally there was nothing, nothing, only

His own flesh for his greedy teeth to seize,

²⁷⁵To gnaw on, and the wretch consumed his body

Feeding upon a shrinking self.

But why

Do I dwell on stories about other people?

I have often changed my own form, let me tell you,

²⁸⁰Though I cannot always do it. I have been

A serpent, been the leader of a herd

With all my strength in my horns, but one of them,

 You can see for yourself, is gone." His story ended

With a groan and a hand raised, feebly, toward his forehead.

BOOK X:  The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice

¹So Hymen, the marriage god, left there, clad in saffron robe,

Through the great reach of air, and took his way

To the Ciconian country, where the voice

Of Orpheus called him, all in vain. He came there,

⁵True, but brought with him no auspicious words,

No joyful faces, lucky omens. The marriage torch

Sputtered and filled the eyes with smoke; when swung,

It would not blaze: bad as the omens were,

The end was worse, for as the bride went walking

¹⁰Across the lawn, attended by her nymphs,

A serpent bit her ankle, and she was gone.

Orpheus mourned her to the upper world,

And then, lest he should leave the shades untried,

Dared to descend to Styx, passing the portal

¹⁵Men call Taenarian. Through the phantom dwellers,

The buried ghosts, he passed, came to the king

Of that sad realm, and to Persephone,

His consort, and he swept the strings, and chanted:

"Gods of the world below the world, to whom

²⁰All of us mortals come, if I may speak

Without deceit, the simple truth is this:

I came here, not to see dark Tartarus,

Nor yet to bind the triple-throated monster

Medusa's offspring, rough with snakes. I came

²⁵For my wife's sake, whose growing years were taken

By a snake's venom. I wanted to be able

To bear this; I have tried to. Love has conquered.

This god is famous in the world above,

But here, I do not know. I think he may be

³⁰Or is it all a lie, that ancient story

Of an old ravishment, and how he brought

The two of you together? By these places

All full of fear, by this immense confusion,

By this vast kingdom's silences, I beg you,

³⁵Give back Eurydice's life, ended too soon.

To you we all, people and things, belong,

Sooner or later, to this single dwelling

All of us come, to our last home; you hold

Longest dominion over humankind.

⁴⁰She will come back again, to be your subject,

After the ripeness of her years; I am asking

A loan and not a gift. If fate denies us

This privilege for my wife, one thing is certain:

I do not want to go back either; triumph

⁴⁵In the death of two."

And with his words, the music

Made the pale phantoms weep: Ixion's wheel

Was still, Tityos' vultures left the liver,

Tantalus tried no more to reach for the water,

⁵⁰And Belus' daughters rested from their urns,

And Sisyphus climbed on his rock to listen.

That was the first time ever in all the world

The Furies wept. Neither the king nor consort

Had harshness to refuse him, and they called her,

⁵⁵Eurydice. She was there, limping a little

From her late wound, with the new shades of Hell.

And Orpheus received her, but one term

Was set: he must not, till he reached the upper land,

Turn back his gaze, or the gift would be in vain.

⁶⁰They climbed the upward path, through absolute silence,

Up the steep murk, clouded in pitchy darkness,

They were near the margin, near the upper land,

When he, afraid that she might falter, eager to see her,

Looked back in love, and she was gone, in a moment.

⁶⁵Was it he, or she, reaching out arms and trying

To hold or to be held, and clasping nothing

But empty air? Dying the second time,

She had no reproach to bring against her husband,

What was there to complain of? One thing, only:

⁷⁰He loved her. He could hardly hear her calling

Farewell! when she was gone.

The double death

Stunned Orpheus, like the man who turned to stone

At sight of Cerberus, or the couple of rock,

⁷⁵Olenos and Lethaea, hearts so joined

One shared the other's guilt, and Ida's mountain,

Where rivers run, still holds them, both together.

In vain the prayers of Orpheus and his longing

To cross the river once more; the boatman Charon

⁸⁰Drove him away. For seven days he sat there

Beside the bank, in filthy garments, and tasting

No food whatever. Trouble, grief, and tears

Were all his sustenance. At last, complaining

The gods of Hell were cruel, he wandered on

⁸⁵To Rhodope and Haemus, swept by the north winds,

Where, for three years, he lived without a woman

Either because marriage had meant misfortune

Or he had made a promise. But many women

Wanted this poet for their own, and many

⁹⁰Grieved over their rejection. His love was not given

To young girls, and he told the Thracians

That was the better way.

                             There was a hill, and on it

A wide-extending plain, all green, but lacking

⁹⁵The darker green of shade, and when the singer

Came there and ran his fingers over the strings,

The shade came there to listen. The oak-tree came,

And many poplars, and the gentle lindens,

The beech, the virgin laurel, and the hazel

¹⁰⁰Easily broken, the ash men use for spears,

The shining silver-fir, the ilex bending

Under its acorns, the friendly sycamore,

The changing-colored maple, and the willows

That love the river-waters, and the lotus

¹⁰⁵Favoring pools, and the green boxwood came,

Slim tamarisks, and myrtle, and viburnum

With dark-blue berries, and the pliant ivy,

The tendrilled grape, the elms, all dressed with vines,

The rowan-trees, the pitch-pines, and the arbute

¹¹⁰With the red fruit, the palm, the victor's triumph,

The bare-trunked pine with spreading leafy crest,

Dear to the mother of the gods since Attis

Put off his human form, took on that likeness,

And the cone-shaped cypress joined them, now a tree,

¹¹⁵But once a boy, loved by the god Apollo

Master of lyre and bow-string, both together.

BOOK XI:  The Death of Orpheus

¹So with his singing Orpheus drew the trees,

The beasts, the stones, to follow, when, behold!

The mad Ciconian women, fleeces flung

Across their maddened breasts, caught sight of him

⁵From a near hill-top, as he joined his song

To the lyre's music. One of them, her tresses

Streaming in the light air, cried out: “Look there!

There is our despiser!” and she flung a spear

Straight at the singing mouth, but the leafy wand

¹⁰Made only a mark and did no harm. Another

Let fly a stone, which, even as it flew,

Was conquered by the sweet harmonious music,

Fell at his feet, as if to ask for pardon.

But still the warfare raged, there was no limit,

¹⁵Mad fury reigned, and even so, all weapons

Would have been softened by the singer's music,

But there was other orchestration: flutes

Shrilling, and trumpets braying loud, and drums,

Beating of breasts, and howling, so the lyre

²⁰Was overcome, and then at last the stones

Reddened with blood, the blood of the singer, heard

No more through all that outcry. All the birds

Innumerable, fled, and the charmed snakes,

The train of beasts, Orpheus' glory, followed.

²⁵The Maenads stole the show. Their bloody hands

Were turned against the poet; they came thronging

Like birds who see an owl, wandering in daylight;

They bayed him down, as in the early morning,

Hounds circle the doomed stag beside the game-pits.

³⁰They rushed him, threw the wands, wreathed with green

leaves,

Not meant for such a purpose; some threw clods,

Some branches torn from the tree, and some threw stones,

And they found fitter weapons for their madness.

³⁵Not far away there was a team of oxen

Plowing the field, and near them farmers, digging

Reluctant earth, and sweating over their labor,

Who fled before the onrush of this army

Leaving behind them hoe and rake and mattock

⁴⁰And these the women grabbed, and slew the oxen

Who lowered horns at them in brief defiance

And were torn limb from limb, and then the women

Rushed back to murder Orpheus, who stretched out

His hands in supplication, and whose voice,

⁴⁵For the first time, moved no one. They struck him down,

And through those lips to which the rocks had listened,

To which the hearts of savage beasts responded,

His spirit found its way to winds and air.

The birds wept for him, and the throng of beasts,

⁵⁰The flinty rocks, the trees which came so often

To hear his song, all mourned. The trees, it seemed,

Shook down their leaves, as if they might be women

Tearing their hair, and rivers, with their tears,

Were swollen, and the nymphs of the rivers

⁵⁵Mourned in black robes. The poet's limbs lay scattered

Where they were flung in cruelty or madness,

But the Hebrus River took the head and lyre

And as they floated down the gentle current

The lyre made mournful sounds, and the tongue murmured

⁶⁰In mournful harmony, and the banks echoed

The strains of mourning. On the sea, beyond

Their native stream, they came at last to Lesbos

And grounded near the city of Methymna.

And here a serpent struck at the head, still dripping

⁶⁵With sea-spray, but Apollo came and stopped it,

Freezing the open jaws to stone, still gaping.

And Orpheus' ghost fled under the earth, and knew

The places he had known before, and, haunting

The fields of the blessed, found Eurydice

⁷⁰And took her in his arms, and now together

And side by side they wander, or Orpheus follows

Or goes ahead, and may, with perfect safety,

Look back for his Eurydice.

But Bacchus

⁷⁵Demanded punishment for so much evil.

Mourning his singer's loss, he bound those women,

All those who saw the murder, in a forest,

Twisted their feet to roots, and thrust them deep

Into unyielding earth. As a bird struggles

⁸⁰Caught in a fowler's snare, and flaps and flutters

And draws its bonds the tighter by its struggling,

Even so the Maenads, gripped by the soil,

Fastened in desperate terror, writhed and struggled,

But the roots held. They looked to see their fingers,

⁸⁵Their toes, their nails, and saw the bark come creeping

Up the smooth legs; they tried to smite their thighs

With grieving hands, and struck on oak; their breasts

Were oak, and oak their shoulders, and their arms

You well might call long branches and be truthful.

The Story of Midas

⁹⁰And even this was not enough for Bacchus.

He left those fields, and with a worthier band

He sought the vineyards of his own Timolus

And Pactolus, a river not yet gold

Nor envied for its precious sands. The throng

⁹⁵He always had surrounded him, the satyrs,

The Bacchanals; Silenus, though, was missing.

The Phrygian rustics found him, staggering

Under the weight of years, and maybe also

From more than too much wine, bound him with wreaths

¹⁰⁰And led him to King Midas. Now this king

Together with the Athenian Eumolpus

Had learned the rites of Bacchic lore from Orpheus.

And therefore, since he recognized a comrade,

A brother in the lodge, he gave a party

¹⁰⁵For ten long days and nights, and then, rejoicing,

Came to the Lydian fields and gave Silenus

Back to his precious foster son. And Bacchus,

Happy and grateful, and meaning well, told Midas

To make his choice of anything he wanted.

¹¹⁰And Midas, never too judicious, answered:

"Grant that whatever I touch may turn to gold!"

Bacchus agreed, gave him the ruinous gift,

Sorry the monarch had not chosen better.

So Midas went his cheerful way, rejoicing

¹¹⁵In his own bad luck, and tried to test the promise

By touching this and that. It all was true,

He hardly dared believe it! From an oak-tree

He broke a green twig loose: the twig was golden.

He picked a stone up from the ground; the stone

¹²⁰Paled with light golden color; he touched a clod,

The clod became a nugget. Awns of grain

Were a golden harvest; if he picked an apple

It seemed a gift from the Hesperides.

He placed his fingers on the lofty pillars

¹²⁵And saw them gleam and shine. He bathed his hands

In water, and the stream was golden rain

Like that which came to Danae. His mind

Could scarcely grasp his hopes—all things were golden,

Or would be, at his will! A happy man,

¹³⁰He watched his servants set a table before him

With bread and meat. He touched the gift of Ceres

And found it stiff and hard; he tried to bite

The meat with hungry teeth, and where the teeth

Touched food they seemed to touch on golden ingots.

¹³⁵He mingled water with the wine of Bacchus;

It was molten gold that trickled through his jaws.

Midas, astonished at his new misfortune,

Rich man and poor man, tries to flee his riches

Hating the favor he had lately prayed for.

¹⁴⁰No food relieves his hunger; his throat is dry

With burning thirst; he is tortured, as he should be,

By the hateful gold. Lifting his hands to Heaven,

He cries: "Forgive me, father! I have sinned.

Have mercy upon me, save me from this loss

¹⁴⁵That looks so much like gain!" The gods are kind,

And Bacchus, since he owned his fault, forgave him,

Took back the gift. "You need not be forever

Smeared with that foolish color: go to the Pactolus River

That flows by Sardis, take your way upstream

¹⁵⁰Into the Lydian hills, until you find

The tumbling river's source. There duck your head

And body under the foaming white of the fountain,

And wash your sin away." The king obeyed him,

And the power of the golden touch imbued the water,

¹⁵⁵So that even now the fields grow hard and yellow

If that vein washes over them to flood

Their fields with the water of the touch of gold.

Midas Never Learns

Now Midas, hating wealth, haunted the forests,

The fields, and worshipped Pan, who has his dwelling

¹⁶⁰In the mountain caves. But Midas still was stupid,

And once again his foolish wits were destined

To do their master damage. Where Mt. Timolus

Looks out to sea, towering high, one slope

Falling to Sardis and the other slanting

¹⁶⁵Toward little Hypaepa, Pan was singing tunes,

Tossing them off to the soft nymphs, and warbling

A trill or two on his musical reeds, the Pan-pipe,

Remarking that the music of Apollo

Was poor beside his own, and offering challenge

¹⁷⁰To an unequal contest, with Mt. Timolus

To be the judge. So the ancient judge,

Seated on his own mountain, shook his ears

Loose from the trees. Around his dark-blue hair

An oaken chaplet twined; acorns hung down

¹⁷⁵Around his hollow temples. He looked at Pan,

"The judge is ready," he said, and Pan made music

On the rustic reeds, and the barbaric song

Delighted Midas utterly—it so happened

Midas was listening. Then old Timolus

¹⁸⁰Turned to Apollo, and his forests followed

As he inclined his gaze. Apollo's hair,

Golden, was wreathed with laurel of Parnassus,

His mantle, dipped in Tyrian crimson, swept

Along the ground. His lyre, inlaid with jewels,

¹⁸⁵With Indian ivory, his left hand held;

His right hand held the plectrum. You could tell

The artist from his bearing. With his thumb

He plucked the strings, and charmed by that sweet music,

Timolus ordered Pan to lower his reeds,

¹⁹⁰Submissive to the lyre, and all approved

The judgment of the holy god of the mountain,

All except Midas, who began to argue,

Calling it most unfair. Such stupid ears

Apollo thought, were surely less than human,

¹⁹⁵And so he made them longer, stuffed them full

Of gray and shaggy hair, and made their base

Unstable, giving them the power of motion.

The rest of him was human; this one feature

Alone was punished, and he wore the ears

²⁰⁰Of the slow-going jackass. So, disfigured,

Ashamed, he tried to hide them with a turban,

But when he had his hair cut, then his barber

Saw, dared not tell, and wanted to, and could not

Keep matters to himself, no more than barbers

²⁰⁵Today can do, and so he dug a hole

Deep in the ground, and went and whispered in it

What kind of ears King Midas had. He buried

The evidence of his voice, filled up the hole,

Sneaked silently away. But a thick growth

²¹⁰Of whispering reeds began to grow there; these,

At the year's end full-grown, betrayed the sower,

For when a light breeze stirred them, they would whisper

Midas has asses' ears! You can still hear them.

BOOK 13

Intro to: Polyphemus, Galatea and Acis (3 part story) 

¹Charybdis once on a time had many suitors,

And scorned them all, and hid among the sea-nymphs

Who loved her dearly, and she used to tell them

How she escaped her lovers. Galatea

⁵Was there, and, sighing as she let Charybdis

Comb out her hair, began to tell a story.

The Story of Galatea

"At least, dear virgin, you have men as wooers,

A not unpleasing race; you can repulse them,

And do, and have no fear, but I, whose father

¹⁰Is Nereus and whose mother blue-green Doris,

Whose throng of sisters keep me safe, I could not

Flee from the passionate Cyclops without suffering."

She could say no more for weeping, but Charybdis,

White-fingered, dried her tears, offered her comfort,

¹⁵"Go on, my dearest," she said, "do not conceal it,

The reason for your sorrow; you can trust me,

You know you can." The Nereid continued:

"Acis was son of Faunus and Symaethis,

A great delight to his father and his mother,

²⁰Greater to me; he loved me with all his heart.

He was sixteen, and beautiful and young,

And downy-cheeked. I must say, I pursued him,

Incessantly, incessantly the Cyclops kept on pursuing me.

I cannot tell you which was the stronger in me, my love for

²⁵Acis or my hatred for that creature Polyphemus: both were equal.

How mighty is the power of loving Venus!

That savage, whom the very forest trembles

To look upon, whom never a stranger sees

Without being hurt, the scorner of Olympus,

³⁰He feels the power of love, a captive, burning

With terrible passion, wandering forgetful

Of flocks and caves. His name was Polyphemus,

And you should have seen him, suddenly taking pains

With his appearance, trying to cultivate

³⁵The art of pleasing, using a rake to comb

His shaggy mop, resorting to a sickle

To trim his beard, using a pool for mirror

To see his ugly features, making faces

He thought would be more winsome, all his love

⁴⁰For murder gone, and all his thirst for blood,

And ships sailed in and out again in safety.

And Telamus came there at the time, the son

Of Eurymus, one whom no omen ever

Had led to error, and he told the giant

⁴⁵That single eye in the middle of your forehead

Ulysses will take away! But Polyphemus

Mocked him and called him stupid. “You are wrong,”

He jeered, “For Galatea has caught my eye already!”

And so he scorned the man who tried to warn him,

⁵⁰Clumped heavily along the shore, or lumbered

Wearily home to his dark cave at evening.

There is a hill there, wedge-shaped, running out

Into the sea, and the waves wash around it.

There Polyphemus came, and there he sat,

⁵⁵And all his woolly sheep came trooping after,

Obedient creatures, for he never led them.

There he laid down the pine-tree that had served him

As staff—it would have held a vessel's yardarms.

There he took out his rustic pipe; it had

⁶⁰A hundred reeds, and all the waves and mountains

Were bound to listen. Hidden in the shade of a nearby rock,

Resting in Acis' arms, I could hear

The words he sang, and never could forget them.

The Song of Polyphemus (Part 2 of the story)

'O Galatea' (he sang) 'whiter than privet,

⁶⁵Bloominger than the meadows, slenderer

Than the long alder-tree, brighter than glass,

More capering than the tender kid, and smoother

Than shells worn down by everlasting waves,

More welcome than sun in winter, shade in summer,

⁷⁰Lovelier than apples, more worth looking at

Than sycamores, translucenter than ice,

Sweeter than grapes when ripe, and softer even

Than swan's-down ever, or cottage cheese, more lovely

(On one condition: that you do not flee me)

⁷⁵Than a well-watered garden. But, Galatea,

You are more obstinate than untrained heifers,

Harder than ancient oaks, falser than waters,

Harder to bend than willow-withe and briony,

Harder to move than rocks, more violent

⁸⁰Than mountain torrents, vainer than a peacock

When people praise him, crueler than fire,

Sharper than thistles, deafer than the sea,

And more aggressive than a pregnant bear,

More pitiless than a trodden snake, and worst

⁸⁵Of all, and I wish that I could stop it,

Swifter not only than the deer the hounds

Go barking after, but swifter than winds or breezes.

But if you knew me well, you would regret it,

This running off, you would come to me and seek me.

⁹⁰I own a part of the mountain, caves that hide

Under the living rock, where midsummer sun,

Midwinter cold, do never come. I have apples

That weigh the trees down, grapes as yellow as gold

On the long vines, and purple ones; the yellow

⁹⁵And purple ones I have been keeping for you,

And your own hand can pick the strawberries

Sweet in the shade of the woods, and the autumn cherries,

And plums, not only the juicy purple-black ones,

But the new kind, the big ones, yellow as wax,

¹⁰⁰And there are chestnuts for you and arbute-fruit

If I can be your husband, and every tree

Is at your service.

'All this flock is mine,

And there are many wandering the valleys

¹⁰⁵Or hiding in the woods, or in stalls in the caves,

I do not know how many, only poor men

Can count their cows, and you need not believe me

If I should praise them; you can see for yourself

How the swollen milk-bags bother them in walking,

¹¹⁰And I have lambs, and kids, there is always plenty

Of milk like snow, and some is kept for drinking,

Some to make cheese with.

'As for pets, you would not

Like something easy to get, like deer or rabbits

¹¹⁵Or goats or doves or a nest of little birds,

I found two bear-cubs on the top of the mountain

For you to play with, you can hardly tell them

One from the other: I said, as soon as I caught them,

I’ll keep these for my lady!

¹²⁰                                   'Galatea,

Lift up your shining head from the blue water,

Now come, and do not scorn my gifts. I know,

Surely I know, myself; I saw me lately

In a clear pool, and liked myself. Just look

¹²⁵How big I am! Jove up there in the sky—

You always talk about some Jove or other

Who rules up there—he can't be any bigger.

Plenty of hair gets in my eyes and shadows

My shoulders like a grove. Don't think it ugly

¹³⁰If my whole body is covered thick with bristles:

A tree is ugly without its leaves, a horse

Ugly without a mane, and birds have feathers

And sheep have wool, so beards and hair on the chest

Are the sign of a man. In the middle of my forehead

¹³⁵I have one eye, so what? Does not the Sun

See all things here on earth from his high Heaven?

And the great Sun has only one eye.

My father

Rules in your seas, and I am giving him to you

¹⁴⁰For father-in-law. Oh, pity me and listen!

I bow to you alone, I, who scorn Jove,

His sky, his thunderbolts, I fear you only,

Your anger is more deadly than the lightning,

And this I could endure with greater patience

¹⁴⁵If only you scorned the others, but why, oh why,

Reject a Cyclops and fall in love with Acis,

Prefer this Acis to my hugs and kisses?

Let him please himself, but I wish, I wish, he did not

Please Galatea! Let him give me a chance,

¹⁵⁰He will find me just as strong as I am big,

I will tear his guts out, I will pull him to pieces,

Scatter him over the fields and over the seas,

To lie with you so! I burn, and my passion, slighted,

Rages more hotly in me; I seem to carry

¹⁵⁵All Etna in my breast, and Galatea,

You do not care at all.'

The Transformation of Acis

"All his complaining

(The nymph resumed) was vain, and up he rose,

I saw him, like a bull in rut, who cannot

¹⁶⁰sit still when someone has taken a heifer from him,

But charges through the woodlands and the pasture,

And when he saw my lover and me together,

Both unsuspecting, he bellowed out, 'I see you,

I'll make this the last time you get together!'

¹⁶⁵His voice was big and terrible as a Cyclops

Should roar with in his anger, Etna heard it

And trembled, and I dove into the ocean

In panic terror, but Acis turned to run

Crying 'O help me, Galatea, help me,

¹⁷⁰Father and mother, take me to your kingdom

Before I die!' And Polyphemus chased him,

Wrenched off a piece of the mountain, flung it at him,

And though it was only the smallest edge and corner

That struck him, that was enough to bury Acis.

¹⁷⁵But I, it was all I could do, saw that Acis

Assumed the magic of his ancestors:

Red blood came trickling from the mass, and faded,

And turned the color of a torrent swollen

By the spring rains, and then it cleared entirely,

¹⁸⁰And the bulk of the earth was split, and through the cleft

A reed grew tall, and the rock's hollow sounded

With gushing water, and, wonderful to tell,

A youth was standing there, waist-deep in the current,

Rushes around his new-formed horns, my Acis,

¹⁸⁵But larger than in life, and with the color

Of blue-green water-gods, but still my Acis,

Whose waters keep their former name."

The Story of Glaucus

So ended

The story, and the Nereids went their ways

¹⁹⁰Swimming the peaceful waters. Scylla only,

Fearing the far-off deeps, came wandering back

To the shore, and there she strolled along, all naked

Over the thirsty sands, or, growing weary,

Found some safe pool to swim in. But here came Glaucus,

¹⁹⁵Sounding his shell across the sea, a dweller

New-come to ocean: change had come upon him,

Not so long since, near Anthedon, in Euboea.

He saw her, and he loved her, and he said

Whatever words might make her pause to listen,

²⁰⁰But she was frightened, and fled, and swift in her fear

Raced to the top of a mountain that hung over

The shore, one sharp high peak, whose shadow fell

Far over the water. Here she was safe, and watched him,

Monster or god, wondering at his color,

²⁰⁵The hair that fell across his back and shoulders,

The fish-form fig-leaf at his groin. He saw her,

Leaned on a nearby mass of rock, called to her: "Maiden,

I am no freak, no savage beast, I am

A sea-god; neither Proteus nor Triton

²¹⁰Nor Athamas' son Palaemon, none of these

Has greater power than I have.  I once was mortal,

But even then devoted to deep waters

From which I earned my living. Thence I drew

My nets, or by the ocean side I dangled

²¹⁵My rod and line. I can recall a shore

That bordered on green meadows, which no cattle,

No sheep, no goats, had ever grazed, no bees

Came there for honey, and no garlands ever

Were gathered there, nor sickle plied. I first

²²⁰Came there and dried my nets and lines and spread them

Along that bank, counting the fish I caught

By luck or management or their own folly.

It will sound to you, no doubt, like a fishy story,

But why should I tell you lies?—My catch, on touching

²²⁵The grass, began to stir, to turn, to swim,

To jump on the land the way they did in the water.

And as I stood in wonder, they slipped down

Into their native element, and left me.

I was a long time wondering: had some god

²³⁰Done this, or was there magic in the grasses?

I plucked a blade and chewed it, and its flavor     

Had hardly touched my tongue, when suddenly

My heart within me trembled, and I felt

An overwhelming longing: I must change

²³⁵My way of life. I could not stand against it,

'Farewell, O Earth!' I cried, 'Farewell forever!'

And plunged into the sea, whose gods received me

With every honor, and called on Oceanus

And Tethys, to dissolve my mortal nature.

²⁴⁰They purged me of it, first with magic singing,

Nine times repeated, then with river water

Come from a hundred streams, and I remember

No more, but when my sense returned I knew I was

A different kind of creature, body and spirit.

²⁴⁵I saw, for the first time, this beard, dark-green,

These locks that flow behind me over long waves,

These shoulders and blue arms, these legs that trail

Into a fish-like end, and all of this

Of little good to me. Where is the profit

²⁵⁰In being a sea-gods' sea-god, if my Scylla

Cares not at all?" There was more he would have spoken,

But Scylla fled once more, and he, in anger,

Went to the marvellous palace-halls of Circe,

The daughter of the Sun.

BOOK XIV

The Story of Glaucus Continued (Part 2)

¹Glaucus, the haunter of the swollen waves,

Had passed by Etna, heaped on the giant's head,

Passed the unplowed, unharrowed fields which owed

No debt to any cattle; he went on

⁵Past Regium's walls, past Zancle, through the straits

Dangerous to mariners from either land,

Ausonia or Sicily, and he swam,

Untiring, through the Tuscan sea, and came

To the grassy hills and court of that enchantress,

¹⁰Circe, the daughter of the Sun, where beasts,

Or phantoms of them, thronged. He saw her there,

Gave and received a welcome, and went on:

"Goddess, have pity on a god, I pray you!

No one but you can help me, if I seem

¹⁵Worthy of help. Better than any man,

I know the magic power of herbs and grasses,

For I was changed by them. What caused my passion

You may already know: on Italy's coast,

Across from Messina's walls, I have seen Scylla.

²⁰I am ashamed to tell the promises,

The prayers, the flattering words I wasted on her.

But you, if there is power in your charms,

Sing me a charm, or, if the herbs are stronger,

Use their tried strength. To heal me, to cure me of this love,

²⁵Is more than I expect, but let Scylla be filled with

Love for me, a sea god." No one's heart

Was ever more susceptible than Circe's,

Why, no one knows: it may be that the cause

Lay in her very nature, or maybe Venus,

³⁰Angry about her father's gossiping,

Had made her what she was. She answered Glaucus:

"You would be doing better if you followed

Someone who wanted you and prayed for you,

Possessed with equal passion. You were worthy,

³⁵Surely you were, to be pursued; you could be,

And, if you give the least excuse, you will be.

Oh, never doubt it; never doubt your gift,

The power to charm: I, goddess though I am,

The daughter of the shining Sun, the mistress

⁴⁰Of charms and herbs, beg to be your wife. Scorn her

Who looks on you with scorn, repay with love

Circe, who loves you, and so repay us both."

But Glaucus answered: "Leaves will grow on the sea,

And sea-weed flourish on the mountain-tops,

⁴⁵Before I change my love, while Scylla lives."

Circe was angry; she could not harm the god,

And would not harm the god, because she loved him,

And turned her wrath on her rival Scylla.

Offended, hurt, she crushed together herbs

⁵⁰Whose juices had a dreadful power, and, singing

Spells she had learned from Hecate, she mixed them.

Then she put on a robe of blue, she left

Her palace-halls, through beasts that fawned around her,

And went to Regium, opposite Zancle's coast.

⁵⁵Over the boiling tide she sped, dry-shod,

As if on solid ground. There was a pool,

Not very large, into a deep bow curving,

A peaceful place, where Scylla loved to come,

Where she would flee from the heat of sea and sky

⁶⁰When sun burned hot at noon and shadows dwindled.

And Circe dyed this pool with bitter poisons,

Poured liquids brewed from evil roots, and murmured,

With lips well-skilled in magic, and thrice nine times,

A charm, obscure with labyrinthine language.

⁶⁵There Scylla came; she waded into the water,

Waist-deep, and suddenly saw her loins disfigured

With barking monsters, and at first she could not

Believe that these were parts o