Metamorphoses

“But if, perchance, you were to ask of Amathus, abounding in metals, whether she would wish to have produced the Propœtides; she would deny it, as well as those whose foreheads were of old rugged with two horns, from which they also derived the name of Cerastæ. Before the doors of these was standing an altar of Jupiter Hospes, a scene of tragic horrors; if any stranger had seen it stained with blood, he would have supposed that sucking calves had been killed there, and Amathusian sheep; strangers were slain there. Genial Venus, offended at the wicked sacrifices there offered , was preparing to abandon her own cities and the Ophiusian lands. ‘But how,’ said she, ‘have these delightful spots, how have my cities offended? What criminality is there in them? Let the inhuman race rather suffer punishment by exile or by death, or if there is any middle course between death and exile; and what can that be, but the punishment of changing their shape?’

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 10

Book 10, Line 17ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-10-17