Metamorphoses

“I saw Petræus endeavouring to tear up an acorn-bearing oak from the earth; and , as he was grasping it in his embrace, and was shaking it on this side and that, and was moving about the loosened tree, the lance of Pirithoüs hurled at the ribs of Petræus, transfixed his struggling breast together with the tough oak. They said, too , that Lycus fell by the valour of Pirithoüs, and that Chromis fell by the hand of Pirithoüs. But each of them gave less glory to the conqueror, than Dictys and Helops gave. Helops was transfixed by the javelin, which passed right through his temples, and, hurled from the right side, penetrated to his left ear. Dictys, slipping from the steep point of a rock, while, in his fear, he is flying from the pursuing son of Ixion, falls down headlong, and, by the weight of his body, breaks a huge ash tree, and spits his own entrails upon it, thus broken. Aphareus advances as his avenger, and endeavours to hurl a stone torn away from the mountain. As he is endeavouring to do so , the son of Ægeus attacks him with an oaken club, and breaks the huge bones of his arm, and has neither leisure, nor, indeed , does he care to put his useless body to death; and he leaps upon the back of the tall Bianor, not used to bear any other than himself; and he fixes his knees in his ribs, and holding his long hair, seized with his left hand, shatters his face, and his threatening features, and his very hard temples, with the knotty oak. With his oak, too , he levels Nedymnus, and Lycotas the darter, and Hippasus having his breast covered with his flowing beard, and Ripheus, who towered above the topmost woods, and Tereus, who used to carry home the bears, caught in the Hæmonian mountains, alive and raging.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 12

Book 12, Line 17ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-12-17