Metamorphoses

“Though thou be, relentless Philoctetes, enraged against thy friends and the king, and myself, though thou curse and devote my head, everlastingly, and though thou wish to have me in thy anguish thrown in thy way perchance, and to shed my blood; and though if I meet thee, so thou wilt have the opportunity of meeting me, still will I attempt thee, and will endeavour to bring thee back with me. And, if Fortune favours me, I will as surely be the possessor of thy arrows, as I was the possessor of the Dardanian prophet whom I took prisoner; and so I revealed the answers of the Deities and the fates of Troy; and as I carried off the hidden statue of the Phrygian Minerva from the midst of the enemy. And does Ajax, then , compare himself with me? The Fates, in fact, would not allow Troy to be captured without that statue . Where is the valiant Ajax? where are the boastful words of that mighty man? Why art thou trembling here? Why dares Ulysses to go through the guards, and to entrust himself to the night, and, through fell swords, to enter not only the walls of Troy, but even its highest towers, and to tear the Goddess from her shrine, and, thus torn, to bear her off amid the enemy?

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 13

Book 13, Line 16ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-13-16