Metamorphoses

He, too, having bound his brows with a coloured cap, leaning on a stick, with white hair placed around his temples, assumed the shape of an old woman, and entered the well-cultivated gardens, and admired the fruit; and he said, “So much better off art thou !” and then he gave her, thus commended, a few kisses, such as no real old woman ever could have given; and stooping, seated himself upon the grass, looking up at the branches bending under the load of autumn. There was an elm opposite, widely spread with swelling grapes; after he had praised it, together with the vine united to it , he said, “ Aye , but if this trunk stood unwedded, without the vine, it would have nothing to attract beyond its leaves; this vine, too, while it finds rest against the elm, joined to it, if it were not united to it, would lie prostrate on the ground; and yet thou art not influenced by the example of this tree, and thou dost avoid marriage, and dost not care to be united. I only wish that thou wouldst desire it: Helen would not then be wooed by more suitors, nor she who caused the battles of the Lapithæ, nor the wife of Ulysses, so bold against the cowards. Even now, while thou dost avoid them courting thee, and dost turn away in disgust, a thousand suitors desire thee; both Demigod and Gods, and the Deities which inhabit the mountains of Alba.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 14

Book 14, Line 45ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-14-45