Metamorphoses

The Moon, too, wonders that her brother’s horses run lower than her own, and the scorched clouds send forth smoke. As each region is most elevated, it is caught by the flames, and cleft, it makes vast chasms, and becomes dry, its moisture being carried away. The grass grows pale; the trees, with their foliage, are burnt up; and the dry standing corn affords fuel for its own destruction. But I am complaining of trifling ills . Great cities perish, together with their fortifications, and the flames turn whole nations, with their populations, into ashes; woods, together with mountains, are on fire. Athos burns, and the Cilician Taurus, and Tmolus, and Œta, and Ida, now dry, but once most famed for its springs; and Helicon, the resort of the Virgin Muses , and Hæmus , not yet called Œagrian. Ætna burns intensely with redoubled flames, and Parnassus, with its two summits, and Eryx, and Cynthus, and Othrys, and Rhodope, at length to be despoiled of its snows, and Mimas, and Dindyma, and Mycale, and Cithæron, created for the performance of sacred rites. Nor does its cold avail even Scythia; Caucasus is on fire, and Ossa with Pindus, and Olympus, greater than them both, and the lofty Alps, and the cloud-bearing Apennines.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 2

Book 2, Line 10ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-2-10