Metamorphoses

The raven says to him, saying such things, “May this, thy calling of me back, prove a mischief to thee, I pray; I despise the worthless omen.” Nor does he drop his intended journey; and he tells his master, that he has seen Coronis lying down with a youth of Hæmonia. On hearing the crime of his mistress, his laurel fell down; and at the same moment his usual looks, his plectrum, and his color, forsook the God. And as his mind was now burning with swelling rage, he took up his wonted arms, and levelled his bow bent from the extremities, and pierced, with an unerring shaft, that bosom, that had been so oft pressed to his own breast. Wounded, she uttered a groan, and, drawing the steel from out of the wound, she bathed her white limbs with purple blood; and she said, “I might justly , Phœbus, have been punished by thee, but still I might have first brought forth; now we two shall die in one.” Thus far she spoke ; and she poured forth her life, together with her blood. A deadly coldness took possession of her body deprived of life.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 2

Book 2, Line 33ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-2-33