Metamorphoses

Soon as he entered the grotto, dropping with its springs, the Nymphs, naked as they were, on seeing a man, smote their breasts, and filled all the woods with sudden shrieks, and gathering round Diana, covered her with their bodies. Yet the Goddess herself was higher than they, and was taller than them all by the neck. The color that is wont to be in clouds, tinted by the rays of the sun when opposite, or that of the ruddy morning, was on the features of Diana, when seen without her garments. She, although surrounded with the crowd of her attendants, stood sideways, and turned her face back; and how did she wish that she had her arrows at hand; and so she took up water, which she did have at hand , and threw it over the face of the man, and sprinkling his hair with the avenging stream, she added these words, the presages of his future woe: “Now thou mayst tell, if tell thou canst, how that I was seen by thee without my garments.” Threatening no more, she places on his sprinkled head the horns of a lively stag; she adds length to his neck, and sharpens the tops of his ears; and she changes his hands into feet, and his arms into long legs, and covers his body with a spotted coat of hair; fear, too is added. The Autonoëian hero took to flight, and wondered that he was so swift in his speed; but when he beheld his own horns in the wonted stream, he was about to say, “Ah, wretched me!” when no voice followed. He groaned; that was all his voice, and his tears trickled down a face not his own, but that of a stag . His former understanding alone remained. What should he do? Should he return home, and to the royal abode? or should he lie hid in the woods? Fear hinders the one step , shame the other. While he was hesitating, the dogs espied him, and first Melampus, and the good-nosed Ichnobates gave the signal, in full cry. Ichnobates, was a Gnossian dog ; Melampus was of Spartan breed. Then the rest rush on, swifter than the rapid winds; Pamphagus, and Dorcæus, and Oribasus, all Arcadian dogs ; and able Nebrophonus, and with Lælaps, fierce Theron, and Pterelas, excelling in speed, Agre in her scent, and Hylæus, lately wounded by a fierce boar, and Nape, begotten by a wolf, and Pœmenis, that had tended cattle, and Harpyia, followed by her two whelps, and the Sicyonian Ladon, having a slender girth; Dromas, too, and Canace, Sticte, and Tigris, and Alce, and Leucon , with snow-white hair, and Asbolus, with black, and the able-bodied Lacon, and Aëllo, good at running, and Thoüs, and swift Lycisca, with her Cyprian brother, Harpalus , too, having his black face marked with white down the middle, and Melaneus, and Lachne, with a wire-haired body, and Labros, and Agriodos, bred of a Dictæan sire, but of a Laconian dam, and Hylactor , with his shrill note; and others which it were tedious to recount.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 3

Book 3, Line 11ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-3-11