Metamorphoses

Then thus the stranger says: “Plenty of time will be left for your tears hereafter , the season for giving aid is but short. If I were to demand her in marriage , I, Perseus, the son of Jove, and of her whom, in prison, Jove embraced in the impregnating shower of gold, Perseus, the conqueror of the Gorgon with her serpent locks, and who has dared, on waving wings, to move through the ætherial air, I should surely be preferred before all as your son-in-law. To so many recommendations I endeavor to add merit (if only the Deities favor me). I only stipulate that she may be mine, if preserved by my valor .” Her parents embrace the condition, (for who could hesitate?) and they entreat his aid , and promise as well, the kingdom as a dowry. Behold! as a ship onward speeding, with the beak fixed in its prow , plows the waters, impelled by the perspiring arms of youths; so the monster, moving the waves by the impulse of its breast, was as far distant from the rocks, as that distance in the mid space of air, which a Balearic string can pass with the whirled plummet of lead; when suddenly the youth, spurning the earth with his feet, rose on high into the clouds. As the shadow of the hero was seen on the surface of the sea, the monster vented its fury on the shadow so beheld. And as the bird of Jupiter, when he has espied on the silent plain a serpent exposing its livid back to the sun, seizes it behind; and lest it should turn upon him its raging mouth, fixes his greedy talons in its scaly neck; so did the winged hero , in his rapid flight through the yielding air , press the back of the monster, and the descendant of Inachus thrust his sword up to the very hilt in its right shoulder, as it roared aloud.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 4

Book 4, Line 37ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-4-37