Metamorphoses

The God Apollo , the year being completed, had run through the twice six signs of the Zodiac . What can Philomela do? A guard prevents her flight; the walls of the house are hard, built of solid stone: her speechless mouth is deprived of the means of discovering the crime. But in grief there is extreme ingenuity, and inventive skill arises in misfortunes. She skilfully suspends the warp in a web of Barbarian design, and interweaves purple marks with white, as a mode of discovering the villany of Tereus ; and delivers it, when finished, to one of her attendants , and begs her, by signs, to carry it to her mistress. As desired, she carries it to Progne, and does not know what she is delivering in it. The wife of the savage tyrant unfolds the web, and reads the mournful tale of her sister, and (wondrous that she can be so!) she is silent. ’Tis grief that stops her utterance, and words sufficiently indignant fail her tongue, in want of them; nor is there room for weeping. But she rushes onward, about to confound both right and wrong, and is wholly occupied in the contrivance of revenge.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 6

Book 6, Line 28ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-6-28