Metamorphoses

Lofty Calydon now lies prostrate. Young and old mourn, both people and nobles lament; and the Calydonian matrons of Evenus, tearing their hair, bewail him. Lying along upon the ground, his father pollutes his white hair and his aged features with dust, and chides his prolonged existence. But her own hand, conscious to itself of the ruthless deed, exacted punishment of the mother, the sword piercing her entrails. If a God had given me a mouth sounding with a hundred tongues, and an enlarged genius, and the whole of Helicon besides ; still I could not enumerate the mournful expressions of his unhappy sisters. Regardless of shame, they beat their livid bosoms, and while the body still exists, they embrace it, and embrace it again; they give kisses to it, and they give kisses to the bier there set. After he is reduced to ashes, they pour them, when gathered up, to their breasts; and they lie prostrate around the tomb, and kissing his name cut out in the stone, they pour their tears upon his name. Them, the daughter of Latona, at length satiated with the calamities of the house of Parthaon, bears aloft on wings springing from their bodies, except Gorge, and the daughter-in-law of noble Alcmena; and she stretches long wings over their arms, and makes their mouths horny, and sends them, thus transformed, through the air.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 8

Book 8, Line 25ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-8-25