Metamorphoses, Books VIII-XVRoman MythologyAncient Myth / ComparativeLatinShareMetamorphoses 15Riley, Books VIII-XV - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableRiley, Books VIII-XVLanguageEnglishEspañol‹Metamorphoses 1Metamorphoses 2Metamorphoses 3Metamorphoses 4Metamorphoses 5Metamorphoses 6Metamorphoses 7Metamorphoses 8Metamorphoses 9Metamorphoses 10Metamorphoses 11Metamorphoses 12Metamorphoses 13Metamorphoses 14Metamorphoses 15Metamorphoses 16Metamorphoses 17Metamorphoses 18Metamorphoses 19Metamorphoses 20Metamorphoses 21Metamorphoses 22Metamorphoses 23Metamorphoses 24Metamorphoses 25Metamorphoses 26Metamorphoses 27Metamorphoses 28Metamorphoses 29Metamorphoses 30Metamorphoses 31Metamorphoses 32Metamorphoses 33Metamorphoses 34Metamorphoses 35Metamorphoses 36Metamorphoses 37Metamorphoses 38Metamorphoses 39Metamorphoses 40Metamorphoses 41Metamorphoses 42Metamorphoses 43Metamorphoses 44Metamorphoses 45Metamorphoses 46Metamorphoses 47Metamorphoses 48Metamorphoses 49Metamorphoses 50Metamorphoses 51Metamorphoses 52Metamorphoses 53Metamorphoses 54Metamorphoses 55Metamorphoses 56Metamorphoses 57Metamorphoses 58Metamorphoses 59Metamorphoses 60Metamorphoses 61Metamorphoses 62Metamorphoses 63Metamorphoses 64Metamorphoses 65Metamorphoses 66Metamorphoses 67Metamorphoses 68Metamorphoses 69Metamorphoses 70Metamorphoses 71Metamorphoses 72Metamorphoses 73Metamorphoses 74Metamorphoses 75Metamorphoses 76Metamorphoses 77Metamorphoses 78Metamorphoses 79Metamorphoses 80Metamorphoses 81Metamorphoses 82Metamorphoses 83Metamorphoses 84Metamorphoses 85Metamorphoses 86Metamorphoses 87Metamorphoses 88Metamorphoses 89Metamorphoses 90Metamorphoses 91Metamorphoses 92Metamorphoses 93Metamorphoses 94Metamorphoses 95Metamorphoses 96Metamorphoses 97Metamorphoses 98Metamorphoses 99Metamorphoses 100Metamorphoses 101Metamorphoses 102Metamorphoses 103Metamorphoses 104Metamorphoses 105Metamorphoses 106›Fable I. [Ix.1-100]Metamorphoses 15ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1Deïanira, the daughter of Œneus, having been wooed by several suitors, her father gives his consent that she shall marry him who proves to be the bravest of them. Her other suitors, having given way to Hercules and Acheloüs, they engage in single combat. Acheloüs, to gain the advantage over his rival, transforms himself into various shapes, and, at length, into that of a bull. These attempts are in vain, and Hercules overcomes him, and breaks off one of his horns. The Naiads, the daughters of Acheloüs, take it up, and fill it with the variety of fruits which Autumn affords; on which it obtains the name of the Horn of Plenty. 2Theseus, the Neptunian hero,[1] inquires what is the cause of his sighing, and of his forehead being mutilated; when thus begins the Calydonian river, having his unadorned hair crowned with reeds: 3“A mournful task thou art exacting; for who, when overcome, is desirous to relate his own battles? yet I will relate them in order; nor was it so disgraceful to be overcome, as it is glorious to have engaged; and a conqueror so mighty affords me a great consolation. If, perchance, Deïanira,[2] by her name, has at last reached thy ears, once she was a most beautiful maiden, and the envied hope of many a wooer; together with these, when the house of him, whom I desired as my father-in-law, was entered by me, I said, ‘Receive me, O son of Parthaon,[3] for thy son-in-law.’ Alcides, too, said {the same}; the others yielded to {us} two. He alleged that he was offering {to the damsel} both Jupiter as a father-in-law, and the glory of his labours; the orders, too, of his step-mother, successfully executed. On the other hand (I thought it disgraceful for a God to give way to a mortal, for then he was not a God), I said, ‘Thou beholdest me, a king of the waters, flowing amid thy realms,[4] with my winding course; nor {am I some} stranger sent thee for a son-in-law, from foreign lands, but I shall be one of thy people, and a part of thy state. Only let it not be to my prejudice, that the royal Juno does not hate me, and that all punishment, by labours enjoined, is afar from me. For, since thou, {Hercules}, dost boast thyself born of Alcmena for thy mother; Jupiter is either thy pretended sire, or thy real one through a criminal deed: 4by the adultery of thy mother art thou claiming a father. Choose, {then}, whether thou wouldst rather have Jupiter {for thy} pretended {father}, or that thou art sprung {from him} through a disgraceful deed?’ 5“While I was saying such things as these, for some time he looked at me with a scowling eye, and did not very successfully check his inflamed wrath; and he returned me just as many words {as these}: ‘My right hand is better than my tongue. If only I do but prevail in fighting, do thou get the better in talking;’ and {then} he fiercely {attacked} me. I was ashamed, after having so lately spoken big words, to yield. I threw on one side my green garment from off my body, and opposed my arms {to his}, and I held my hands bent inwards,[5] from before my breast, on their guard, and I prepared my limbs for the combat. He sprinkled me with dust, taken up in the hollow of his hands, and, in his turn, grew yellow with the casting of yellow sand[6] {upon himself}. And at one moment he aimed at my neck, at another my legs, as they shifted about, or you would suppose he was aiming {at them}; and he assaulted me on every side. My bulk defended me, and I was attacked in vain; no otherwise than a mole, which the waves beat against with loud noise: it remains {unshaken}, and by its own weight is secure. 6“We retire a little, and {then} again we rush together in conflict, and we stand firm, determined not to yield; foot, too, is joined to foot; and {then} I, bending forward full with my breast, press upon his fingers with my fingers, and his forehead with my forehead. In no different manner have I beheld the strong bulls engage, when the most beauteous mate[7] in all the pasture is sought as the reward of the combat; the herds look on and tremble, uncertain which the mastery of so great a domain awaits. Thrice without effect did Alcides attempt to hurl away from him my breast, as it bore hard against him; the fourth time, he shook off my hold, and loosened my arms clasped around him; and, striking me with his hand, (I am resolved to confess the truth) he turned me quite round, and clung, a mighty load, to my back. If any credit {is to be given me}, (and, indeed, no glory is sought by me through an untrue narration) I seemed to myself {as though} weighed down with a mountain placed upon me. Yet, with great difficulty, I disengaged my arms streaming with much perspiration, {and}, with great exertion, I unlocked his firm grasp from my body. He pressed on me as I panted for breath, and prevented me from recovering my strength, and {then} seized hold of my neck. Then, at last, was the earth pressed by my knee, and with my mouth I bit the sand. Inferior in strength, I had recourse to my arts,[8] and transformed into a long serpent, I escaped from the hero. 7“After I had twisted my body into winding folds, and darted my forked tongue with dreadful hissings, the Tirynthian laughed, and deriding my arts, he said, ‘It was the labour of my cradle to conquer serpents;[9] and although, Acheloüs, thou shouldst excel other snakes, how large a part wilt thou, {but} one serpent, be of the Lernæan Echidna? By her {very} wounds was she multiplied, and not one head of her hundred in number[10] was cut off {by me} without danger {to myself}; but rather so that her neck became stronger, with two successors {to the former head}. {Yet} her I subdued, branching with serpents springing from {each} wound, and growing stronger by her disasters; and, {so} subdued, I slew her. What canst thou think will become of thee, who, changed into a fictitious serpent, art wielding arms that belong to another, and whom a form, obtained as a favour, is {now} disguising?’ {Thus} he spoke; and he planted the grip of his fingers on the upper part of my neck. I was tortured, just as though my throat was squeezed with pincers; and I struggled hard to disengage my jaws from his fingers. 8“Thus vanquished, too, there still remained for me my third form, {that} of a furious bull; with my limbs changed into {those of} a bull I renewed the fight. He threw his arms over my brawny neck, on the left side, and, dragging {at me}, followed me in my onward course; and seizing my horns, he fastened them in the hard ground, and felled me upon the deep sand. And that was not enough; while his relentless right hand was holding my stubborn horn, he broke it, and tore it away from my mutilated forehead. This, heaped with fruit and odoriferous flowers, the Naiads have consecrated, and the bounteous {Goddess}, Plenty, is enriched by my horn.” {Thus} he said; but a Nymph, girt up after the manner of Diana, one of his handmaids, with her hair hanging loose on either side, came in, and brought the whole {of the produce} of Autumn in the most plentiful horn, and choice fruit for a second course. 9Day comes on, and the rising sun striking the tops of the hills, the young men depart; nor do they stay till the stream has quiet {restored to it}, and a smooth course, and {till} the troubled waters subside. Acheloüs conceals his rustic features, and his mutilated horn, in the midst of the waves; yet the loss of this honour, taken from him, {alone} affects him; in other respects, he is unhurt. The injury, too, which has befallen his head, is {now} concealed with willow branches, or with reeds placed upon it. 10[Footnote 1: The Neptunian hero.--Ver. 1. Theseus was the grandson of Neptune, through his father Ægeus.] 11[Footnote 2: Deïanira.--Ver. 9. She was the daughter of Œneus, king of Ætolia, and became the wife of Hercules.] 12[Footnote 3: Parthaon.--Ver. 12. He was the son of Agenor and Epicaste. Homer, however, makes Portheus, and not Parthaon, to have been the father of Œneus.] 13[Footnote 4: Amid thy realms.--Ver. 18. The river Acheloüs flowed between Ætolia and Acarnania.] 14[Footnote 5: Bent inwards.--Ver. 33. ‘Varus,’ which we here translate ‘bent inwards,’ according to some authorities, means ‘bent outwards.’] 15[Footnote 6: Casting of yellow sand.--Ver. 35. It was the custom of wrestlers, after they had anointed the body with ‘ceroma’ or wrestler’s oil, in order to render the body supple and pliant, to sprinkle the body with sand, or dust, to enable the antagonist to take a firm hold. It was, however, considered more praiseworthy to conquer in a contest which was ἀκονιτὶ ‘without the use of sand.’] 16[Footnote 7: Most beauteous mate.--Ver. 47. Clarke translates ‘nitidissima conjux,’ ‘the neatest cow.’] 17[Footnote 8: Recourse to my arts.--Ver. 62. ‘Devertor ad artes,’ is rendered by Clarke, ‘I fly to my tricks.’] 18[Footnote 9: To conquer serpents.--Ver. 67. Hercules, while an infant in his cradle, was said to have strangled two serpents, which Juno sent for the purpose of destroying him.] 19[Footnote 10: Hundred in number.--Ver. 71. The number of heads of the Hydra varies in the accounts given by different writers. Seven, nine, fifty, and a hundred are the numbers mentioned. This, however, is not surprising, as we are told that where one was cut off, two sprang up in their place, until Hercules, to prevent such consequences, adopted the precaution of searing the neck, where the head had been cut off, with a red hot iron.] ‹Previous chapterMetamorphoses 14Next chapterMetamorphoses 16›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg