Metamorphoses, Books VIII-XVRoman MythologyAncient Myth / ComparativeLatinShareMetamorphoses 29Riley, 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 Ii. [X.86-105]Metamorphoses 29ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1Orpheus, retiring to Mount Rhodope, by the charms of his music, attracts to himself all kinds of creatures, rocks, and trees; among the latter is the pine tree, only known since the transformation of Attis. 2There was a hill, and upon the hill a most level space of a plain, which the blades of grass made green: {all} shade was wanting in the spot. After the bard, sprung from the Gods, had seated himself in this place, and touched his tuneful strings, a shade came over the spot. The tree of Chaonia[10] was not absent, nor the grove of the Heliades,[11] nor the mast-tree with its lofty branches, nor the tender lime-trees, nor yet the beech, and the virgin laurel,[12] and the brittle hazels, and the oak, adapted for making spears, and the fir without knots, and the holm bending beneath its acorns, and the genial plane-tree,[13] and the parti-coloured maple,[14] and, together with them, the willows growing by the rivers, and the watery lotus, and the evergreen box, and the slender tamarisks, and the two-coloured myrtle, and the tine-tree,[15] with its azure berries. 3You, too, the ivy-trees, with your creeping tendrils, came, and together, the branching vines, and the elms clothed with vines; the ashes, too, and the pitch-trees, and the arbute, laden with its blushing fruit, and the bending palm,[16] the reward of the conqueror; the pine, too, with its tufted foliage,[17] and bristling at the top, pleasing to the Mother of the Gods; since for this the Cybeleïan Attis put off the human form, and hardened into that trunk. 4[Footnote 10: Tree of Chaonia.--Ver. 90. This was the oak, for the growth of which Chaonia, a province of Epirus, was famous.] 5[Footnote 11: Grove of the Heliades.--Ver. 91. He alludes to the poplars, into which tree, as we have already seen, the Heliades, or daughters of the sun, were changed after the death of Phaëton.] 6[Footnote 12: Virgin laurel.--Ver. 92. The laurel is so styled from the Virgin Daphne, who refused to listen to the solicitations of Apollo.] 7[Footnote 13: Genial plane-tree.--Ver. 95. The plane tree was much valued by the ancients, as affording, by its extending branches, a pleasant shade to festive parties. Virgil says, in the Fourth Book of the Georgics, line 146, ‘Atque ministrantem platanum potantibus umbram,’ ‘And the plane-tree that gives its shade for those that carouse.’] 8[Footnote 14: Parti-coloured maple.--Ver. 95. The grain of the maple being of a varying colour, it was much valued by the ancients, for the purpose of making articles of furniture.] 9[Footnote 15: The tine tree.--Ver. 98. The ‘tinus,’ or ‘tine tree,’ according to Pliny the Elder, was a wild laurel, with green berries.] 10[Footnote 16: The bending palm.--Ver. 102. The branches of the palm were remarkable for their flexibility, while no superincumbent weight could break them. On this account they were considered as emblematical of victory.] 11[Footnote 17: Tufted foliage.--Ver. 103. The pine is called ‘succincta,’ because it sends forth its branches from the top, and not from the sides.] ‹Previous chapterMetamorphoses 28Next chapterMetamorphoses 30›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