Metamorphoses

  as did his pain, and both died down together;

  his spirit gradually slipped away

  and mixed in the air as gradually

  as ashes settle over glowing coals.

  High Calydon is now brought low by grief:

  princes and proles, old men and young men mourn,

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  the matrons on the banks of the Euenus

  tear out their hair in grief and beat their breasts;

  his father, lying on the ground, befouls

  his white hair and his ancient head with dust,

  and angrily rebukes his length of years.

  For now his mother, cognizant at last

  of the wickedness her hand has caused,

  has seen fit to exact her punishment,

  and thrusts a sword into her viscera!

  Not even if some god had given me

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  a hundred mouths, each fitted with a tongue,

  and genius suitable to the occasion,

  and all of Helicon for inspiration,

  not even then would I be able to

  describe the sad fate of his wretched sisters,

  who, careless of decorum, beat their breasts,

  and while his corpse was still displayed among them,

  caressed him constantly and gave him kisses,

  and even kissed the bier he was laid out on;

  they gathered up his ashes in an urn

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  and pressed it to their breasts, and threw themselves

  onto his grave mound and embraced the stone

  and bathed the name carved on it with their tears.

  At last Diana, being satisfied

  with the destruction of Oeneus’ house,

  caused feathers to appear upon their bodies,

  excepting Gorge and [Deianira]

  the daughter-in-law of highborn Alcmena,

  and having fitted out their arms with wings

  and given each of them a horny beak,

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  she sent them, thus transformed, into the air

  [as meleagrides, or guinea hens].

  Acheloüs and Theseus

  Theseus, meanwhile, having done his part

  in the joint effort, headed back to Athens.

  Swollen from recent rains, the Acheloüs

  prevented him from going on his way:

  “Abide with me,” he said, “beneath my roof,

  O celebrated son of Aegeus,

  do not entrust yourself to the greedy flood;

  why, I have seen it seize and carry off

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  enormous tree trunks, even mighty boulders,

  and send them spinning, now this way, now that,

  with a huge roar! I have seen great stables,

  constructed on the bank here, carried off

  with all their herds; neither the oxen’s strength

  nor the horses’ speed availed against the flood.

  “When springtime torrents are created by

  snow melting in the mountains, strong young men

  are swept away and drowned in its seething eddies.

  Much safer would it be for you to stay

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  until the waters once more learn their limits,

  and the thin stream gets back into its bed.”

  The son of Aegeus, assenting, said,

  “You offer me your counsel and your home;

  I will take both.” And take them both he did.

  He passed into the river’s entrance hall

  made of poriferous pumice and rough tufa;

  its earthen floor was squishy with wet moss,

  its ceiling done in alternating rows

  of inlaid seashells, conch, and purple murex.

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  The Sun had finished two-thirds of his journey

  when the hero and his companions of the hunt

  arranged themselves in couches round the table.

  Here sat the son of Ixion, and there

  sat Lelex, the great hero of Troezen,

  a smattering of grey hair at his temples,

  and others too, deemed worthy of this honor

  by the river god, delighted to be hosting

  the mightiest of heroes, Theseus.

  At once came barefoot nymphs to set the table,

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  bring out the feast, and clear away the courses,

  before they filled the jeweled cups with wine.

  The Echinades and Perimele

  While gazing at the waters of the gulf,

  Theseus, pointing with one finger, asked,

  “What is that place? What is that island’s name?

  Though it doesn’t seem to be one island, just.”

  “It isn’t,” said the river in response;

  “what you perceive is not one isle, but five:

  perception is misled at such a distance.

  And so that you may find Diana’s actions,

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  when she was slighted, less astonishing,

  those islands that you see were naiads once,

  who, when they had slaughtered ten young bullocks,

  extended invitations to their feast

  to all the local gods, except yours truly,

  forgotten as they led their choral dancing.

  “Infuriated, I became as full

  as ever I get when my water rises,

  and as my mind made waves, I overwhelmed,

  and tore away the forests from their forests,

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  fields from their fields: I carried off the nymphs,

  mindful of me at last, with their habitat,

  down to the sea; there, where I join the gulf,

  together we divided up the land

  into those diverse portions you behold

  off in the water, called the Echinades.

  “But further off, you’ll see another island

  more dear to me, which mariners have named

  Perimele, a maiden whom I prized;

  but when I took her maidenhead from her,

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  her father, Hippodamas, was enraged,

  and sent her hurtling headlong from a cliff

  into the sea below. I caught her as she fell,

  and keeping her afloat, I cried to heaven,

  ‘O trident-bearing Neptune, drawn by lot

  to rule over the nearby world of waves,

  answer my prayer and give to one

  drowned by her father’s cruelty, a place—

  or, if she cannot have, then let her be one.’

  “And even as I spoke, new earth began

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  to gather her in its embrace, and from

  her transformed shape the solid land emerged.”

  Baucis and Philemon

  The river then fell silent. All were moved

  save Pirithoüs, son of Ixion,

  a freethinker, dismissive of the gods,

  who ridiculed their host’s credulity:

  “The fables that you tell, Acheloüs,

  attribute too much power to the gods,

  if they can change the shapes of things like that.”

  The others were all shocked by what he said,

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  and disapproved, Lelex especially,

  whose judgment had been ripened by his years:

  “Omnipotent and limitless is heaven,

  and what the gods desire is accomplished;

  and so that you may come to doubt it less,

  know that on a hillside in Phrygia,

  there stand an oak and linden, side by side,

  surrounded by an undistinguished wall;

  once, on a mission for King Pittheus,

  I saw the very site of which I speak.

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  “There is a marsh nearby; no longer fit

  for men to dwell in, it is now the haunt

  of coots and seagulls only; Jupiter

  came to this area
, disguised as a mortal,

  with Mercury, who’d taken off his wings.

  “A thousand homes they came to, seeking rest;

  a thousand doors were bolted fast against them;

  one home received them, humble, just a hut,

  and thatched with reeds and stubble from the swamp,

  but most devout; Baucis and Philemon,

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  a couple equally advanced in years,

  were wed there in their youth, and there grew old

  together, making light of poverty

  by cheerfully admitting it and bearing

  its deprivations with composure; seek

  no servants in that house, nor masters neither,

  for there were only two there, and the one

  commanding was the same one who obeyed.

  “So, when the gods came to their humble home

  and stooped to pass through its ramshackle door,

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  the old man bade them rest upon a bench

  which Baucis, busy bustling about,

  had covered with a roughly woven blanket;

  and after sweeping ashes from the hearth,

  she had resuscitated yesterday’s

  still-glowing coals, restoring them to life

  with a diet of leaf mold and dry bark;

  and then she added twigs and bits of kindling

  which she fetched down from overhead and chopped

  still smaller, before placing them beneath

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  her little cooking pot: she huffed and puffed

  until she managed to produce a flame,

  then trimmed the cabbage which her mate had picked

  from their well-watered garden.

  “He, meanwhile,

  had fetched a hunk of what had once been bacon

  down from its hook upon a sooty rafter,

  an inexpensive, sinewy old chine

  and not at all improved by long-term storage;

  she carefully snipped off a frugal piece

  and put it in the pot to learn some manners.

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  “While they beguiled the hours before dinner

  with talk that kept delay from being felt,

  he filled a beechwood basin with warm water,

  then bathed the travelers’ exhausted limbs

  as they sat on a mattress stuffed with grass,

  perched on a couch with frame and feet of willow.

  “Over this piece, a coverlet was thrown,

  brought out on feast days only, yet a match

  in age and value for the willow couch.

  “The gods reclined. And with her skirts hitched up,

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  the trembling old lady set the table,

  correcting its imbalance with a potsherd

  slipped underneath the shortest of its legs;

  and when the table had been stabilized,

  she scrubbed its surface clean with fragrant mint.

  “She set out berries from Minerva’s tree,

  and autumn-ripened cornel cherry pickles,

  with endives, radishes, fresh cheese, and eggs

  that had been lightly roasted in the coals.

  “She put out everything on earthenware;

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  a bowl for mixing wine and water in

  (ordered, no doubt, from the same catalogue)

  appeared upon the table, joined by cups

  of beechwood, all patched up with yellow wax.

  “A moment, and the hearth sent out its steaming feast,

  and once again the wine—a recent vintage—

  returned to table, briefly, set aside

  to make some room now for the second course

  of nuts and varied fruits: figs, dates, and plums,

  sweet-smelling apples rolling from their baskets,

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  and purple grapes just taken from the vine;

  and right there, in the middle of the table,

  an oozing honeycomb. But more than these

  were beaming looks, expressions of goodwill,

  the very opposite of poverty.

  “Meanwhile, they saw that when the mixing bowl

  was emptied out, it filled right up again

  of its own accord, as though from underneath;

  astonished and frightened by this miracle,

  old Baucis and fainthearted Philemon

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  pressed their palms upward and recited prayers,

  and begged the gods’ indulgence for their meal

  and the meager preparations they had made.

  “They had a single goose, the guardian

  of their small villa, whom they now prepared

  to sacrifice to their immortal guests;

  his swiftness, though, left the old pair exhausted.

  “Time after time, he slipped out of their grasp,

  and then, it seemed, sought refuge with the gods,

  who would not let the couple do him in:

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  ‘We are gods,’ they said. ‘This irreligious

  region will now be punished as it should be;

  you two will be exempted from the evil,

  so leave your house together now and climb

  that difficult steep mountain there with us.’

  “Leaning on walking sticks, the pair obeyed,

  and struggled to find their footing on its slope.

  When they were just a bowshot from its summit,

  they looked back and saw everything submerged

  in the waters of the swamp—save for their house!

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  They marveled at this, and they shed some tears

  for their neighbors’ fate.

  “And that house of theirs,

  which had been crowded with just two of them,

  was turned into a temple: columns replaced

  the wooden beams supporting its front gable,

  the yellow thatch became a roof of gold,

  and doors appeared, inlaid with artful bronze,

  and—where bare dirt had been—a marble courtyard!

  “The son of Saturn quietly addressed them:

  ‘Decent old man, wife worthy of her mate,

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  what can we do for you now? Tell us, please.’

  Philemon turned and spoke to Baucis briefly,

  and then revealed their mutual decision:

  ‘We ask to be allowed to guard your temple

  as its priests, and, since we have lived together

  so many years in harmony, we ask

  that the same hour take us both together,

  and that I should not live to see her tomb

  nor she survive to bury me in mine.’

  “Their prayers were granted. Their remaining years

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  were spent in taking care of the new temple,

  till finally, exhausted by old age,

  the two of them were standing by its columns,

  speaking of what had happened to them there,

  when Baucis saw Philemon come into leaf,

  and Philemon saw Baucis put forth leaves.

  Then, as their faces both were covered over

  by the growing treetop, while it was allowed them,

  they spoke and answered one another’s speech:

  ‘Farewell, dear spouse!’ they both cried out together,

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  just as their lips were sealed in leafiness.

  “And even now, the peasants in that region

  will show you two trees standing side by side,

  sprung from a single trunk; sensible seniors,

  who had no earthly reason to deceive me,

  told me this tale, and my own eyes have seen

  the votive garlands hanging from the branches,

  and as I hung fresh garlands there, I said,

  ‘Let those who are beloved of the gods

  be gods themselves; let those who reverence br />
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  the gods be reverenced as gods as well.’”

  Erysichthon and his daughter

  He ceased, and his whole audience was moved

  by the substance of the tale and by its teller,

  especially Theseus, who wished to hear

  more of the gods and their astounding deeds.

  Propped on his elbow, Acheloüs responded:

  “O bravest of all heroes, there are those

  whose forms, once changed, forevermore remain

  in their new state; others there are for whom

  continual transformation is the rule,

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  as is your case, O Proteus, who live

  in the sea that wraps itself around the earth;

  at one time men have seen you as a youth,

  at others as a lion, a wild boar,

  a snake that everyone must fear to touch;

  now horns have made you into a wild bull;

  often you could appear to be a stone,

  often a tree; and every now and then,

  taking the shape that flowing water makes,

  you were a river; occasionally you

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  became the opposite of water, flame.

  “The daughter of Erysichthon, who wed

  Autolycus, had powers great as those;

  her father was a man who spurned the gods

  and would not offer fragrant sacrifice;

  why, it is even said he violated

  the sacred grove of Ceres with his axe,

  defiling ancient woods with man-made iron.

  “There stood a giant oak of many years,

  a veritable grove all by itself,

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  girdled with ribbons, garlands, votive tablets—

  all witnesses to efficacious prayer.

  “Often beneath its branches, dryads danced,

  and linking hands, encircled the great oak,

  no less than fifteen ells circumference;

  it stood as high above the other trees

  as they stood to the grasses underneath them.

  “Its character provided Erysichthon

  no reason to restrain from ordering

  his slaves—the criminal—to cut it down.

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  And when he saw them hesitate, he snatched

  the axe away from one of them, and said,

  ‘Why, even if this were not just the tree

  that Ceres loves, but were itself the goddess,

  its leafy tip would touch the ground!’

  “He spoke,

  and held the axe suspended for the blow:

  the sacred oak gave out a groan and shuddered,

  and its leaves, its acorns, and its branches paled.

  “But when he struck with his defiling hand,

  blood issued from its severed bark, as when

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  a bull is sacrificed before the altar

  and the warm blood pours from its severed throat.

  “All were astounded by this miracle,

  and one more daring than the others tried