The Metamorphoses by Ovid

Author:Ovid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics

BOOK IX

THE NEPTUNIAN HERO ASKED the god why he groaned and what was the cause of his mutilated forehead. And thus the Calydonian river, binding up his rough locks with a band of reeds, made answer: “It is an unpleasant task you set; for who would care to chronicle his defeats? Still I will tell the story as it happened: nor was it so much a disgrace to be defeated as it was an honor to have striven at all, and the thought that my conqueror was so mighty is a great comfort to me. Deianira (if you have ever heard of her) was once a most beautiful maiden and the envied hope of many suitors. When along with them I entered the house of the father of the maid I sought, I said: ‘Take me for son-in-law, 0 son of Parthaon.’av Hercules said the same, and the others yielded their claims to us two. He pleaded the fact that Jove was his father, pleaded his famous labours and all that he had overcome at the command of his stepmother. In reply I said: ‘It is a shame for a god to give place to a mortal’ (Hercules had not yet been made a god); ‘you behold in me the lord of the waters which flow down their winding courses through your realm. If I wed your daughter, it will be no stranger from foreign shores; but I shall be one of your own countrymen, a part of your own kingdom. Only let it not be to my disadvantage that Queen Juno does not hate me and that no labours are imposed upon me in consequence of her hate. For Jove, from whom you boast that you have sprung, O son of Alcmena, is either not your father, or is so to your disgrace. Through your mother’s sin you claim your father. Choose, then, whether you prefer to say that your claim to Jove is false, or to confess yourself the son of shame.’ As I thus spoke he eyed me for a long while with lowering gaze and, unable to control his hot wrath longer, he answered just these words: ‘My hand is better than my tongue. Let me but win in fighting and you may win in speech’; and he came at me fiercely. I was ashamed to draw back after having spoken so boldly; and so I threw off my green coat, put up my arms, held my clenched hands out in front of my breast in position, and so prepared me for the fight. He caught up some dust in the hollow of his hand and threw it over me and in turn himself became yellow with the tawny sand. And now he caught at my neck, now at my quick-moving legs (or you would think he did), and attacked me at every point. My weight protected me and I was attacked in vain. Just like a cliff I stood, which, though the roaring waves dash against it, stands secure, safe in its own bulk.

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