The Metamorphoses of Ovid by Allen Mandelbaum

Author:Allen Mandelbaum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

“The ruin of the grove and their own loss

have stunned the Dryad sisters; dressed in black,

the mourners go to Ceres, begging her

to punish Erysichthon. She consents;

and so the lovely goddess nods her head,

then blights the fields already ripe with grain

and plots this punishment (her plan is one

that would stir pity if compassion were

not inappropriate for such a sin):

the goddess would have him devoured by Famine.

But since great Ceres cannot visit Famine

directly (Fate forbids those two to meet),

she called upon a lesser goddess, one

who haunts the slopes, a rustic Oread.

And Ceres said: ‘In frozen Scythia,

the farthest borderland is barren, sad:

a land that has no harvests and no trees.

That is the home of sluggish Cold and Pallor

and Terror and gaunt Famine: find the last

of these, and tell her she must hide within

the stomach of that sacrilegious wretch.

No matter how abundantly he feeds

his belly, Famine must not meet defeat:

however copious my fruits may be,

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