Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.401-507
The Almighty Father made the anxious round
Of heaven’s vast bastions to ensure that none,
Enfeebled by the fire’s assault, should fall;
And seeing all were sound, their strength intact,
Surveyed the earth and the affairs of men.
His own Arcadia was his weightiest care;
Her springs and rivers, fearing still to flow,
He primed anew, gave verdure to the fields,
Leaves to the trees and bade the ravaged woods
Grow green again. And as he came and went,
Busy, there caught his eye a country nymph
Of Nonacris and love flared in his heart.
She was no girl to spin soft skeins of wool
Or vary her hair-style; a buckle held
Her dress, a plain white band her straggling hair.
She carried a light spear—sometimes a bow—
Diana’s warrior; none so high as she
In Dian’s favour on the mountain slopes
Of Maenalus; but favourites soon fall.
One afternoon, the sun still riding high,
She found a glade deep in the virgin woods
And there unstrung her bow, took off her quiver,
And lay down on the grass, the coloured case
A pillow for her head. Jove saw her there,
Weary and unprotected and alone.
This prank’, he thought, ‘my wife will never learn,
Or should she, all her scolding’s worth the prize.’
Taking at once Diana’s form, her face
And dress, ‘My dear’, he said, ‘best of my troop,
Which mountain coverts have you drawn?’ The girl
Rose from the greensward; ‘Hail, my queen’, said she,
‘Greater than Jove I say though Jove should hear.’
Jove heard and smiled, happy that she preferred
Him to himself, and kissed her on the lips—
No modest, maiden’s kisses—checked her tale,
Seized her and by his outrage stood betrayed.
She fought, it’s true, as hard as girls can fight;
(Would that Juno had watched, her wrath were less)
She fought, but how could any girl succeed,
How master Jove? Victorious, he retired
To heaven above; she loathed the forest glade,
The woods that knew, and, as she turned to go
Nearly forgot her quiver and her bow.
And now Dictynna across high Maenalus
Progressing with her troop, proud of her kills,
Observed the girl and called her. At the call
She shrank at first lest it were Jove again,
But then she saw the nymphs came with their queen,
And feared no trap and joined their company.
How hard it is for a face to hide its guilt!
She scarce could raise her eyes, nor as before
Stayed by her goddess’ side and led the train.
Silent, her awkward blushes told her shame.
Diana, but for her own chaste innocence,
Might well have learnt by countless little signs
The guilty truth; no doubt the nymphs knew well.
Nine times the crescent moon had filled her orb,
When Dian, wearied by her brother’s beams
And by the chase, reached a cool shady grove,
Through which there flowed a babbling rivulet,
Whose gliding current shaped its shelving sands.
Charmed by the place, the goddess dipped her feet
Into the stream; and that was charming too.
‘No spy is near’, she said, ‘here let us strip
And bathe.’ The poor girl blushed; they all undressed;
One lingered waiting. As she hesitates,
They strip her body—and her secret—bare.
Aghast, she spread her hands to hide her shape.
‘Begone!’ Diana cried, ‘you shall not stain
My stream!’ and bade her quit her company.
Juno, the Thunderer’s consort, knew the truth
Long since, and had deferred until due time
Her dire revenge, and now the time was due.
Her rival bore a boy (that galled her most),
Areas; on him the goddess turned her eyes,
Her anger. ‘Strumpet, so it came to this,
That you gave birth, and published by that birth
My injury and proved my Jove’s disgrace.
Now you shall pay! That loveliness, your joy,
The grace that won my lord, I shall destroy!’
She seized her by the hair and flung her flat
Upon the ground. The girl held out her arms
For mercy. Over those arms spread grisly fur,
Her nails lengthened to claws, her hands curved down
To serve as feet, the lips that Jove so praised
Were hideous jaws, and, lest her prayers prevail,
Her power of speech was quenched; a fearful growl,
Angry and menacing, came from her throat.
She was a bear, but kept her woman’s heart;
Moan after moan proclaimed her misery.
She raised her hands (her paws!) towards the stars
And blamed, though wordless, Jove’s ingratitude.
How often in the lonely woods she feared
To lay her head, and wandered to and fro
Before her home, through her familiar fields!
How often, when the baying hounds gave chase,
She fled across the scarps—the huntress fleeing
In panic from the horror of the hunt!
And many a time, forgetting what she was,
Hid from the creatures of the wild; a bear,
She shuddered to see bears on the high hills,
Feared wolves although her father was a wolf.
The years rolled on; Areas was now sixteen,
His mother lost, her fate, her name unknown.
One day, out hunting in the forest glades
Of Erymanthus, as he placed his nets,
He chanced to meet her; seeing him she stopped
Stock still, seeming to recognize his face.
He shrank away; those eyes, unmoving, fixed
For ever on his own, froze the boy’s heart
With nameless fear, and as she moved towards him
He aimed his javelin to strike her dead.
The Almighty stayed his hand and swept away
Both son and mother—with the threatened crime—
Whirled in a wind together through the void,
And set them in the sky as neighbouring stars.
Translation by A. D. Melville