266Happy in his son, happy in his wife was Peleus, a man to whom, if you take away the guilt of the murdered Phocus, everything had fallen. 268Guilty of a brother's blood and driven from his father's house, he is received by the land of Trachis. 270Here, without violence, without bloodshed, ruled Ceyx, sprung from Lucifer as his father and bearing his father's brightness in his face, who at that time, sorrowful and unlike himself, was mourning the loss of his brother. 274When the son of Aeacus, worn out with care and travel, came there and entered the city with a few companions, and had left the flocks of sheep and the herds of cattle which he was driving with him not far from the walls in a shady valley, as soon as he had his first chance of approaching the ruler, holding out the olive-branches in a suppliant hand, he tells him who he is and from whom he was born, only hides his crimes and lies about the reason for his flight: he asks him to help him with a city or with land.
282In reply the Trachinian addresses him with a calm face in these words: 'Our advantages lie open even to the common people, Peleus, and the kingdom we hold is not inhospitable. 285To this disposition of mine you add powerful influences, a famous name and Jupiter as your grandfather. 286Do not waste time in pleading! 287All that you ask you shall have, and call all this, whatever you see, in part your own! 288Would that you saw better things!' And he wept: Peleus and his companions ask what cause stirs such grief. 290To them he says: 'Perhaps you think that this bird, which lives on plunder and terrifies all birds, has always had feathers: he was keen, and fierce in war and ready for violence, Daedalion by name.
295We were sons of the father who summons the dawn and leaves the sky last; I cared for peace, my care was to keep the peace and my marriage, but my brother delighted in savage wars: his valour subdued kings and nations, and now, transformed, it harries the doves of Thisbe. 301To him had been born Chione. 301Richly dowered with beauty, she had a thousand suitors, ripe for marriage at twice seven years. 303By chance Phoebus and the son of Maia, returning, the one from his Delphi, the other from the peak of Cyllene, saw her at the same moment, and at the same moment caught the fire. 306Apollo puts off his hope of love until the hours of night; the other brooks no delay, and with his sleep-bringing wand touches the girl's face: at the potent touch she lies still and suffers the god's violence.
309Night had sprinkled the sky with stars: Phoebus takes the form of an old woman and enjoys the pleasures already snatched before him. 311When her ripened womb had fulfilled its time, from the stock of the wing-footed god is born a crafty offspring, Autolycus, ingenious at every kind of theft, who was used to making white from black and black from white, no unworthy heir to his father's art; 316born of Phoebus (for she bore twins) is Philammon, famed for his tuneful song and his cithara. 318What good is it to her to have borne two sons and to have pleased two gods, and to be sprung from a brave father and to have the Thunderer as ancestor?
320Or is glory too a harm? 320To many it has been a harm, to her certainly! 321She dared to set herself above Diana and found fault with the goddess's looks. 322But fierce anger was stirred in the goddess, and she said, 'With deeds, then, we shall please her.' 324Without delay she bent her bow, drove an arrow from the string and pierced with the shaft the tongue that had earned it. 326The tongue falls silent, neither voice nor the words she attempted follow, and as she tried to speak, life left her together with her blood. 328How wretchedly I then embraced her, and bore a father's grief in my heart, and spoke words of comfort to my loving brother!
330These words her father receives no differently than a crag receives the murmurs of the sea, and laments his daughter taken from him. 332But when he saw her burning, four times he made a rush to go into the midst of the pyre; 333four times driven back from there, he commits his frenzied limbs to flight and, like a bullock bearing the stings of hornets in its pressed neck, rushes where there is no path. 336Even then he seemed to me to run faster than a man, and you would have thought his feet had taken wings. 338So he escapes them all and, swift with desire for death, reaches the summit of Parnassus.
339Apollo, pitying him, when Daedalion had thrown himself from the high rock, made him a bird, lifted him on sudden wings as he hung there, and gave him a hooked mouth, gave him curved talons on his claws, his old courage, and strength greater than his body. 344And now, a hawk, kind to none, he rages against all birds, and in his own grief becomes a cause of grief to others.' 346While the son of Lucifer tells these wonders about his brother, the keeper of the herd, Onetor the Phocian, flies up, hurrying with panting speed, and 'Peleus, Peleus! 349I come to you as the messenger of a great disaster,' he says.
350Peleus bids him tell whatever he brings, and the Trachinian himself hangs in fear on his trembling lips.