352He tells them: 'I had driven the weary bullocks to the curving shore, when the Sun, at his highest in mid-course, looked back on as much as he saw still remained; 355and some of the cattle had sunk their knees on the tawny sand and, lying there, gazed on the expanse of the broad waters, some wandered with slow steps this way and that, others swim and stand out above the sea with necks held high. 359A temple lies close to the sea, bright with neither marble nor gold, but shadowy with dense timbers and an ancient grove. 361Nereids and Nereus hold it: a sailor of the sea declared that these were its gods, while he dried his nets on the shore.
363Joined to it is a marsh, thick with dense willows, which the overflowing wave of the sea has made a marsh. 365From there, with a heavy crashing, a huge beast terrifies the places nearby with its din, a wolf! 366And he comes out of the wet marshes, his jaws smeared with foam and spattered with blood, flashing like lightning, his eyes suffused with red flame. 369Though he rages with fury and hunger alike, he is fiercer in fury: for he does not care to end his fast and his dreadful hunger with slaughter of the cattle, but wounds the whole herd and lays it all low like an enemy. 373Some of us too, wounded by his deadly bite while we defended them, were given over to death.
374The shore and the edge of the sea are red with blood, and the marshes resound with bellowing. 375But delay is costly, and the situation leaves no room for hesitation: while something remains, let us all gather and take up arms, arms, and bring our weapons to bear together!' 379So the countryman had spoken; 379nor did the losses move Peleus, but, mindful of his crime, he gathers that the bereaved Nereid is sending these losses of his as offerings to the dead Phocus. 382The Oetaean king orders his men to put on armour and take up violent weapons; 383together with them he himself was preparing to go, but Alcyone his wife, roused by the uproar, rushes out and, her hair not yet fully arranged, throws that very hair into disorder and, flinging herself on her husband's neck, begs with words and tears that he send help without himself, and so save two lives in one.
389The son of Aeacus says to her: 'Lay aside, queen, your fair and loving fears! 390My gratitude for your offer is full. 391It does not please me that arms be taken up against this strange monster: the divinity of the sea must be worshipped.' 392There was a lofty tower, a beacon on the top of the citadel, a place welcome to weary ships. 394They climb up there and with groans look on the bulls strewn on the shore and the savage ravager, his mouth bloody, his long shaggy hair stained with blood. 397Then, stretching out his hands towards the shores of the open sea, Peleus prays to sea-blue Psamathe to end her anger and bring help; 399nor is she moved by the words of the son of Aeacus as he begs: it was Thetis, a suppliant for her husband, who won this pardon.
401But in truth the wolf, though called back from the fierce slaughter, persists, made savage by the sweetness of blood, until, as it clung to the neck of a mangled heifer, she changed it into marble. 404The body kept everything except its colour: the colour of the stone shows that it is no longer a wolf, that it need no longer be feared. 407Yet the fates do not allow the exiled Peleus to settle in this land: he goes, a wandering exile, to the Magnesians, and there receives from Haemonian Acastus purification for the killing.