750'Acis was the son of Faunus and a nymph, daughter of Symaethus, a great delight indeed to his father and his mother, but a greater one to me: for he had bound himself to me alone. 753He was handsome, and, with his sixteenth birthday passed, he had marked his tender cheeks with uncertain down. 755I pursued him, the Cyclops pursued me without end. 756And if you should ask whether hatred of the Cyclops or love of Acis was stronger in me, I shall tell you: both were equal. 758O how great is the power of your kingdom, kindly Venus! 759For that pitiless creature, dreaded even by the woods themselves, seen by no stranger with impunity, scorner of great Olympus along with its gods, felt what love is, and, seized by strong desire, he burns, forgetful of his flocks and his caves.
764And now you care about your looks, now you care about pleasing, now you comb your stiff hair with rakes, Polyphemus, now you like to cut your shaggy beard with a sickle, and to gaze at your fierce features in the water and compose them. 768The love of slaughter and the savagery and the boundless thirst for blood cease, and ships come and go in safety. 770Meanwhile Telemus, carried to Sicilian Etna, Telemus son of Eurymus, whom no bird had ever deceived, approaches terrible Polyphemus and says, 'The one eye that you bear in the middle of your forehead Ulysses will take from you!' 774He laughed and said, 'O stupidest of seers, you are mistaken: another has already taken it!' 775So he scorns the man who warns him truly, in vain, and either weighs down the shores, striding with his huge pace, or wearily returns into his shadowy caves.
778A wedge-shaped hill juts into the sea with a long point; the waves of the sea wash round both its sides; 780here the wild Cyclops climbed and sat down in the middle; his woolly flocks followed with no one leading them. 782After the pine, which served him as a staff, fit for carrying sail-yards, was laid before his feet, and he had taken up his pipe, fashioned from a hundred reeds, all the mountains felt his shepherd's whistling, the waves felt it; 786I, hiding behind a rock and resting in the lap of my Acis, caught such words far off with my ears and marked the words I heard: "Galatea, whiter than the leaf of the snowy privet, more blooming than the meadows, taller than the tall alder, more radiant than glass, more playful than a tender kid, smoother than shells worn by the constant sea, more pleasing than winter suns and summer shade, nobler than fruit, more striking than the tall plane-tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than ripe grapes, softer than swan's down and curdled milk, and the same Galatea fiercer than untamed heifers, harder than an aged oak, more deceitful than the waves, tougher than willow twigs and white vines, more immovable than these crags, more violent than a river, prouder than a praised peacock, fiercer than fire, sharper than thorns, more savage than a bear with young, deafer than the seas, more pitiless than a trodden snake, and, what above all I would wish I could take from you — 806swifter in flight not only than a deer driven by loud barking, but even than the winds and the fleeting breeze!
808But if you knew me well, you would regret having fled, and would yourself condemn your delays and strive to keep me. 810I have caves, part of the mountain, hollowed in the living rock, in which neither the sun is felt in midsummer heat, nor is winter felt; 812there are apples weighing down the branches, there are grapes like gold on long vines, and purple ones too: for you I keep both these and those. 815With your own hands you will pick soft strawberries grown beneath the woodland shade, you yourself autumn cornels and plums, not only those dark with black juice but also the choice kinds that imitate new wax.
819Nor, with me as your husband, will chestnuts be lacking for you, nor the fruit of the strawberry-tree: every tree will serve you. 821All this flock is mine; many also wander in the valleys, many the wood hides, many are stabled in the caves. 823Nor, if by chance you asked, could I tell you how many there are: it is for a poor man to count his flock! 824As for their merits, believe nothing from me: you can see for yourself in person how they can scarcely walk around their udders swelling between their legs. 827There are lambs, a younger brood, in warm folds, and there are kids too, of equal age, in other folds.
829I always have snowy milk: part of it is kept for drinking, part is hardened by the rennet dissolved in it. 831Nor will easy delights and only common gifts fall to you, does and hares and a goat, or a pair of doves or a nest taken from a treetop: I have found twins, which could play with you, so like each other that you could scarcely tell them apart, the cubs of a shaggy bear on the mountain tops; I found them and said, 'We shall keep these for our mistress!' 838Now only lift your shining head from the blue sea, now, Galatea, come, and do not despise my gifts.
840Surely I know myself, and lately I saw myself in the reflection of clear water, and my form pleased me as I looked. 842Look how big I am! 842Jupiter in the sky is not larger than this body: for you are always saying that some Jove or other reigns there. 844A mass of hair juts over my grim face and shades my shoulders like a grove. 846And do not think it ugly that my body bristles thick with stiff hairs: ugly is a tree without leaves, ugly a horse, unless a golden mane veils its neck; 850beards and shaggy bristles on the body become men. 851I have one eye in the middle of my forehead, but it is like a huge shield.
852What? 852does not the great Sun see all these things from the sky? 853Yet the Sun has but one orb! 854Add that my father reigns in your sea: him I give you as father-in-law; 855only take pity and hear a suppliant's prayers! 856for to you alone I yield. 857I who scorn Jupiter and heaven and the piercing thunderbolt, I revere you, daughter of Nereus: your anger is fiercer than the thunderbolt. 858— And I would be more patient of this contempt if you fled from everyone; 860but why, rejecting the Cyclops, do you love Acis, and prefer Acis to my embraces? 862Let him, though, please himself, and let him please you too, Galatea, which I would not wish; 863only let me have the chance, and he will find that I have strength to match so great a body!
865I shall tear out his living entrails and scatter his torn limbs over the fields and over your waves (so may he be joined with you!). 867For I burn, and the fire, provoked, rages more fiercely, and I seem to carry Etna, transferred with all its force, in my breast: and you, Galatea, are not moved." 870Having complained thus in vain (for I saw everything), he rises, and like a bull raging when his heifer is taken away, he cannot stand still and wanders through the wood and the familiar glades: when, wild, he sees me and Acis, unaware and fearing no such thing, and cries, "I see you, and I shall make this the last meeting of your love!"
876And that voice was as great as an angry Cyclops ought to have: Etna shuddered at the shout. 878But I, terrified, plunge beneath the neighbouring sea; the Symaethian hero had turned his back in flight, and "Bring help, Galatea, I pray, to me! 880help me, parents," he had said, "and admit me, about to die, into your kingdoms!" 882The Cyclops pursues and hurls a piece torn from the mountain, and though only the very corner of the mass reached him, it buried the whole of Acis. 885But we did what alone the fates allowed to be done: we made Acis take on his ancestral powers. 887Crimson blood was trickling from the mass, and within a short time its redness began to vanish, and it becomes the colour of a river troubled by the first rain, and is cleared with time; 890then the mass, at a touch, splits open, and a living, tall reed rises through the cracks, and the hollow mouth of the rock resounds with leaping waters: and, a marvellous thing, suddenly a youth stood out as far as the middle of his belly, his new horns wreathed with bending reeds, who, except that he was larger, and blue over all his face, was Acis.
896But even so he was still Acis, turned into a river, and the stream has kept his ancient name.'