320Picus, offspring of Saturn, was king in the Ausonian lands, devoted to horses useful in war; 322the man had the beauty you see: you may yourself behold his grace, and approve the true form from the fashioned likeness. 324His spirit matched his beauty; 324nor had he yet been able to see four times the contest held every fifth year at Greek Elis. 326He had turned the eyes of the dryads born on the Latin hills towards himself; the fountain deities sought him, the naiads whom the Albula bore, and those of the Numicius, those of the Anio's waters, and the Almo, shortest in its course, and headlong Nar, and the Farfarus of dark shade, and those who haunt the woodland lake of Scythian Diana and the neighbouring lakes; 332yet, scorning them all, he courts one nymph, whom Venilia is said once to have borne to Ionian Janus on the Palatine hill.
335When she first came to ripeness in marriageable years, she was given to Laurentine Picus, preferred to all; rare indeed in beauty, but rarer in the art of singing, whence she was called Canens: she used to move woods and rocks, and soothe wild beasts, and stay long rivers with her voice, and hold back wandering birds. 341While she was singing songs in her womanly voice, Picus had gone out from his house into the Laurentine fields to spear the native boars, and was riding the back of a spirited horse, and carried two spears in his left hand, wearing a purple cloak fastened with tawny gold. 346The daughter of the Sun too had come into the same woods, and to gather new herbs on the fertile hills she had left the fields called Circaean after her name.
349As soon as, hidden in the thickets, she saw the young man, she was stunned: the herbs she had gathered fell from her hand, and a flame seemed to run through all her marrow. 352As soon as she gathered her wits from the strong heat, she was about to confess what she desired: the speed of his horse and the attendants crowding round prevented her from being able to approach. 355'You will not escape me,' she said, 'though the wind snatch you away, if only I know myself, if all the power of herbs has not vanished and my spells do not deceive me.' 358She spoke, and fashioned the phantom of an unreal boar, with no body, and ordered it to run past the king's eyes and to seem to go into a grove thick with trees, where the wood is densest and the places are not passable for a horse.
362No delay: at once Picus, unaware, makes for the shadow of the prey, and swiftly leaves the foaming back of his horse, and, following an empty hope, wanders on foot in the deep wood. 365She frames prayers and speaks words of prayer, and worships unknown gods with an unknown spell, by which she is wont both to darken the face of the snow-white Moon and to draw thirsty clouds beneath her father's head. 369Then too, at the chanting of the spell, the sky thickens, and the ground breathes out mists, and his companions wander on blind paths, and the king's guard is gone. 372Having found place and time, she said, 'By your eyes, which captured mine, and by this beauty, most handsome one, which makes me, a goddess, a suppliant to you, have regard for my fires and accept the all-seeing Sun as your father-in-law, and do not be hard and spurn Circe, the Titan's daughter!' 377She had spoken.
377Fiercely he rejects both her and her prayers, and says, 'Whoever you are, I am not yours: another holds me captive, and may she hold me through long ages, I pray! 380Nor will I wrong the bonds of marriage with a stranger's love, so long as the fates preserve for me Canens, daughter of Janus!' 382Having often renewed her prayers in vain, the Titan's daughter said, 'You will not go unpunished, nor will you be returned to Canens, and you will learn what one who is wronged, what a lover, what a woman can do.' 386Then twice she turned herself to the west, twice to the east, three times she touched the young man with her staff, three spells she chanted.
388He flees, but marvels that he runs faster than usual: he saw feathers on his body, and, indignant that he was suddenly joining the Latin woods as a new bird, he strikes the wild oaks with his hard beak and in anger deals wounds to the long branches. 393His feathers took on the purple colour of his cloak; the gold that had been a brooch and had pinned his garment becomes plumage, and his neck is ringed with tawny gold, and nothing of the old remains to Picus except his name. 397Meanwhile his companions, having called Picus often through the fields in vain and found him nowhere, find Circe (for she had now thinned the air and allowed the mists to be opened up by the winds and the sun), and they press her with true accusations and demand back their king and offer violence and prepare to attack her with savage weapons.
403She sprinkles harmful poison and venomous juices, and summons Night and the gods of night from Erebus and Chaos, and prays to Hecate with long howls: the woods leapt from their place (wondrous to tell), and the ground groaned, and the nearby tree grew pale, and the grass, sprinkled, grew wet with drops of blood, and stones seemed to utter hoarse bellows, and dogs seem to bark, and the ground to crawl with black serpents, and thin spirits to flit about. 412The crowd, stunned, trembles at the portents: as they tremble she touched their marvelling faces with her poisoned wand, and at its touch monstrous shapes of various beasts come upon the young men: no one kept his own appearance.
416The setting sun had sprinkled the Tartessian shores, and her husband had been awaited in vain by the eyes and heart of Canens: servants and people run about through all the woods and carry torches to meet him; 420nor is it enough for the nymph to weep and tear her hair and beat her breast (though she does all these), but she rushes out and wanders frantic through the Latin fields. 423Six nights and as many returning lights of the sun saw her going, without sleep or food, over ridges, through valleys, wherever chance led. 426The Tiber saw her last, weary with grief and with the road, and now laying her body down on his long bank.
428There, with tears, grieving, she was pouring out words set to the tune of her very pain in a faint voice, as at times the dying swan sings its funeral songs. 431At last, her tender marrow melted by grief, she wasted away and gradually vanished into thin air; 433yet her story is marked in the place, which the ancient Camenae rightly called Canens from the nymph's name." 435Many such things were told to me and seen by me through the long year. 436Sluggish and slow from lack of practice, we are ordered to go to sea again, to set sail again. 438And the Titan's daughter had told us of the uncertain ways and the vast journey, and that the perils of the savage sea still remained.
440I was terrified, I confess, and having reached this shore, I clung to it.'