698Iphis, born of humble stock, had seen Anaxarete, noble from the blood of ancient Teucer; he had seen her and had felt the fire through all his bones, and after struggling long, when he could not conquer his passion by reason, he came as a suppliant to her doors, and now, having confessed his wretched love to her nurse, he begged her by her hopes for her nursling not to be harsh to him, and now, flattering each one of her many servants, he sought their favour with an anxious voice; 707often he gave them his words to carry on coaxing tablets; sometimes he hung garlands wet with the dew of tears on her doorposts, and laid his soft side on the hard threshold, and uttered reproaches against the cruel bolt.
711She, crueller than the sea rising at the setting of the Kids, harder than iron which the Norican fire refines, and than rock which is still held living by its root, scorns and mocks him, and to her merciless deeds fiercely adds proud words, and cheats her lover even of hope. 716Unable to bear the torments of long suffering, Iphis spoke these last words before her doors: "You win, Anaxarete, and at last you will have no weariness of me to bear: prepare joyful triumphs and call on Paean and wreathe yourself with shining laurel! 721For you win, and I die gladly: come, woman of iron, rejoice! 722Surely you will be compelled to praise something in my love; yet remember that my care for you did not leave me before my life did, and I must lose both lights at once.
726Nor will rumour come to you as the messenger of my death: I myself, do not doubt it, will be there and be seen in person, so that you may feast your cruel eyes on my lifeless body. 729Yet if, gods above, you see mortal deeds, remember me (my tongue can bear to pray no further), and grant that I be told of in a long age to come, and give to my fame the time you have taken from my life!" 733He spoke, and, raising his moist eyes and pale arms to the doorposts often adorned with his garlands, as he fastened the bonds of a noose to the top of the doors, "Do these garlands please you, cruel and unnatural woman?"
736he said, and put his head in, but even then turned towards her, and hung, a wretched weight, with his throat crushed. 739The door, struck by the movement of his feet and opened, revealed the deed. 741The servants cry out and, lifting him down in vain, carry him (for his father had died) to his mother's door; 743she takes him in her lap and, embracing the cold limbs of her son, after she had uttered the words of wretched parents and performed the acts of wretched mothers, she was leading the funeral in tears through the middle of the city, and carrying the pallid limbs on a bier to be burned.
748By chance there was a house near the road along which the mournful procession went, and the sound of the beating of breasts came to the ears of hard Anaxarete, whom an avenging god was already driving: moved, she said, "Still, let us see the pitiful funeral," and went up to a lofty room with wide windows; 753and scarcely had she looked out on Iphis laid on the bier when her eyes stiffened, and the warm blood fled from her body as pallor spread over it, and, trying to step backwards, she stuck fast; trying to turn away her face, this too she could not do, and gradually the stone which had long been in her hard heart takes over her limbs.
759And so that you may not think this invented, Salamis still keeps a statue in the likeness of the lady: it also has a temple under the name of Venus Who Looks Forth. 761— Mindful of these things, O my dear, put aside, I pray, your stubborn pride, and unite with your lover, nymph. 763So may no spring frost nip your budding fruit, nor swift winds shake off your blossoms!' When the god, apt for any form, had uttered these words in vain in an old woman's shape, he returned to a youth and took off the old woman's trappings, and appeared to her just as when the sun's most brilliant image has conquered the opposing clouds and shone out again with nothing in its way; and he makes ready to use force: but there is no need of force, and the nymph is captured by the god's form and felt answering wounds.