466The wife of the great Thunderer had long since perceived this, and had postponed her severe punishment to a fitting time. 468There is no reason for delay, and now a boy, Arcas (this very thing pained Juno), had been born of the mistress. 470As soon as she turned her savage mind and her gaze on him, she said, 'This, of course, was all that remained, adulteress, that you should be fruitful, and the wrong be made known by the birth, and the disgrace of my Jupiter be attested. 474You will not go unpunished: I shall take away from you that beauty with which you please yourself and please my husband, you shameless girl.' 476She spoke, and seizing her by the hair at the front of her head, threw her face down on the ground.
477She was stretching out her arms in supplication: her arms began to bristle with black hair, and her hands to curve and grow into hooked claws and perform the office of feet, and the face once praised by Jupiter to become ugly with wide jaws. 482And lest her prayers and pleading words should sway hearts, the power of speech is taken from her; 483an angry, threatening voice full of terror comes from her hoarse throat. 485Yet her former mind remained even when she had become a bear, and, testifying to her sufferings with constant groans, she raises such hands as she has towards the sky and stars, and feels Jupiter's ingratitude, though she cannot say so.
489Ah, how often, not daring to rest in the lonely wood, she wandered before her house and in the fields that were once hers! 491Ah, how often she was driven over the rocks by the barking of hounds, and the huntress fled, terrified with fear of the hunters! 493Often she hid at the sight of wild beasts, forgetting what she was, and, a bear herself, shuddered at bears seen on the mountains, and feared wolves, though her father was among them. 496Look, Arcas, the offspring of Lycaon's daughter, ignorant of his parent, is here, with about fifteen birthdays passed: and while he follows wild beasts, while he chooses suitable glades and surrounds the Erymanthian woods with woven nets, he comes upon his mother; 500she stood still at the sight of Arcas, and was like one who recognised him.
501He shrank back, and, not knowing, feared her as she kept her unmoving eyes fixed on him without end, and as she longed to come nearer he was about to pierce her breast with his wounding spear. 505The almighty prevented it, and removed both them and the crime together, and, carrying them through the void in a swift wind, set them in the sky and made them neighbouring stars. 508Juno swelled with rage when the mistress shone among the stars, and she went down into the sea to white-haired Tethys and old Oceanus, reverence for whom has often moved the gods, and when they ask the reason for her journey she begins: 'Do you ask why I, the queen of the gods, am here from my heavenly seat?
513Another holds heaven in my place. 514Call me a liar if, when night has made the world dark, you do not see stars lately honoured in highest heaven, my wounds, there where the last circle, the shortest in extent, encircles the end of the axis. 518Is there indeed any reason why anyone should shrink from wounding Juno, or tremble at her anger, when I alone do good by doing harm? 520Oh, what great things I have achieved! 520How vast my power is! 521I forbade her to be human: she has become a goddess. 521This is how I impose punishment on the guilty, this is how great my power is. 523Let him restore her former appearance and take away her beastly face, as he did before with Argive Phoronis.
525Why does he not drive Juno out and marry her, and place her in my bedchamber, and take Lycaon as his father-in-law? 527But you, if the insult to your wronged foster-child touches you, keep the seven Plough-oxen from your sea-blue waters, and drive away the stars received into heaven as the price of adultery, so that the mistress may not be dipped in your pure waters.'