531The gods of the sea had nodded assent: Saturn's daughter enters the clear ether in her nimble chariot drawn by painted peacocks, peacocks painted as recently as Argus was slain, as recently as you, talkative raven, though before you had been white, were suddenly turned to black wings. 536For this bird was once silvery, with snowy feathers, so that it equalled doves wholly without a stain, and did not yield to the geese that would save the Capitol with their watchful cry, nor to the swan that loves rivers. 540His tongue was his ruin; 540because of his talkative tongue, the colour that was white is now the opposite of white.
542In all Haemonia there was none more beautiful than Coronis of Larisa: she pleased you, Delphic god, certainly, so long as she was either chaste or unwatched. 544But Phoebus' bird perceived the adultery, and, an informer not to be moved by entreaty, was making his way to his master to reveal the hidden fault. 547The chattering crow follows him on beating wings, to learn everything, and, having heard the reason for his journey, says, 'It is no profitable road you take: do not despise the warnings of my tongue. 551See what I was and what I am, and ask what I deserved: you will find that loyalty did me harm.
552For once upon a time Pallas had shut Erichthonius, a child born without a mother, in a box woven of Attic osier, and had given it to the three maidens born of two-formed Cecrops, with the rule that they should not look at its secret. 557Hidden by light leaves, I watched from a dense elm what they would do. 558Two keep the trust without deceit, Pandrosos and Herse; 559one, Aglauros, calls her sisters timid and undoes the knots with her hand, and inside they see an infant and a serpent stretched out beside him. 562I report what was done to the goddess. 562For this such thanks are returned to me that I am said to be driven from Minerva's protection and am placed below the bird of night.
564My punishment may warn birds not to seek dangers with their voice. 566But, I suppose, she did not seek me out of her own accord, when I was asking for nothing of the kind? 567You may ask Pallas herself: though she is angry, angry as she is, she will not deny this. 569For famous Coroneus begot me in the land of Phocis (I speak of known things), and I was a royal maiden and was courted by rich suitors (do not despise me). 572My beauty harmed me. 572For when I was strolling with slow steps, as I do, along the shore on the top of the sand, the god of the sea saw me and grew hot; 574and when he had wasted time in pleading with coaxing words to no purpose, he prepares force and pursues me.
576I flee, and leave the firm shore, and wear myself out in vain on the soft sand. 578Then I call on gods and men; 578and my voice reached no mortal: a maiden was moved for a maiden and brought help. 580I was stretching my arms to the sky: my arms began to grow dark with light feathers. 582I struggled to throw my robe off my shoulders: but it was plumage and had driven its roots deep into my skin. 584I tried to beat my bare breast with my palms: but I no longer had either palms or a bare breast. 586I ran: and the sand did not hold back my feet as before, but I was lifted from the surface of the ground.
587Soon I am borne high through the air and given to Minerva as a blameless companion. 589Yet what good is this, if Nyctimene, made a bird for a dreadful crime, has succeeded to my honour? 591Or has the story, which is very well known through all Lesbos, not been heard by you, that Nyctimene defiled her father's bed? 593She is a bird indeed, but conscious of her guilt she flees sight and light, and hides her shame in darkness, and is driven by all from the whole sky.' 596To her as she says such things, 'May these warnings of yours, I pray,' says the raven, 'bring harm on you: I scorn an empty omen.' 598Nor does he abandon the journey he has begun, and he tells his master that he has seen Coronis lying with a Haemonian youth.
600When the lover heard of the crime, his laurel wreath slipped off, and at the same moment the god's expression and plectrum and colour fell. 602And as his spirit was seething with swelling anger, he seizes his accustomed weapons, draws the bow, curved at its tips, and pierced with an unavoidable arrow that breast which had so often been joined to his own. 606Struck, she gave a groan, and, as the iron was drawn from her body, she drenched her white limbs with crimson blood, and said, 'I could have paid the penalty to you, Phoebus, but given birth first: now two of us will die in one.' 610So much she said, and with her blood she poured out her life.
611Her body, empty of soul, was overtaken by the chill of death. 612Too late, alas, the lover regrets his cruel punishment, and hates himself for having listened, for having blazed up so; 614he hates the bird through whom he had been forced to learn of the crime and the cause of his grief, and he hates his bow and his hand as well, and with his hand those rash weapons, the arrows, and he cherishes her fallen body and strives to overcome fate with help that comes too late, and practises his healing arts in vain. 619When these had been tried in vain, and he saw the pyre being prepared and her limbs about to burn in the final fire, then indeed he uttered groans drawn from deep in his heart (for heavenly faces may not be wet with tears), just as when, while a heifer looks on, the mallet, poised from beside the right ear, shatters with a ringing blow the hollow temples of her suckling calf.
626Yet when he had poured unwelcome perfumes on her breast, and given her embraces, and performed the unjust rites that are her due, Phoebus did not allow his own seed to fall into the same ashes, but snatched his son from the flames and from his mother's womb and carried him to the cave of two-formed Chiron; 631and the raven, who hoped for a reward for his truthful tongue, he forbade to stay among white birds.