708From here the bearer of the caduceus had lifted himself on balanced wings, and in his flight he was looking down on the fields of Munychia and the land dear to Minerva and the groves of the cultivated Lyceum. 711That day, as it happened, chaste maidens, according to custom, were carrying pure offerings on their heads in garlanded baskets to the festive citadel of Pallas. 714The winged god sees them as they return from there, and does not drive his course straight on, but bends it round in the same circle. 716As the kite, swiftest of birds, having seen the entrails, while he is afraid and the attendants stand thick around the sacrifice, wheels in a circle and does not dare to go further away, and greedily flies round his hope on beating wings, so the nimble Cyllenian slants his course above the Attic citadel and circles in the same air.
722As much as Lucifer shines more brightly than the other stars, and as much as golden Phoebe outshines Lucifer, so much more outstanding than all the maidens did Herse walk, and she was the glory of the procession and of her companions. 726Jupiter's son was struck by her beauty, and, hanging in the ether, he blazed up just as when a Balearic sling hurls a lead shot: it flies and grows hot as it goes and finds beneath the clouds fires that it did not have. 730He turns his course and, leaving the sky, makes for the earth, and does not disguise himself: so great is his confidence in his looks.
732Though that confidence is justified, he still aids his looks with care, and smooths his hair and arranges his cloak so that it hangs neatly, so that the border and all the gold show, so that the wand in his right hand, with which he brings and banishes sleep, is smooth, so that his winged sandals shine on his polished feet. 737A secluded part of the house had three bedchambers adorned with ivory and tortoiseshell: of these you, Pandrosos, had the right, Aglauros the left, and Herse the middle. 740She who held the left was the first to notice Mercury coming, and dared to ask the god's name and the reason for his coming.
742To her the grandson of Atlas and Pleione replied thus: 'I am he who carries my father's commands through the air: my father is Jupiter himself. 745Nor will I invent reasons; 745only be willing to be loyal to your sister and to be called the aunt of my offspring. 747Herse is the reason for my journey. 747I beg you to favour a lover.' 748Aglauros looks at him with the same eyes with which she had lately seen the hidden secret of golden-haired Minerva, and for her service demands from him gold of great weight: meanwhile she forces him to leave the house. 752The warrior goddess turned the orb of her grim eye on her and drew sighs from so deep within and with such violence that she shook both her breast and the aegis set on her strong breast.
755It comes to her mind that this girl had uncovered the secret with profane hand at the time when, against the agreement made, she saw the offspring of the Lemnos-dweller created without a mother, and that she would now be pleasing to the god and pleasing to her sister, and rich, having taken the gold she had greedily demanded. 760At once she makes for the house of Envy, filthy with black gore. 761Her house is hidden deep in the valleys, lacking sun, open to no wind, gloomy and full of numbing cold, and such as is always without fire and always abounds in darkness. 765When the maiden dreaded in war arrived here, she stood before the house (for she has no right to enter the dwelling) and strikes the doorposts with the tip of her spear.
768Struck, the doors flew open. 768She sees within Envy, eating vipers' flesh, the nourishment of her vices, and at the sight turns away her eyes. 770But Envy rises sluggishly from the ground and leaves the bodies of the half-eaten snakes, and comes forward with listless pace; 773and when she saw the goddess, splendid in beauty and in arms, she groaned and drew her face down into deep sighs. 775Pallor sits on her face, leanness in all her body, her gaze is never straight, her teeth are livid with rust, her breast is green with bile, her tongue is suffused with poison. 778Laughter is absent, except what the sight of suffering has stirred.
779Nor does she enjoy sleep, roused by wakeful cares, but she sees men's successes, unwelcome to her, and wastes away in seeing them, and she gnaws and is gnawed at once, and is her own punishment. 782Yet, though she hated her, the Tritonian goddess addressed her briefly in such words: 'Infect one of Cecrops' daughters with your poison. 785This is what is needed. 785It is Aglauros.' 785Saying no more, she fled and pushed off from the earth with her spear pressed into it. 787Envy, watching the goddess fleeing with a sidelong glance, gave little murmurs, and grieved at Minerva's coming success, and takes up her staff, which bands of thorns encircled all over, and, wrapped in black clouds, wherever she goes she tramples the flowering fields and burns up the grass and plucks the tops of the plants, and with her breath pollutes peoples and cities and homes.
794And at last she catches sight of the Tritonian citadel, flourishing with talents and wealth and festive peace, and scarcely holds back her tears because she sees nothing worth tears. 797But after she entered the chambers of Cecrops' daughter, she carries out her orders, and touches her breast with a hand stained with rust, and fills her heart with hooked thorns, and breathes a harmful venom into her, and disperses pitch-black poison through her bones and sprinkles it in the middle of her lungs. 802And so that the causes of the evil may not wander over too wide a space, she sets before her eyes her sister and her sister's fortunate marriage and the god in his beautiful form, and makes everything great.
805Provoked by these things, Cecrops' daughter is gnawed by hidden pain, and, anxious by night, anxious by day, she groans, and in utter misery melts with a slow wasting, like ice struck by a fitful sun. 809She burns at the blessings of happy Herse no more gently than when fire is put under thorny weeds, which give no flames and are consumed by a gentle heat. 812Often she wanted to die, so as not to see any such thing, often to tell it, as if it were a crime, to her stern father; 814at last she sat down on the threshold facing him, to shut out the god as he came.
815When he offered coaxing words and prayers and the gentlest speech, she said, 'Stop: I will not move myself from here until you have been driven off.' 818'Let us stand by that agreement,' says the swift Cyllenian, and he opened the doors with his heavenly wand. 819But when she tried to rise, the parts which we bend in sitting could not move for a sluggish heaviness. 822She indeed struggles to raise herself with her trunk upright, but the joints of her knees are stiff, and a chill glides through her groin, and her veins harden as the blood is lost. 825And as an incurable cancer is wont to creep widely and add unharmed parts to those infected, so a deadly winter gradually came into her breast and closed the passages of life and breath.
829Nor did she try to speak, nor, had she tried, did her voice have a path: stone now held her neck, her face had hardened, and she sat, a bloodless statue. 832Nor was the stone white: her mind had stained it.