138The first cause of grief for you, Cadmus, amid so much prosperity was a grandson, and the alien horns added to his brow, and you, hounds, glutted with your master's blood. 141But if you inquire well, you will find in him the fault of fortune, not a crime: for what crime did a mistake contain? 143There was a mountain stained with the slaughter of many kinds of beasts; 144and now midday had drawn in the shadows of things, and the sun was equally distant from either goal, when the young Hyantian with calm voice addresses the partners of his labours as they wandered through the trackless haunts: 'Our nets are wet, comrades, and our iron, with the blood of beasts, and the day has had luck enough.
149When another Aurora, borne on saffron wheels, brings back the light, we shall resume the work we have planned; 151now Phoebus is the same distance from both lands and splits the fields with his heat. 153Stop the present work and take up the knotted nets.' 154The men do as ordered and break off their labour. 155There was a valley thick with pitch-pines and pointed cypress, Gargaphie by name, sacred to high-girt Diana. 157In its farthest recess is a woodland cave, wrought by no art: nature had imitated art by her own genius; 159for she had fashioned a natural arch out of living pumice and light tufa. 161A spring babbles on the right, clear with its slender stream, its wide basin girded with a grassy rim.
163Here the goddess of the woods, weary from hunting, used to bathe her virgin limbs in the liquid water. 165When she had come in there, she handed to one of the nymphs, her armour-bearer, her javelin, her quiver and her unstrung bow; 167another put her arms under the robe she had laid aside, two remove the sandals from her feet; 168for Ismenian Crocale, more skilled than they, gathers the hair scattered over her neck into a knot, although her own was loose. 171Nephele and Hyale and Rhanis and Psecas and Phiale draw the water and pour it from capacious urns. 173And while the Titanian goddess is being bathed there in her accustomed water, look, Cadmus' grandson, having put off part of his labours, wandering with uncertain steps through the unknown wood, comes into the grove: so the fates were bearing him on.
177As soon as he entered the cave wet with springs, the nymphs, naked as they were, at the sight of a man beat their breasts and filled the whole grove with sudden shrieks, and pouring round Diana covered her with their bodies; 181yet the goddess herself is taller than they and stands above them all by a neck. 183The colour that clouds usually have when struck by the opposing sun's rays, or rosy dawn, was the colour in the face of Diana seen without her clothes. 186Although she was surrounded by the crowd of her companions, she yet stood turned sideways and bent her face back, and as she would have liked to have her arrows ready, so she scooped up what she had, water, and drenched the man's face, and sprinkling his hair with the avenging waters she added these words, foretelling the coming disaster: 'Now you may tell that you saw me with my clothing laid aside, if you are able to tell.' 193Threatening no more, she gives the sprinkled head the horns of a long-lived stag, gives length to his neck and sharpens the tops of his ears, changes his hands into feet, his arms into long legs, and clothes his body in a dappled hide.
198Fear too was added. 198The hero, son of Autonoe, flees, and marvels that he is so swift in the very running. 200But when he saw his face and horns in the water, 'Ah, wretched me!' 201he was about to say: no voice followed. 202He groaned: that was his voice, and tears flowed down a face not his own; 203only his former mind remained. 204What is he to do? 204Should he go back home to the royal palace, or hide in the woods? 205shame prevents the one, fear the other. 206While he hesitates, the hounds saw him. 206And first Melampus and keen-nosed Ichnobates gave the signal by barking, Ichnobates of Cnossos, Melampus of Spartan breed.
209Then the others rush on, swifter than the rapid wind, Pamphagus and Dorceus and Oribasus, all Arcadians, and strong Nebrophonus and savage Theron with Laelaps, and Pterelas useful for his feet and Agre for her nose, and fierce Hylaeus, lately gashed by a boar, and Nape, conceived of a wolf, and Poemenis, who had followed flocks, and Harpyia accompanied by her two pups, and Sicyonian Ladon with his slender flanks, and Dromas and Canache and Sticte and Tigris and Alce, and Leucon with snowy and Asbolus with black coat, and mighty Lacon and Aello strong in running, and Thous and swift Lycisce with her Cyprian brother, and Harpalos, his black forehead marked in the middle with white, and Melaneus and Lachne with shaggy body, and Labros and Argiodus, born of a Dictaean father but a Laconian mother, and Hylactor of the shrill voice, and others whom it would take too long to name.
225That pack, in their greed for prey, follow over rocks and crags and cliffs lacking access, where the way is hard and where there is no way. 228He flees through places where he had often pursued; alas, he flees his own servants. 229He longed to shout, 'I am Actaeon, recognise your master!' 231Words fail his will: the air resounds with barking. 232Melanchaetes made the first wounds in his back, Therodamas the next, Oresitrophus fastened on his shoulder: they had set out later, but by a short cut over the mountain they got ahead on the way. 235While they hold their master, the rest of the pack gathers and plunges their teeth into his body.
237Now there is no room left for wounds. 237He groans, and has a sound which, though not a man's, is yet one that no stag could utter, and fills the familiar ridges with sad laments. 240And on bent knees like a suppliant, like one entreating, he turns his silent face around as if it were his arms. 242But his comrades, not knowing, urge on the swift pack with the usual cries, look round for Actaeon with their eyes, and vie in calling 'Actaeon!' as if he were absent (at the name he turns his head), and complain that he is away and, slothful, does not see the spectacle of the prey presented.
247He would indeed wish to be away, but he is present; 247and he would wish to see, not also to feel, the savage deeds of his own hounds. 249They stand round on every side and, sinking their muzzles in his body, tear apart their master in the guise of a false stag.