271She had finished, and the wonderful deed had captured their ears. 272Some say it could not have happened, some recall that true gods can do all things: but Bacchus is not among them. 274Alcithoe is called on, after her sisters fell silent. 275Running the shuttle through the threads of the standing loom, she said: 'I say nothing of the well-known love of Daphnis, the shepherd of Ida, whom a nymph, in anger at her rival, turned to stone (so great is the pain that burns lovers). 279Nor do I tell how once, the law of nature made new, Sithon was of doubtful sex, now a man, now a woman. 281You too, Celmis, now adamant, once most faithful to Jupiter when he was small, and the Curetes, sprung from an abundant shower, and Crocus, turned into tiny flowers along with Smilax, I pass over, and I shall hold your minds with sweet novelty.
285Why Salmacis is ill-famed, why with its enfeebling waters it unmans and softens the limbs it touches, learn. 287The cause is hidden; the power of the spring is very well known. 288A boy born to Mercury and the Cytherean goddess was reared by naiads in the caves of Ida; 290his was a face in which both mother and father could be recognised; 291his name too he drew from them. 292As soon as he had completed three times five years, he left his native mountains and, Ida his nurse abandoned, delighted to wander in unknown places and to see unknown rivers, his eagerness lessening the toil. 296He even reaches the cities of Lycia and the Carians, neighbours of Lycia.
297Here he sees a pool of water shining clear right to the very bottom. 298There are no marsh reeds there, no barren sedge, no sharp-pointed rushes: the water is transparent; 300yet the edges of the pool are ringed with living turf and with grass that is always green. 302A nymph dwells there, but one not suited to hunting, nor accustomed to bend the bow nor to compete in running, the only one of the naiads not known to swift Diana. 305It is said that her sisters often told her: 'Salmacis, take up either a javelin or a painted quiver, and mix your leisure with hard hunting.' 308She takes up neither javelin nor painted quiver, nor mixes her leisure with hard hunting, but now bathes her lovely limbs in her own spring, often draws a comb of Cytorian boxwood through her hair, and consults the waters she gazes into as to what becomes her; 313now, her body wrapped in a transparent robe, she reclines on soft leaves or soft grass; 315often she gathers flowers.
315And then too by chance she was gathering them, when she saw the boy and, having seen him, longed to have him. 317Yet she did not approach him, though she was eager to approach, before she had composed herself, before she had looked over her clothes, and arranged her face, and deserved to seem beautiful. 320Then she began to speak thus: 'O boy, most worthy to be believed a god, if you are a god, you may be Cupid, or if you are mortal, blessed are those who begot you, and happy your brother, and fortunate indeed your sister, if you have one, and the nurse who gave you the breast: but far, far more blessed than all is she, if you have a bride, if you will deem anyone worthy of the wedding torch.
327If you have one, let mine be a stolen pleasure; or if you have none, let me be she, and let us enter the same bridal chamber.' 329After these words the naiad was silent. 329A blush marked the boy's face (for he does not know what love is), but even blushing became him. 331This is the colour of apples hanging on a sunny tree, or of tinted ivory, or of the moon reddening beneath her whiteness, when the helping bronzes clash in vain. 334As the nymph begged endlessly for kisses, a sister's at least, and was already reaching her hands to his ivory neck, 'Will you stop? 336Or I shall run away,' he says, 'and leave all this to you.' 337Salmacis took fright and, 'I yield this place to you freely, stranger,' she says, and pretends to walk away with her steps turned back, even then looking back, and hid in a thicket of shrubs, concealed, and sank down on bended knee.
340But he, as if, of course, unobserved and alone on the empty grass, walks here and from here to there, and in the playful waves dips the tips of his feet and then his feet up to the ankle; 344and without delay, captivated by the mildness of the caressing waters, he takes the soft garments from his tender body. 346Then indeed he pleased her, and Salmacis was set ablaze with desire for his naked form: the nymph's eyes blaze too, just as when Phoebus, brightest with his clear disc, is reflected by the image of a mirror set opposite. 350She can scarcely bear delay, scarcely now put off her joys; now she longs to embrace him, now, frantic, she can barely restrain herself.
352He, slapping his body with hollow palms, leaps swiftly into the water and, drawing his arms in alternate strokes, gleams through the clear water, as if someone were to encase ivory figures or white lilies in clear glass. 356'I have won, and he is mine!' 356the naiad cries, and flinging all her clothing far away, she throws herself into the midst of the waters, and holds him as he struggles, and snatches kisses as he fights, and slips her hands beneath him and touches his unwilling breast, and pours herself around the youth now on this side, now on that; 361at last, as he strains against her and wants to slip away, she entwines him, like a serpent which the royal bird grips and snatches aloft: as it hangs, it binds the bird's head and feet and entwines the spreading wings with its tail; or as ivy is wont to weave itself around tall trunks, and as the octopus holds an enemy caught beneath the sea, its tentacles sent out on every side.
368The descendant of Atlas holds firm, and denies the nymph the joys she hoped for. 369She presses on, and, clinging just as she was, joined to him with her whole body, said: 'You may fight, wicked boy, but you will not escape. 371So may you gods ordain! 371and may no day part him from me, or me from him.'