572Kindly Ceres, untroubled now that her daughter is recovered, asks what was the reason for your flight, Arethusa, and why you are a sacred spring. 574The waters fell silent: their goddess lifted her head from the deep spring, and, drying her green hair with her hand, told of the old loves of the Elean river. 577'I was one,' she said, 'of the nymphs who are in Achaea, and no other more eagerly ranged the glades or more eagerly set the nets. 580But though I never sought a reputation for beauty, though I was sturdy, I had the name of a beauty. 582Nor did my face, too much praised, please me, and at the bodily gift in which others usually rejoice I, a country girl, blushed, and thought it a crime to please.
585I was returning weary (I remember) from the Stymphalian wood: it was hot, and my toil had doubled the great heat. 587I find waters flowing without an eddy, without a murmur, clear to the bottom, through which every pebble in the depths could be counted, which you would hardly think were moving. 590Silvery willows and poplars nourished by the water gave shade that grew of its own accord on the sloping banks. 592I approached, and first dipped the soles of my feet, then up to the knee: and not content with that, I unfasten my girdle and lay my soft garments on a bending willow, and plunge naked into the waters.
595While I strike and draw them to me, gliding in a thousand ways, and toss out my arms, I felt some murmur beneath the middle of the pool, and in terror I stand on the edge of the nearer bank. 599"Where are you hurrying, Arethusa?" 599Alpheus from his waters, "where are you hurrying?" 600he had said to me again in a hoarse voice. 601Just as I was, I flee without my clothes: the other bank had my clothes. 602All the more he presses on and burns, and because I was naked I seemed readier to him. 604So I ran, so that wild one pressed me, as doves flee the hawk on trembling wing, as the hawk is wont to harry the trembling doves.
607As far as Orchomenus and Psophis and Cyllene and the Maenalian valleys and cold Erymanthus and Elis I held out running; 609nor was he swifter than I. 610But I, unequal in strength, could not long endure the race: he was able to bear long toil. 612Yet through plains, through mountains covered with trees, over stones too and cliffs and where there was no path, I ran. 614The sun was at my back: I saw a long shadow going before my feet, unless it was fear that saw it; 616but certainly the sound of his feet terrified me, and the huge panting of his mouth breathed on the ribbons of my hair.
618Worn out by the toil of flight, I cry, "Help, I am caught, Diana, help your armour-bearer, to whom you have often given your bow to carry and your arrows shut in their quiver." 621The goddess was moved and, taking one of the thick clouds, threw it over me. 622The river scans me, hidden in the mist, and, unknowing, searches round the hollow cloud. 624Twice, unaware, he circles the place where the goddess had hidden me, and twice "Io Arethusa, io Arethusa!" 625he called. 626What was my state of mind then, poor me? 626Was it not that of a lamb, if it hears wolves howling round the high folds, or of a hare, which, hiding in a bramble, sees the hostile muzzles of the dogs and dares make no movement with its body?
630Yet he does not go away: for he sees no footprints further on: he watches the cloud and the place. 632A cold sweat seizes my besieged limbs, and dark-blue drops fall from all my body, and wherever I moved my foot a pool flows, and dew falls from my hair, and sooner than I now retell these events to you, I am changed into water. 636But the river recognises the waters he loves, and, laying aside the man's form he had assumed, turns back into his own waves, to mingle himself with me. 639The Delian goddess broke open the ground; 639and I, plunged in dark caverns, am carried to Ortygia, which, dear to me for bearing my goddess's surname, first brought me out into the upper air.' 642Thus far Arethusa.
642The fertile goddess yoked twin serpents to her chariot, and curbed their mouths with bits, and was carried through the air between heaven and earth, and sent her light chariot to the Tritonian city, to Triptolemus; 646and she bade him scatter the seeds she gave, partly on untilled ground, partly on ground tilled again after a long time. 648Now the youth had been carried high over Europe and the land of Asia; 649he turns towards the Scythian shores. 650Lyncus was king there: he enters the king's house. 651Asked how he came, and the reason for his journey, and his name and country, he said, 'My country is famous Athens, my name Triptolemus.
653I came neither by ship over the waves nor on foot over land: the sky opened and gave me passage. 655I bring the gifts of Ceres, which, scattered over the broad fields, may yield fruitful harvests and gentle foods.' 657The barbarian was envious; 657and so that he himself might be the giver of so great a gift, he receives him as a guest, and, when he is heavy with sleep, attacks him with a sword. 659As he tried to pierce his breast, Ceres made him a lynx, and bade the Athenian youth drive the sacred team back through the air." 662The greatest of us had finished her learned songs. 663And the nymphs, with one voice, declared that the goddesses who dwell on Helicon had won.
664When the defeated hurled insults, she said, "Since it is too little for you to have earned punishment by the contest, and you add abuse to your fault, and our patience is not unlimited, we shall proceed to punishment and follow where anger calls." 669The Emathian girls laugh and scorn the threatening words: and as they tried to speak and to shake their insolent hands at us with loud clamour, they saw feathers coming out through their nails, their arms being covered with plumes; 673and each sees the other's face hardening into a stiff beak, and new birds being added to the woods. 675And while they try to beat their breasts, raised by their moving arms, they hung in the air, magpies, the scolds of the woods.
677Even now in the birds their old eloquence remains, and their hoarse garrulity and monstrous passion for talking.'