260And now the land of Etna held the weary Daedalus, and Cocalus, who had taken up arms for the suppliant, was considered kind; now Athens, thanks to the glory of Theseus, had ceased to pay its lamentable tribute. 264The temples are garlanded, and they call upon warlike Minerva together with Jupiter and the other gods, whom they honour with vowed blood and gifts offered and boxes of incense. 267Wandering rumour had spread the name of Theseus through the Argive cities, and the peoples whom rich Achaia contained begged for his help in great dangers. 270Calydon, though it had Meleager, sought his help as a suppliant with anxious prayer. 271The cause of the asking was a boar, the servant and avenger of angry Diana.
273For they say that Oeneus, after a year full of success, offered the first-fruits of the crops to Ceres, his wine to Lyaeus, and the liquid of Pallas to golden-haired Minerva. 276Begun with the gods of the countryside, the coveted honour reached all the gods above; 277only the altars of Leto's daughter, they say, who had been passed over, were left without incense and lay idle. 279Anger touches gods too. 279'But we shall not bear it unpunished, and though unhonoured, we shall not also be called unavenged,' she says, and, scorned, she sent through the fields of Oeneus an avenging boar, so big that grassy Epirus has no bigger bulls, while the fields of Sicily have smaller ones.
284His eyes flash with blood and fire, his rough neck is stiff, seething foam flows with a hoarse hissing over his broad shoulders, his tusks are equal to Indian tusks, lightning comes from his mouth, the leaves burn with his breath. 290Now he tramples the crops as they grow in the blade, now he reaps the ripe hopes of the farmer, who will weep, and cuts off Ceres in the ear. 292In vain the threshing-floor, and in vain the barns await the promised harvest. 294The heavy fruit is laid low together with the long vine-shoots, and the berries together with the branches of the ever-leafy olive. 296He rages against the flocks too: neither shepherd nor dog can defend them, nor can fierce bulls defend the herds.
298The people scatter and do not think themselves safe except within the city walls, until Meleager and with him a chosen band of young men gathered in desire for glory: the twin sons of Tyndareus, the one famed for boxing, the other for horsemanship, and Jason, builder of the first ship, and Theseus with Pirithous, a happy harmony; 304and the two sons of Thestius, and the offspring of Aphareus, Lynceus and swift Idas, and Caeneus, no longer a woman, and fierce Leucippus, and Acastus, famous for the javelin, and Hippothous and Dryas and Phoenix, son of Amyntor, and the two sons of Actor, alike, and Phyleus, sent from Elis. 309Nor was Telamon absent, nor the father of great Achilles, and with the son of Pheres and Boeotian Iolaus came tireless Eurytion, and Echion, unbeaten in running, and Narycian Lelex and Panopeus and Hyleus and fierce Hippasus and Nestor, still in his early years, and those whom Hippocoon sent from ancient Amyclae, and Penelope's father-in-law with Parrhasian Ancaeus, and the shrewd son of Ampyx, and the son of Oecleus, still safe from his wife, and the girl of Tegea, the glory of the Lycaean woods.
318A polished brooch bit the top of her robe; her hair was simple, gathered into a single knot. 320Hanging from her left shoulder an ivory quiver, keeper of her arrows, rattled; her left hand held a bow as well. 322Such was her dress; 322her face, one which you could truly call girlish in a boy, boyish in a girl. 324The hero of Calydon at once saw her and at once desired her, though the god refused it, and drank in hidden flames and said: 'O happy he, if there is any man she thinks worthy of her.' 327Time and modesty do not allow him to say more: the greater work of the great contest presses.
329A wood dense with trees, which no age had felled, begins from the plain and looks out over sloping fields. 331When the men came there, some stretch out nets, some take the leashes off the dogs, some follow the pressed tracks of feet and long to find their own danger. 334There was a hollow valley, into which streams of rainwater were accustomed to run down: the bottom of the pool holds pliant willow and light sedge and marsh rushes and osiers and little reeds beneath tall canes. 338Roused from here, the boar rushes violently into the midst of his enemies, like lightning struck out from colliding clouds. 340The grove is flattened by his onrush, and the forest, driven before him, gives a crash.
341The young men shout and hold their weapons out before them in strong right hands, quivering with their broad iron points. 343He charges and scatters the dogs, as each one stands in the way of his fury, and disperses them, barking, with sidelong blows. 345The spearpoint first hurled by the arm of Echion was in vain, and gave a light wound to the trunk of a maple. 347The next, had it not been thrown with too much of its sender's strength, looked as if it would have stuck in the back it was aimed at: it goes too far. 349The thrower of the weapon was Jason of Pagasae. 350'Phoebus,' said the son of Ampyx, 'if I have worshipped you and do worship you, grant me to strike what I aim at with an unerring weapon!' 352As far as he could, the god assented to his prayers: the boar was struck by him, but without a wound; 353Diana had taken the iron from the javelin in flight: the wood arrived without its point.
355The beast's anger was roused, and blazed no more gently than lightning: flame flashes from his eyes, and breathes from his breast too. 357And as a mass flies, launched from a drawn-back cord, when it is aimed at walls or at towers full of soldiers, so the wounding boar rushes with sure onset upon the young men and lays low Hippalmus and Pelagon, who were guarding the right wing; 361their comrades snatched them away as they lay. 362But Enaesimus, son of Hippocoon, did not escape the deadly blows: as he trembled and made ready to turn his back, the sinews of his hamstrung knee gave way.