1The Neptunian hero asks the cause of the god's groaning and of his maimed brow, when the Calydonian river, his unadorned hair wreathed with reeds, began thus: 'It is a sad task you ask of me. 4For who, once beaten, would wish to recall his own battles? 5Yet I will tell it in order. 5Nor was it as shameful to be beaten as it is glorious to have fought, and so great a victor gives me great consolation. 8If by chance Deianira has reached your ears by her name in story — she was once a most beautiful maiden and the envied hope of many suitors. 11When I entered with them the house of the father-in-law we sought, "Take me as your son-in-law, son of Parthaon," I said; and Alcides said the same.
13The others gave way to the two of us. 14He kept telling how he would give Jupiter as father-in-law, and of the fame of his labours, and of his stepmother's commands overcome. 16Against this I said, "It is shameful for a god to yield to a mortal" (he was not yet a god); "you see in me the king of the waters that flow in winding courses through your realm. 19Nor will I be a son-in-law sent to you as a stranger from foreign shores, but one of your own people and a part of your estate. 21Only let it not harm me that queenly Juno does not hate me and that all punishment of ordered labours is far from me.
23For, as to the boast you make, son of Alcmena, of being begotten by him, Jupiter is either a false father or a true one by a crime. 25You claim a father through your mother's adultery. 25Choose whether you would rather Jove be a fiction, or that you were born through disgrace." 27As I said such things, he had long been watching me with a grim eye, and, not stoutly mastering the anger kindled in him, he gave back just these words: "My right hand is better than my tongue. 30So long as I win in fighting, you may win in talking," and he came at me fiercely. 31I was ashamed, having spoken so grandly, to give way: I threw the green robe from my body, set my arms against him, held my hands bent before my chest in readiness, and made my limbs ready for the fight.
35He scooped up dust in his hollow palms and sprinkled me with it, and in turn grew golden himself from the touch of the tawny sand. 37And now he grabs at my neck, now at my flashing legs, or you would think he grabbed, and attacks me from every side. 39My weight defended me, and I was assailed in vain, just like a mass of rock which the waves attack with a great roar: it stays, safe in its own weight. 42We draw apart a little and come together again for battle, and stood our ground, determined not to give way; 43and foot was locked with foot, and I, leaning forward with all my chest, was pressing fingers with fingers and brow with brow.
46Just so have I seen strong bulls clash, when the sleekest mate in the whole pasture is sought as the prize of the fight: the herds look on and tremble, not knowing which one the victory of so great a kingdom awaits. 50Three times without success Alcides tried to thrust my straining chest away from him; 51the fourth time he shakes off my embrace, breaks the arms drawn about him, and with a push of his hand (I am resolved to confess the truth) at once turns me round and clung heavy to my back. 55If there is any trust, and I am not now seeking glory by a feigned word, I seemed to be crushed by a mountain set upon me.
57Yet with difficulty I worked in my arms, streaming with much sweat, with difficulty loosed the hard grip from my body: he presses on me as I pant and prevents me from regaining my strength, and seizes my neck. 60Then at last the earth was pressed by my knee, and I bit the sand with my mouth. 62Inferior in strength, I turn to my arts, and slip away from the man, shaped into a long snake. 64When I had curved my body into winding coils and flicked my forked tongue with a fierce hissing, the Tirynthian laughed and, mocking my arts, said, "Overcoming snakes was the task of my cradle, and though you may defeat other serpents, Achelous, what fraction of the Lernaean hydra will you be, a single snake?
70She was fruitful from her own wounds, and not one head out of her hundred was cut off with impunity without her neck growing stronger with a twin heir. 73Her, branching with snakes born from slaughter and growing from injury, I subdued, and having subdued her, I cut her open. 75What do you think will become of you, who, turned into a false snake, wield weapons not your own, hidden by a borrowed shape?" 77He had spoken, and he throws the chains of his fingers around the top of my neck: I was choking as though my throat were squeezed by pincers, and I struggled to tear his thumbs from my gullet.
80Defeated in this way too, there remained my third form, that of a savage bull: changed in my limbs into a bull, I fight back. 82He throws his arms around my brawny neck from the left side, and, dragging me as I charge, follows, and pulling down my hard horns he drives them into the ground and lays me low in the deep sand. 85Nor was this enough: while his savage right hand held my stiff horn, he broke it and tore it from my maimed brow. 87The Naiads filled it with fruits and fragrant flowers and made it sacred, and Good Plenty is rich through my horn.' 89He had spoken, and a nymph, one of his attendants, girt up like Diana, with her hair streaming on either side, came in and brought all autumn in the rich horn, and the second course, the happy fruits.
93Dawn comes on, and as the first sun strikes the hilltops the young men depart; for they do not wait until the rivers have peace and a calm flow and the waters all subside. 96Achelous hid his rustic face and his head, maimed of its horn, in the midst of his waves.