324She spoke, and, moved by the memory of her old servant, she groaned. 325As she grieved, her daughter-in-law addressed her thus: 'Yet, mother, it is the changed shape of a stranger, not of your blood, that moves you. 327What if I should tell you the wonderful fate of my sister? 328although tears and grief hinder me and forbid me to speak. 329Dryope was her mother's only child (my father begot me by another woman), the most famous beauty among the women of Oechalia. 331Her, no longer a maiden, having suffered violence from the god who holds Delphi and Delos, Andraemon takes as wife, and is thought fortunate in his spouse.
334There is a lake whose sloping, shelving margin forms the shape of a shore: myrtle groves crown its top. 336Here Dryope had come, unaware of her fate, and, to make you more indignant, to bring garlands to the nymphs; 338and in her bosom she carried a boy who had not yet completed a year, a sweet burden, and fed him with the help of her warm milk. 340Not far from the pool, imitating Tyrian colours, a water lotus was flowering in hope of berries. 342From this Dryope had plucked flowers to offer her son as playthings, and I seemed about to do the same (for I was there): I saw drops of blood fall from the flower and the branches move with a trembling shudder.
346It seems, as the country folk, slow to tell, now at last report, the nymph Lotis, fleeing Priapus' lust, had turned her features into this tree, keeping her name. 349My sister had not known this. 349When, terrified, she wished to go back and depart after praying to the nymphs, her feet stuck fast in a root. 351She struggles to tear them free, and moves nothing but her upper part. 352From below, pliant bark grows up and little by little covers all her groin. 354When she saw it, trying to tear her hair with her hand, she filled her hand with leaves: leaves covered all her head. 356But the boy Amphissos (for his grandfather Eurytus had given him this name) feels his mother's breasts stiffen, and the milky liquid does not follow his sucking.
359I stood by, a witness of the cruel event, and could not bring you help, sister; 360as far as I could, I held back the growing trunk and branches by embracing them, and, I confess, I wished to be hidden beneath the same bark. 363Look, her husband Andraemon and her most wretched father arrive and look for Dryope: as they looked for Dryope, I showed them the lotus. 365They give kisses to the warm wood and, flung down, cling to the roots of their tree. 367My dear sister had nothing now but her face that was not tree: tears bedew the leaves made from her wretched body, and, while she may and her mouth gives a path to her voice, she pours out such laments into the air: "If the wretched are believed at all, I swear by the gods that I did not deserve this outrage: I suffer punishment without guilt.
373I have lived innocent: if I lie, may I wither and lose the leaves I have, and be cut down by axes and burned. 375Yet take this infant from his mother's branches and give him to a nurse; 376and see that he often drinks his milk beneath my tree, and plays beneath my tree! 378And when he can speak, see that he greets his mother and says sadly, 'In this trunk my mother is hidden.' 380Yet let him fear pools and not pluck flowers from a tree, and think all bushes are bodies of gods! 382Farewell, dear husband, and you, sister, and father! 383If there is any love in you, defend my leaves from the wound of the sharp pruning hook and from the bite of the flock.
385And since it is not permitted for me to bend down to you, raise yourselves up here and come to my kisses while I can still be touched, and lift up my little son. 388I can say no more. 388For already the soft bark creeps over my white neck, and I am buried in its topmost crown. 390Take your hands from my eyes: without your service let the spreading bark close my dying eyes!" 392At the same moment her lips ceased to speak and to be, and long after her body was changed the new branches stayed warm.' 394And while Iole tells of this wondrous happening, and while Alcmena dries the tears of Eurytus' daughter with her thumb (though she weeps herself too), a new event checked all their sadness.
397For on the high threshold stood one almost a boy, his cheeks covered with faint down, Iolaus, his face restored to his first years. 400Juno's daughter Hebe had given him this gift, won over by her husband's prayers. 401When she was preparing to swear that after him she would grant such gifts to no one, Themis did not allow it: 'For already Thebes stirs up civil war,' she said, 'and Capaneus will be unconquerable except by Jove, and the brothers will become equal in wounds, and, the earth withdrawn, the prophet, still alive, will see his own shades; 407and the son, avenging parent on parent, will be dutiful and wicked by the same deed; 409and, stunned by his woes, an exile from mind and home, he will be driven by the faces of the Furies and his mother's shade, until his wife demands from him the fatal gold, and the sword of Phegeus drains the side of its kinsman.
413Then at last Achelous' daughter Callirhoe, a suppliant, will ask great Jove for these years for her infant sons, and that he not let the victor's death long go unavenged; Jupiter, moved by her, will bring forward the gifts of his stepdaughter and daughter-in-law and make them men in their beardless years.'