666The report of the new marvel would perhaps have filled the hundred cities of Crete, if Crete had not lately brought forth wonders nearer home in the change of Iphis. 669For once, next to the kingdom of Cnossos, the land of Phaestus produced a man named Ligdus, of no fame, of freeborn common stock. 671Nor was his wealth greater than his rank, but his life and honour were blameless. 673He warned his pregnant wife's ears with these words, when the birth was now near: 'There are two things I pray for; 675that you be delivered with the least pain, and that you bear a male; 676the other lot is more burdensome, and fortune denies us the means.
677So — and I abhor it — if by chance a female should be born from your labour, (unwillingly I order it: forgive me, piety!) let her be put to death.' 680He had spoken, and tears poured down and bathed the faces both of him who gave the order and of her to whom the orders were given. 682But still Telethusa keeps pressing her husband with vain prayers not to confine his hope in so narrow a strait. 684Ligdus' mind is fixed. 684And now she could scarcely carry her belly heavy with its ripe burden, when in the middle of the night, in the form of a dream, the daughter of Inachus, accompanied by a procession of her rites, stood before her bed, or seemed to.
688On her brow were the moon-shaped horns with ears of corn golden with gleaming gold, and royal splendour. 690With her were barking Anubis, holy Bubastis, Apis dappled in colours, and he who suppresses his voice and urges silence with his finger; and there were sistrums, and Osiris never sought enough, and the foreign serpent full of sleep-bringing poisons. 695Then, as if she were shaken out of sleep and seeing clearly, the goddess addressed her thus: 'O Telethusa, one of my own, put aside your heavy cares and evade your husband's orders. 698And do not hesitate, when Lucina has delivered you, to raise whatever it is. 699I am a goddess who helps, and when entreated I bring aid, nor will you complain that you have worshipped an ungrateful divinity.' 701She gave her warning and left the bedroom.
702Joyful, the Cretan woman rises from her bed and, a suppliant, raising pure hands to the stars, prays that her vision may come true. 704When the pains grew, and the burden itself pushed out into the air, and a female was born without the father's knowledge, the mother ordered it raised, pretending it was a boy: and the matter was believed, nor was anyone aware of the pretence but the nurse. 708The father paid his vows and gives it the grandfather's name: the grandfather had been Iphis. 709The mother rejoiced in the name, because it was common to both sexes and would deceive no one by it. 711From then the lie, begun with dutiful deceit, lay hidden: the clothes were a boy's, the face such that, whether you gave it to a girl or a boy, either would have been beautiful.
714Meanwhile a third year had followed the tenth, when your father, Iphis, betroths to you golden-haired Ianthe, the maiden most praised among the women of Phaestus for the dowry of her beauty, daughter of Dictaean Telestes. 718Equal was their age, equal their beauty, and they had received their first lessons, the rudiments of their age, from the same teachers. 720From this, love touched the untried hearts of both and gave an equal wound to each. 721But their confidence was unequal: Ianthe awaits the marriage and the time of the agreed wedding torch, and believes that the one she thinks a man will be a man; 724Iphis loves one she despairs of being able to enjoy, and this very thing increases her flames, and a maiden burns for a maiden; 726and barely holding back her tears, she said, 'What end awaits me, held by a love known to no one, a monstrous love, a passion of a new kind?
728If the gods had wished to spare me, they would at least have given me a natural ill, one according to custom. 731Love of a cow does not burn a cow, nor love of mares mares: the ram burns for ewes, his own female follows the stag. 733So too birds mate, and among all animals no female is seized by desire for a female. 735I wish I were not one! 735Yet, so that Crete might bear every monster, the daughter of the Sun loved a bull — a female, at least, loving a male: my love is madder than that, if I confess the truth! 738Yet she pursued the hope of love, yet she, by tricks and the image of a cow, submitted to the bull, and there was a lover there to be deceived!
741Though all the ingenuity of the whole world should flow together here, though Daedalus himself should fly back on waxen wings, what will he do? 743Will he with his learned arts make me a boy from a girl? 744will he change you, Ianthe? 745Why do you not steady your mind, and collect yourself, Iphis, and shake off these foolish fires that lack all sense? 747See what you were born, unless you deceive yourself too, and seek what is right, and love as a woman should! 749It is hope that captures, hope that feeds love: this, the facts take from you. 750No guard keeps you from a dear embrace, no care of a watchful husband, no harshness of a father, nor does she herself refuse you when you ask: and yet she cannot be yours, nor, though everything should happen, can you be happy, though gods and men should labour for it.
755Even now no part of my prayers is in vain, and the gods have readily given me whatever they could; 757and what I want, my father wants, she herself wants, and my future father-in-law. 758But nature does not want it, more powerful than all of these, and she alone harms me. 759Look, the longed-for time is coming, the wedding day is here, and soon Ianthe will be mine — and yet she will not fall to me: we shall thirst in the midst of the waters. 762Why do you come, Juno of marriage, why, Hymen, to these rites, where there is no one to take a bride, where we are both brides?'