The palace of the Sun stood high on lofty columns, bright with gleaming gold and bronze that imitated flames. Shining ivory covered its highest roof, and the double doors radiated with silver light. The workmanship surpassed the materials. For there Vulcan had engraved the seas encircling the lands in the middle, and the globe of earth, and the sky that hangs above the globe.

The water holds the sea-blue gods: melodious Triton, changeable Proteus, Aegaeon pressing the enormous backs of whales with his arms, Doris and her daughters—some of whom seem to be swimming, some sitting on rocks drying their green hair, some riding on fish. Their faces aren't all identical, yet not too different either—the way sisters ought to look.

The land bears men and cities and forests and wild beasts and rivers and nymphs and other spirits of the countryside. Above these was placed the image of the shining sky, six constellations on the right doors, six on the left.

When Clymene's son climbed the steep path and entered the house of his doubted father, he immediately carried his steps toward his father's face and stopped at a distance. For he couldn't bear to come closer to the light. Phoebus sat on a throne bright with gleaming emeralds, clothed in purple robes. On his right and left stood Day and Month and Year and the Ages and the Hours positioned at equal intervals. Young Spring stood wreathed with a flowering crown, naked Summer stood wearing garlands of grain, Autumn stood stained with trampled grapes, and icy Winter stood shaggy with white hair.

---

From his central position, the Sun saw the young man with those eyes that see all things, awed by the newness of it all, and said, "What reason brings you on this journey? Why have you sought this citadel, Phaethon, a son I don't deny?"

He replied, "O universal light of the immense world, Phoebus my father, if you grant me the use of this name, and if Clymene doesn't hide guilt beneath a false image, give me proof, father, by which I may be believed your true offspring, and remove this doubt from my mind!"

He'd spoken. His father laid down all the rays gleaming around his head and ordered him to come closer. Giving him an embrace, he said, "You're not unworthy to be called mine, and Clymene told the truth about your birth. So that you may doubt less, ask for any gift you want, and you'll receive it from me! Let that marsh by which the gods swear—though unknown to my eyes—be witness to my promise!"

He'd scarcely finished when Phaethon asked for his father's chariot and the right to drive the wing-footed horses for one day.

---

His father regretted having sworn. Three and four times he shook his shining head and said, "Your words have made my promise reckless! I confess, this alone I would deny you, my son. I'm allowed to try to dissuade you. Your desire isn't safe! What you're asking for is great, Phaethon, and doesn't suit your strength or your boyish years. Your lot is mortal—what you desire isn't mortal. You're unknowingly reaching for more than even the gods can achieve. Though each may be pleased with himself, no one but me has the power to stand on the fire-bearing axle. Even the ruler of vast Olympus, who hurls fierce lightning bolts with his terrible right hand, won't drive this chariot—and what do we have greater than Jupiter?

"The first part of the path is steep, and the horses, fresh in the morning, can barely climb it. In the middle it's highest in the sky, from where even for me, looking at the sea and lands, fear often arises and my heart trembles with anxious dread. The final part slopes downward and requires sure control. Then even Tethys herself, who receives me in her waves below, usually fears I'll be carried headlong.

"Add to this that the sky is swept around in constant rotation and drags the high stars with it, whirling them in swift revolution. I struggle against it. The force that overcomes everything else doesn't overcome me, and I'm carried contrary to the rapid orbit. Imagine the chariot is given to you—what will you do? Will you be able to go against the turning poles, so the swift axle doesn't carry you away?

"Perhaps you imagine there are groves there and cities of the gods and temples rich with offerings. The path is through ambushes and the forms of wild beasts! Even if you keep the road and aren't drawn off by any mistake, you'll still pass through the horns of the opposing Bull and the Thessalian Bow and the jaws of the violent Lion and the Scorpion curving its savage arms in a long arc, and the Crab curving its arms differently.

"Nor will it be easy for you to control the spirited four-footed horses, breathing fires that they have in their chests and blow from their mouths and nostrils. They barely tolerate even me when their fierce spirits have heated up and their necks fight the reins. But you, my son, be careful that I'm not the author of a deadly gift to you! Correct your wish while it's possible!

"Obviously, so that you may believe you're born of my blood, you ask for sure proof. I give sure proof by fearing, and by a father's dread I'm proved to be your father. Look at my face! If only you could insert your eyes into my heart and grasp your father's cares inside! Finally, look around at whatever the rich world contains. From so many and such great goods of sky and earth and sea, ask for something—you'll suffer no refusal. This one thing alone I beg you not to ask for, which is truly a punishment, not an honor. You're asking for punishment, Phaethon, not a gift!

"Why do you hold my neck with coaxing arms, unknowing boy? Don't doubt! What you wish will be given (I've sworn by the Stygian waters), but you should wish more wisely!"

---

He'd finished his warnings, yet Phaethon fought against his words and pressed his purpose and burned with desire for the chariot. So his father, delaying as much as he could, led the young man to the lofty chariot, a gift from Vulcan's forge. The axle was gold, the pole gold, the rim of the wheels gold, the row of spokes silver. Along the yoke, chrysolites and gems arranged in order reflected back bright light to Phoebus.

While great-hearted Phaethon admired all this and examined the work, look—watchful Aurora opened her purple doors from the bright east and her halls full of roses. The stars fled—the Morning Star marshaled their ranks and left last from heaven's station. When the Sun saw him heading for earth and the world blushing red and the horns of the farthest moon seeming to vanish, he ordered the swift Hours to yoke the horses. The goddesses swiftly performed his command. They led the four-footed horses from their high stalls—breathing fire, fed on ambrosial juice—and put on their ringing bridles.

Then the father touched his son's face with sacred ointment and made him able to endure the rapid flame, and placed rays on his hair. Drawing sighs from his worried heart, foreboding grief, he said:

"If at least you can obey these warnings of a parent, spare the whip, boy, and use the reins more firmly! They hurry on their own—the work is to hold them back when they're willing. And don't let the path please you straight through the five zones! The track is cut slanting in a broad curve, contained within the boundary of three zones, avoiding the southern pole and the Bear joined to the northern winds. Let this be your route—you'll see clear wheel tracks. And so that heaven and earth may receive equal heat, don't drive too low and don't direct the chariot through the highest ether! Too high and you'll burn the celestial dwelling, too low and you'll burn the lands. You'll go most safely in the middle.

"And don't let your wheel decline too far right toward the twisting Serpent, nor turn too far left toward the low Altar—keep between them both! I entrust the rest to Fortune, and I hope she'll help you and advise you better than you advise yourself. While I'm speaking, dewy night has touched the limits placed on the western shore. We have no freedom to delay! We're called for—look, Aurora shines as the shadows flee.

"Seize the reins with your hand! Or, if your heart can still be changed, use my advice, not my chariot! While you can and still stand on solid ground, while you haven't yet set foot on the wheels you wrongly desire, unknowing—let me give light to the lands while you watch safely!"

---

But Phaethon seized the light chariot with his youthful body, stood up in it, and joyfully took the light reins in his hands and thanked his unwilling father.

Meanwhile the Sun's winged horses—Pyrois and Eous and Aethon, and fourth Phlegon—filled the air with their fire-breathing neighs and struck the barriers with their hooves. When Tethys, unaware of her grandson's fate, pushed these back and the expanse of immense sky was made available, they seized the path and, moving their feet through the air, tore through the opposing clouds. Lifted on wings, they passed the East Winds rising from the same regions.

But the weight was light—not what the Sun's horses could recognize—and the yoke lacked its accustomed heaviness. Just as curved ships toss without proper weight and are carried unstable through the sea by excessive lightness, so the chariot, empty of its usual burden, leaped into the air and was tossed high and seemed like an empty cart.

As soon as the four-horse team sensed this, they bolted and left the worn track and didn't run in their former order. Phaethon himself panicked. He didn't know how to turn the reins he'd been given, didn't know where the path was, and if he'd known, couldn't command them.

Then for the first time the cold Bears grew hot with rays and tried in vain to plunge into the forbidden sea. And the Serpent, which lies positioned nearest the icy pole, sluggish before with cold and frightening to no one, grew hot and took on new anger from the heat. They say even you, Boötes, were thrown into confusion and fled, though you're slow and your wagon holds you back.

---

When unlucky Phaethon looked down from the highest heaven and saw the lands lying far, far below, he grew pale and his knees suddenly trembled with fear. Darkness came over his eyes despite so much light, and now he wished he'd never touched his father's horses, now he regretted learning his parentage and prevailing with his request. Now, wanting to be called Merops' son, he was carried like a pine driven by the north wind, whose master has given up and let go the reins and left it to the gods and prayers.

What should he do? Much sky lay behind his back, but more was before his eyes. He measured both in his mind and sometimes looked toward the west, which fate didn't allow him to reach, sometimes looked back toward the east. Ignorant of what to do, he was stunned and neither released the reins nor could hold them back, nor did he know the horses' names. He also saw, scattered here and there across the varied sky, marvels and shapes of huge beasts, and trembled.

There's a place where the Scorpion curves its arms into twin arcs and with its tail and arms bent on both sides stretches its limbs across the space of two constellations. When the boy saw this creature, dripping with the sweat of black poison, threatening wounds with its curved stinger, he lost his mind with icy fear and dropped the reins.

When these fell slack on their backs, the horses ran wild. With no one restraining them, they went through the air of an unknown region. Wherever impulse drove them, there they rushed without law. They crashed into stars fixed high in the ether and dragged the chariot through pathless ways. Now they sought the heights, now through steep downward paths they were carried closer to the earth. The Moon marveled to see her brother's horses running below her own, and the scorched clouds smoked.

Each highest part of earth was seized by flames. It cracked open and formed crevices and dried out with its moisture stolen. Meadows turned white, trees burned along with their leaves, and the dry grain provided fuel for its own destruction.

I'm complaining about small things—great cities perished with their walls, and flames turned entire nations with their peoples into ashes. Forests burned with mountains. Athos burned and Cilician Taurus and Tmolus and Oeta and Ida—dry then, though before most abundant in springs—and virgin Helicon and Haemus, not yet called Oeagrian. Aetna burned immensely with doubled fires, and two-peaked Parnassus and Eryx and Cynthus and Othrys and Rhodope, destined finally to lose its snows, and Mimas and Dindyma and Mycale and Cithaeron, born for sacred rites.

Nor did its cold help Scythia. The Caucasus burned, and Ossa with Pindus and Olympus greater than both, and the airy Alps and cloud-bearing Apennines.

Then truly Phaethon saw the world aflame on all sides and couldn't bear such heat. He drew in burning air as if from a deep furnace through his mouth and felt his chariot growing white-hot. He could no longer endure the flying ashes and hurled sparks and was wrapped on all sides in hot smoke. Covered in pitch-black darkness, he didn't know where he was going or where he was, and was carried at the whim of the winged horses.

---

They believe that then the Ethiopian peoples drew their black color when blood was called to the surface of their bodies. Then Libya was made arid by the heat that stole its moisture. Then the nymphs with loosened hair mourned their springs and pools. Boeotia sought Dirce, Argos Amymone, Ephyre the Pirenean waters. Nor were rivers safe, though their banks were distant from each other. The Tanais smoked in mid-current, old Peneus and Teuthrantean Caicus and swift Ismenus with Phegian Erymanthus and Xanthus, destined to burn again, and yellow Lycormas and the Maeander playing with its curving waves, Mygdonian Melas and Taenarian Eurotas.

Babylonian Euphrates burned, Orontes burned, and swift Thermodon and the Ganges and Phasis and Danube. Alpheus boiled, the banks of Spercheus blazed, and the gold that Tagus carries in its stream flowed in flames. The river birds that used to celebrate the Maeonian banks with song grew hot in the middle of Cayster. The Nile fled terrified to the farthest world and hid its head, which still remains hidden. Its seven mouths stand dusty and empty, seven valleys without rivers. The same chance dried Ismarian Hebrus with Strymon and the western rivers: Rhine and Rhone and Po and Tiber, to whom power over the world had been promised.

Everywhere the ground split apart, and light penetrated through cracks into Tartarus and terrified the underworld king with his queen. The sea contracted and became a plain of dry sand that before had been ocean. Mountains that the deep water had covered emerged and increased the scattered Cyclades. Fish sought the depths, nor did the curved dolphins dare to lift themselves into the air as they were accustomed. The bodies of seals floated lifeless, face-up on the surface. They say even Nereus himself and Doris and their daughters hid in their warm caves. Three times Neptune dared to raise his arms and fierce face from the water. Three times he couldn't bear the fiery air.

---

Yet nurturing Earth, as she was surrounded by ocean, among the waters of the sea and the springs contracted on all sides, which had hidden themselves in their dark mother's depths, lifted up her parched face, pressed as far as her neck. She placed her hand on her forehead, and with a great tremor shaking everything, she subsided a little and was lower than usual, and spoke with a broken voice:

"If this pleases you and I've deserved it, why, O highest of gods, do your thunderbolts delay? If I must perish by the power of fire, let me perish by your fire and lighten the disaster by its author! I can scarcely open my throat for these very words"—the heat had pressed her mouth shut—"Look, see my scorched hair and so much ash in my eyes, so much on my face! Do you return these as my rewards, this as the honor for fertility and service—that I bear the wounds of the curved plow and rakes and am worked the whole year round, that I supply leaves and gentle nourishment for cattle, grain for the human race, and incense for you too?

"But suppose I've deserved destruction. What have the waters deserved? What has your brother deserved? Why do the seas entrusted to him by lot decrease and withdraw farther from heaven? But if neither your brother's welfare nor mine moves you, at least pity your own sky! Look around at both poles—both are smoking! If fire damages these, your halls will fall! Look, even Atlas himself struggles and can barely support the glowing axle on his shoulders! If the seas and lands perish, if heaven's palace falls, we're confused back into ancient Chaos! Snatch things from the flames if anything still survives, and look to the welfare of the universe!"

Earth spoke thus, for she could no longer tolerate the heat nor say more, and she withdrew her mouth back into herself and the caves closer to the underworld.

---

But the all-powerful father, calling the gods above to witness, and him who'd given the chariot—that unless he brought help, everything would perish by heavy fate—sought the highest citadel, from where he usually spreads clouds over the broad lands, from where he moves thunder and hurls vibrating lightning bolts. But then he had no clouds he could spread over the lands, nor rains he could send down from the sky.

He thundered and, with his right hand, hurled a thunderbolt balanced at his ear, striking the charioteer. It threw him from life and from the wheels together and checked the savage fires with savage fire.

The horses panicked and, leaping in the opposite direction, tore their necks from the yoke and left the broken reins behind. There the bridles lay, there the axle torn from the pole, there in one place the spokes of shattered wheels, and scattered far and wide were the remains of the wrecked chariot.

---

But Phaethon, his reddish hair consumed by flame, was hurled headlong and carried through the long tract of air, as sometimes a star from the clear sky, even if it didn't fall, can seem to have fallen.

Far from his homeland in a distant part of the world, the great river Eridanus received him and washed his smoking face. The western Naiads gave his body, smoking with triple flame, to a tomb and marked the stone with this inscription:

HERE LIES PHAETHON, DRIVER OF HIS FATHER'S CHARIOT THOUGH HE COULD NOT CONTROL IT, HE FAILED IN A GREAT ATTEMPT

---

His father, miserable with sick grief, had hidden his covered face, and if we can believe it, they say one day passed without the sun. The fires gave light, and there was some use in that evil.

But Clymene, after she'd said whatever had to be said in such great disaster, mourned and went mad and tore her breast and searched the whole world, seeking first his lifeless limbs, then his bones. She found his bones, however, buried on a foreign bank. She fell upon the place and, reading his name on the marble, wet it with tears and warmed it with her bare breast.

No less did the Heliades pour out tears—vain gifts to death—and beating their breasts with their hands, they called for Phaethon night and day, who wouldn't hear their pitiful complaints, and they threw themselves on his tomb. Four times the moon had filled her orb with joined horns. They, according to their custom (for habit had made it custom), gave their lament.

Of these, Phaethusa, the oldest of the sisters, when she wanted to fall to the ground, complained that her feet had grown stiff. Bright Lampetie, trying to come to her, was held back by a sudden root. A third, when she prepared to tear her hair with her hands, pulled off leaves. One grieved that bark held her legs, another that her arms became long branches. While they marveled at this, bark embraced their groins and by degrees covered their wombs and chests and shoulders and hands. Only their mouths remained, calling their mother.

What could their mother do except go here and there as impulse drew her, and join kisses while she could? It wasn't enough. She tried to tear their bodies from the trunks and broke off tender branches with her hands. But from there bloody drops flowed as if from a wound.

"Spare me, mother, I beg," cried each one who was wounded. "Spare me, I beg! Our body is being torn in the tree. Now farewell"—bark came over their last words. From there tears flow, and drops of amber, hardened by the sun, drip from the new branches. The clear river receives them and sends them to be worn by Latin brides.

---

Cycnus, son of Sthenelus, was present at this prodigy—he who, though joined to you by his mother's blood, Phaethon, was yet closer in mind. Leaving his kingdom (for he'd ruled the Ligurian peoples and great cities), he filled the green banks and the river Eridanus with complaints, and the forest increased by your sisters. Then his voice grew thin and white feathers concealed his hair. His neck stretched far from his chest, a web joined his reddening fingers, wings covered his sides, and a blunt beak replaced his mouth.

Cycnus became a strange new bird. He didn't trust himself to the sky or to Jupiter, remembering the fire unjustly sent by him. He sought pools and broad lakes and, hating fire, chose to live in rivers—the opposite of flames.

---

Meanwhile squalid Phaethon's father, lacking his own splendor—as he usually is when he fails the world—hated light and himself and the day. He gave his mind to grief and added anger to grief and denied his service to the world.

"Enough!" he said. "My lot has been restless from the beginning of time, and I'm weary of my endless, thankless labors! Let any other drive the chariot that carries light! If there's no one and all the gods confess they can't, let Jupiter himself drive—at least while he tries our reins, he'll put down for a while the thunderbolts that bereave fathers! Then, having tested the strength of the fire-footed horses, he'll know that the one who didn't drive them well didn't deserve death."

As he spoke such things, all the gods surrounded the Sun and with suppliant voices begged him not to want to bring darkness over things. Jupiter also excused the fires he'd sent and added threats to his prayers in regal fashion. Phoebus gathered his frantic horses, still trembling with fear, and, grieving, raged with goad and whip (for he did rage), and reproached them with his son and charged it to their account.

---

But the all-powerful father circled the great walls of heaven and checked everything lest something, weakened by the fire's force, should collapse. After he saw these were firm and had their proper strength, he surveyed the lands and the labors of men. But his care was especially intent on his own Arcadia. He restored springs and rivers that didn't yet dare to flow, gave grass to the earth, leaves to trees, and ordered the damaged forests to grow green again.

---

While he went back and forth frequently, his gaze caught on a virgin of Nonacris, and fires kindled beneath his bones. It wasn't her work to soften wool by drawing it out or to vary her hairstyle. A brooch would fasten her garment, a white ribbon restrain her careless hair. Now she'd taken up a light spear in her hand, now her bow. She was a soldier of Diana. No woman more pleasing than she touched Mount Maenalus. But no power lasts long.

The sun held a space higher than mid-heaven when she entered a grove that no age had cut down. Here she took the quiver from her shoulder and unstrung her pliant bow and lay on the ground, which grass covered, and pressed the painted quiver with her placed head.

When Jupiter saw her tired and without a guard, he said, "This stolen affair at least my wife won't learn about—or if she does find out, oh, the quarrel is worth it!"

Immediately he put on Diana's appearance and dress and said, "O maiden, one of my companions, on what ridges have you been hunting?" The maiden raised herself from the turf and said, "Hail, goddess—greater than Jupiter in my judgment, even if he himself should hear." He laughed and heard and was glad to be preferred to himself, and joined kisses—not moderate enough nor such as a virgin should give.

When she prepared to tell in what forest she'd been hunting, he prevented her with an embrace and betrayed himself by his crime. She indeed fought back as much as a woman could (if only you could have watched, daughter of Saturn, you'd be gentler)—she indeed fought, but what girl could overcome, or who could overcome Jupiter? Victorious, Jupiter sought the upper air. She hated that grove and the forest that knew the secret. As she was going back, she almost forgot to take up her quiver with its arrows and the bow she'd hung up.

---

Look—Dictynna, accompanied by her chorus, walking through high Maenalus and proud of the slaughter of beasts, saw her and called to her when she was seen. Called, she fled and at first feared Jupiter was in her. But after she saw the nymphs walking together, she sensed the trick was absent and joined their number.

Alas, how difficult it is not to show guilt in one's face! She barely lifted her eyes from the ground. She wasn't joined to the goddess's side as before, nor was she first in the whole line, but she kept silent and gave signs of her injured modesty with a blush. If Diana weren't a virgin, she could have sensed the guilt by a thousand signs. They say the nymphs sensed it.

The moon's horns were rising for the ninth time. Diana, faint from her brother's fires, found a cool grove where a murmuring stream glided and turned its worn sands. When she praised the place, she touched the top of the water with her foot. Pleased with this too, she said, "Every witness is far away—let's bathe our naked bodies in the flowing water!"

The Parrhasian girl blushed. All the others put down their garments. She alone sought delays. As she hesitated, her clothing was removed. When it was laid aside, the shame was revealed along with her naked body. Stunned and trying to hide her womb with her hands, "Go far from here," Diana said, "and don't pollute the sacred spring!" The Cynthian goddess ordered her to leave her company.

---

The wife of the great Thunderer had sensed this long before and had postponed harsh punishment for a suitable time. There was no reason for delay now—a boy, Arcas (even this pained Juno), had been born from her rival. When she turned her savage mind and gaze to this, "So this was still lacking, adulteress," she said, "that you should be fertile, and the injury should become known by birth, and my Jupiter's disgrace be testified! You won't carry this off unpunished! For I'll take from you that figure by which you please—troublesome woman—yourself and my husband."

She spoke and, seizing her hair from the front, threw her prone on the ground. Callisto stretched out her arms as a suppliant. Her arms began to bristle with black hair, her hands to curve and grow into hooked claws and to serve as feet. Her face, once praised by Jupiter, was made ugly with a wide gaping mouth. And lest prayers and pleading words bend minds, the power of speech was taken from her. An angry, threatening voice full of terror came from her rough throat. Yet her old mind remained even though she was made a bear.

Testifying to her grief with constant groans, she lifted whatever hands she had to heaven and the stars and felt Jupiter ungrateful—though she couldn't say it. Ah, how often she didn't dare to rest alone in the forest and wandered before her former home and in the fields once hers! Ah, how often she was driven through rocks by the barking of dogs, and the huntress, terrified, fled in fear of hunters!

Often she hid when beasts were seen, forgetting what she was, and though a bear, shuddered at bears seen on the mountains and feared wolves, though her father was among them.

---

Look—Arcas, son of Lycaon, appeared, unaware of his parent, about fifteen years old. While he was tracking beasts and choosing suitable thickets and enclosing the Erymanthian forests with woven nets, he came upon his mother. She stopped when she saw Arcas and seemed to recognize him. He fled. When she held her unmoving eyes on him endlessly, unknowing, he was terrified. When she was eager to come closer, he was about to pierce her breast with a deadly weapon.

The Almighty prevented it and lifted both them and the impious deed together. Carried through the void by wind, he placed them in heaven and made them neighboring constellations.

---

Juno swelled with rage after her rival shone among the stars. She descended to the sea to gray-haired Tethys and old Ocean, whose reverence often moved the gods. To them asking the cause of her journey, she began:

"You ask why I, queen of the gods, come here from the heavenly seats? Another holds heaven in my place! I lie unless, when night has made the world dark, you see stars recently honored in the highest sky—my wounds!—there where the circle, outermost and shortest in space, surrounds the axis.

"And truly, why should anyone fear to injure Juno or tremble at offending me, who only benefit by harming? Oh, how much I've accomplished! How vast is my power! I forbade her to be human—she's been made a goddess! This is how I impose punishments on the guilty! This is how great my power is!

"Let Jupiter restore her ancient form and remove her bestial appearance, as he did before for the Argolic Phoronid! Why doesn't he divorce Juno and take her for his marriage bed and take Lycaon as his father-in-law? But if the contempt for your injured foster-daughter touches you, forbid the seven oxen from your blue waters and drive away the stars received in heaven as payment for disgrace—don't let the concubine be bathed in pure water!"

The sea gods nodded. Juno, daughter of Saturn, mounted her wheeled chariot and entered the clear air with painted peacocks—peacocks painted so recently when Argus was slain, just as you so recently were, talkative crow, when you were suddenly changed to black wings, though you'd been white before.

---

For this bird was once silvery with snowy feathers, so that it would equal spotless doves and wouldn't yield to the geese who would save the Capitol with their watchful voice, nor to the swan that loves rivers. Its tongue was its harm. Because of its talkative tongue, the color that was white is now the opposite of white.

No woman in all Thessaly was more beautiful than Larissaean Coronis. She pleased you, Delphic god, certainly, while she was either chaste or unobserved. But Phoebus' bird sensed the adultery, and as an inexorable informer to expose the hidden guilt, he was making his way toward his master.

The chattering crow followed him with moving wings to learn everything. When it heard the reason for his journey, it said, "You're taking a useless trip! Don't spurn my tongue's warnings! See what I was and what I am, and ask what I deserved—you'll find that loyalty harmed me.

"For at one time Pallas had shut Erichthonius, offspring created without a mother, in a wicker chest woven from branches and had given it to three virgins born of twin Cecrops and had given a law that they shouldn't see her secret. Hidden in the dense elm tree's light foliage, I watched what they would do. Two guarded their trust without deceit, Pandrosos and Herse. One, Aglauros, called her sisters cowards and undid the knots with her hand, and inside they saw the infant and the outstretched dragon.

"I reported the deed to the goddess. In return for which, such gratitude was given to me that I'm said to have been expelled from Minerva's protection and placed after the night bird! My punishment can warn birds not to seek dangers by speaking. But I think she didn't ask for me unless I asked for nothing—ask Pallas herself about this! Though she's angry, she won't deny this in her anger.

"For Coroneus, famous in Phocian land, begot me (I speak of known things), and I was a royal maiden and was sought by rich suitors (don't scorn me). My beauty harmed me. For as I was walking with slow steps along the shore, as I usually do, on the surface sand, the god of the sea saw me and burned. When he'd wasted time with pleading and gentle words, he prepared violence and pursued me.

"I fled and left the packed shore and grew tired in vain in the soft sand. Then I called on gods and mortals. My voice reached no mortal. A virgin was moved for a virgin and brought help. I was stretching my arms to heaven—my arms began to darken with light feathers. I was trying to throw off my robe from my shoulders, but it was feathers and had driven roots deep into my skin. I was trying to beat my naked breast with my palms, but I no longer had palms or a naked breast.

"I was running, and the sand no longer held my feet as before, but I was lifted from the surface of the ground. Soon I was carried through the high air and was given as a blameless companion to Minerva. But what does this help me if Nyctimene, made a bird for her terrible crime, has succeeded to my honor?

"Haven't you heard—the story most famous throughout all Lesbos—that Nyctimene defiled her father's bed? She's a bird indeed, but conscious of her guilt, she flees sight and light and hides her shame in darkness and is driven from the whole sky by all."

---

To the crow saying such things, the raven said, "May those curses be for your harm, I pray! I spurn your vain omen." He didn't abandon his begun journey and told his master that he'd seen Coronis lying with a Thessalian youth.

The laurel fell from the lover when he heard the charge, and at the same time color fell from the god's face and his plectrum. As his mind seethed with swelling rage, he seized his accustomed weapons and bent the bow curved from horns and stretched it and pierced with unavoidable arrow the breast so often joined to his own breast.

Struck, she gave a groan, and when the iron was drawn from her body, she soaked her white limbs with red blood and said, "I could have paid you punishment, Phoebus, but first I could have given birth. Now two of us will die in one." So far she spoke, and equally she poured out life with blood. A lethal chill followed her body now empty of soul.

---

Alas, the lover repented, too late, of his cruel punishment, and he hated himself for having heard, for having blazed up so. He hated the bird through which he'd been forced to know the crime and cause of grief. He hated the bow and his hand and his rash arrows along with his hand. He cherished her collapsed form and tried to conquer fate with late help and practiced his medical arts in vain.

When he saw these were attempted in vain and saw the pyre being prepared and her limbs about to burn in the final fires, then truly he gave groans drawn from deep in his heart (for celestial faces aren't allowed to be wet with tears)—not otherwise than when a heifer, watching, hears the hammer, balanced from the ear, shatter the hollow temples of her suckling calf with a clear blow.

Yet when he'd poured ungrateful perfumes on her breast and given embraces and performed unjust rites justly, Phoebus didn't bear that his seed should sink into the same ashes. He snatched the child from the flames and from the parent's womb and carried it to the cave of twin-formed Chiron. And the raven, hoping for rewards for its truthful tongue, he forbade to stand among white birds.

---

Meanwhile the half-beast was happy with the divine-born nursling and rejoiced in the honor mixed with burden. Look—the centaur's daughter came, her shoulders covered with reddish hair. A nymph named Chariclo had once given birth to her on the banks of a swift river and called her Ocyrhoe. This girl wasn't content to have learned her father's arts—she sang the secrets of the fates.

So when she conceived prophetic frenzies in her mind and grew hot with the god she held enclosed in her breast, she looked at the infant and said, "Grow, boy, bringer of health to the whole world! Often mortal bodies will owe themselves to you. You'll have the right to restore stolen souls. Having dared this once while gods were indignant, you'll be prevented by your grandfather's flame from being able to give this again, and from a god you'll become a bloodless corpse and a god again, though just now you were a body, and twice you'll renew your fate.

"You too, dear father, now immortal and created by the law of birth to remain through all ages, will want to be able to die when you'll be tortured by the dreadful serpent's blood received through your wounded limbs. The gods will make you, eternal, subject to death, and the three goddesses will unwind your threads."

Something remained for the fates. She sighed from the depths of her breast, and tears slid down her cheeks, and she said, "The fates are overtaking me, and I'm forbidden to speak more, and the use of my voice is being shut off. My arts weren't worth so much that they drew divine anger upon me! I'd rather not have known the future!

"Now my human face seems to be removed from me. Now grass pleases me as food. Now there's an impulse to run through wide fields. I'm being turned into a mare and related forms. Yet why completely? For my father is indeed two-formed."

As she was saying such things, the last part of her complaint was understood only a little, and her words were confused. Soon they seemed neither words nor the sound of a mare but the imitation of a mare, and in a short time she gave clear neighing and moved her arms into grass.

Then her fingers joined and a light hoof of continuous horn bound her five nails together. The size of her mouth and neck grew. The greatest part of her long robe became a tail. The wandering hair that lay over her neck went into a mane on the right side. At the same time her voice and face were made new, and the prodigy gave her a new name.

---

The Philyrean hero wept and sought your help in vain, Delphic god. For you couldn't rescind great Jupiter's commands, nor, even if you could rescind them, were you there then. You were dwelling in Elis and the Messenian fields. That was the time when a shepherd's cloak covered you, and a rustic staff was the burden of your left hand, and a pipe of seven unequal reeds was in the other.

While love is your care, while your pipe soothes you, they say the Pylian cattle, unguarded, went into the fields. The son of Atlas's daughter Maia saw these and, by his art, drove them away hidden in the forest. No one had sensed this theft except an old man known in that countryside. The whole neighborhood called him Battus. He was watching the rich pastures and grassy meadows and the herds of noble mares for Neleus.

Mercury took hold of him and led him aside with a soothing hand and said to him, "Whoever you are, stranger, if by chance anyone asks about this herd, deny you've seen it. And so that no thanks is repaid for the deed, take a sleek cow as your reward!" And he gave her.

Accepting it, the stranger returned these words: "Go safely! That stone will speak of your theft sooner," and he pointed to a stone. Jupiter's son pretended to leave. Soon he returned and, with his appearance changed along with his voice, said, "Peasant, if you've seen any cattle go this way, bring help and don't hide the theft! A female will be given to you along with her mate as a price."

But the old man, after the reward was doubled, said, "They'll be under those mountains," and they were under those mountains. The son of Atlas laughed and said, "You're betraying me to myself, traitor? You're betraying me to myself?" And he turned the perjured heart into hard flint, which even now is called the informer, and ancient infamy rests in the stone, though it deserved none.

---

From there the bearer of the caduceus had lifted himself on equal wings and, flying, looked down on the fields of Munychia and the ground pleasing to Minerva and the groves of the cultivated Lyceum.

It happened on that day that chaste girls, according to custom, were carrying sacred rites in pure woven baskets on their heads to Pallas' festive citadel. From there returning, the winged god saw them and didn't direct his course straight but curved it in the same orbit. As when a very swift kite sees entrails and, while it fears and the dense crowd of priests stand around the sacred rites, it turns in a circle and doesn't dare go farther off but, eager, flies around its hope with moving wings—so the nimble Cyllenian above the Athenian citadel inclined his course and circled the same air.

As much brighter than other stars shines the Morning Star, and as much brighter than the Morning Star shines golden Phoebe, by so much was Herse more outstanding than all the maidens and was the glory of the procession and her companions. Jupiter's son was astonished by her beauty and, hanging in the air, burned—not otherwise than when a Balearic sling hurls lead: it flies and grows white-hot as it goes and finds beneath the clouds fires it didn't have.

He turned his course and, leaving heaven, sought the earth, nor did he disguise himself—so great was his confidence in his beauty. Though this was justified, care nevertheless aided it. He smoothed his hair and arranged his cloak so it would hang properly, so that the border and all the gold would show, so that the wand, smooth in his right hand, by which he leads and wards off sleep, would be seen, so that the sandals would shine on his cleaned feet.

---

A secluded part of the house had three chambers adorned with ivory and tortoiseshell. Of these, you, Pandrosos, held the right, Aglauros the left, and Herse had possessed the middle. She who held the left was the first to notice Mercury coming and dared to ask the god's name and the reason for his arrival. To her, the grandson of Atlas and Pleione responded thus:

"I'm the one who carries my father's commands through the air. My father is Jupiter himself. I won't invent reasons. Only be willing to be faithful to your sister and to be called aunt of my offspring. Herse is the cause of my journey. We ask that you favor a lover."

She looked at him with the same eyes with which she'd recently seen the hidden secret of golden Minerva, and she demanded gold of great weight as payment for her service. Meanwhile she forced him to leave the dwelling.

The warrior goddess turned the orb of her fierce eye toward her, and drew sighs from such deep emotion that she shook at once her breast and the aegis placed on her strong breast. It came to her mind that this girl had revealed her secrets with profane hand when she saw the offspring of Vulcan, created without a mother, contrary to the given agreement, and that she would now be pleasing to the god and pleasing to her sister and rich with the gold she'd greedily demanded.

Immediately she sought the dwelling of Envy, squalid with black corruption. This house is hidden in deep valleys, lacking sun, open to no wind, gloomy and full of sluggish cold, always without fire, always abounding in darkness.

When the fearsome warrior of war arrived there, she stopped before the house (for she's not allowed to enter the dwelling) and struck the doorposts with the tip of her spear. The doors shook and opened. She saw inside Envy eating viper flesh—the food of her vices—and seeing her, turned away her eyes. But Envy rose slowly from the ground and left the half-eaten bodies of serpents and walked with sluggish step.

When she saw the goddess beautiful with form and weapons, she groaned and drew sighs along with her expression. Paleness sits on her face, leanness in her whole body. Her gaze is never straight, her teeth are discolored with rust, her breast is green with bile, her tongue is soaked with poison. Laughter is absent except what the sight of pain moves. She doesn't enjoy sleep, waked by vigilant cares, but she sees unwelcome successes and wastes away seeing them, and she attacks and is attacked together—her own punishment.

Though Minerva hated her, she addressed her briefly with such words: "Infect one of Cecrops' daughters with your corruption. It's necessary. Aglauros is the one." Having said no more, she fled and pushed away the earth with her thrust spear.

Envy looked at the fleeing goddess with a sidelong glance and gave small murmurs and grieved that Minerva would succeed. She took up her staff, which thorny bonds entirely surrounded, and covered with black clouds, wherever she walked she trampled flowering fields and scorched grasses and cropped the tops of plants and with her breath polluted peoples and cities and houses. At last she saw the Tritonian citadel, flourishing with talents and wealth and festive peace, and she scarcely held back tears because she saw nothing tearful.

But after she'd entered the chamber of Cecrops' daughter, she did as commanded and touched her breast with a rust-stained hand and filled her heart with hooked thorns and breathed in harmful poison and scattered pitch-black substance through her bones and spread venom in the middle of her lungs. And lest the causes of evil should wander through too wide a space, she placed her sister and her sister's fortunate marriage and the god in his beautiful form before her eyes and made everything great.

Irritated by these things with pain, Cecrops' daughter was gnawed by secret grief and groaned anxiously by night, anxiously by day, and, most miserable, melted away in slow decay, and like ice wounded by uncertain sun, she was burned no less by fortunate Herse's blessings than when fire is placed under thorny plants that neither give flames nor are burned with slow heat.

Often she wanted to die lest she see such a thing. Often she wanted to tell it like a crime to her stern father. Finally she sat in the opposing threshold to shut out the god. To him uttering blandishments and prayers and the gentlest words, she said, "Stop! I won't move from here unless you're repulsed."

"Let's stand by that pact!" said swift Cyllenius. And with his heavenly wand he opened the doors. But when she tried to rise, the parts by which we bend when sitting couldn't be moved by their sluggish weight. She indeed fought to raise herself with upright trunk, but the joint of her knees stiffened, and cold slid through her nails, and her veins grew pale with lost blood.

Just as an incurable cancer usually creeps widely and adds uninjured parts to diseased ones, so lethal cold gradually came into her breast and closed off the vital passages and breathing. Nor did she try to speak, nor, if she'd tried, would she have had a path for her voice. Stone now held her neck, and her mouth had hardened, and she sat as a bloodless statue. Nor was the stone white—her mind had stained it.

---

After the son of Atlas took these punishments for her profane words and mind, he left the lands told by Pallas and mounted the air on his beating wings. His father called him aside and, without confessing the cause of love, said:

"Faithful minister of my commands, son, drive away delay and glide down with your accustomed swift course to the land that looks up at your mother from the left side (the natives call it the Sidonian land). Seek it, and turn toward the shores the royal herd that you see grazing far off on the mountain grass."

He spoke, and the young cattle, driven long ago from the mountain, sought the shores as commanded, where the great king's daughter used to play, accompanied by Tyrian maidens.

Majesty and love don't go well together nor remain in one seat. Setting aside the weight of his scepter, that father and ruler of the gods, whose right hand is armed with triple fires, who shakes the world with his nod, put on the appearance of a bull and, mixed with the young cattle, lowed and walked beautiful among the tender grass.

Indeed, his color was that of snow that neither the tread of a hard foot has pressed nor the watery south wind dissolved. Muscles stood out on his neck, dewlaps hung from his shoulders, his horns were small indeed but such as you could swear were made by hand, more translucent than a pure gem. No threats were on his forehead, no formidable light. His expression had peace.

Agenor's daughter marveled that he was so beautiful, that he threatened no battles. But though he was gentle, she feared at first to touch him. Soon she approached and held flowers toward his white face. The lover rejoiced and, until the hoped-for pleasure should come, gave kisses to her hands. He could scarcely, scarcely put off the rest. And now he played and leaped on the green grass, now laid his snowy side on the yellow sands.

Gradually, with fear removed, now he offered his breast to be patted by the maiden's hand, now his horns to be wrapped with new garlands. The royal maiden even dared, not knowing whom she was mounting, to sit on the bull's back.

Then the god, gradually from the earth and from the dry shore, placed his false footsteps in the first waves. Then he went farther and carried his prize through the middle of the sea. She was afraid and looked back at the abandoned shore she'd been carried from, and held a horn with her right hand, and the other was placed on his back. Her trembling garments rippled in the breeze.