Minerva had lent her ears to such words and approved the Muses' songs and their just anger. Then she said to herself: "To praise isn't enough. Let me myself be praised as a divinity, and let's not allow my power to be spurned without punishment."

She turned her mind to the fates of Lydian Arachne, whom she'd heard didn't yield to her in praise of the wool-working art. Arachne wasn't famous for her place or family origin but for her art. Her father, Idmon from Colophon, used to dye thirsty wools with Phocaean purple. Her mother had died, but she too had been from common people and equal to her husband.

Yet Arachne, through Lydian cities, had sought a memorable name with her skill, though born in a small home and living in small Hypaepae. Often to look at her marvelous work, the nymphs left their vineyards of Tmolus, often the Pactolid nymphs left their waters. It was pleasing to watch not only the finished garments but also when they were being made—such grace attended her art.

Whether she gathered rough wool into first balls, or worked the material with her fingers, or with long drawing softened the fleeces repeatedly, making them equal to clouds, or turned the smooth spindle with light thumb, or embroidered with needle—you'd know she'd been taught by Pallas. Yet she herself denied it, and, offended by such a great teacher, said, "Let her compete with me! There's nothing I'd refuse if defeated!"

Pallas pretended to be an old woman. She added false gray hair to her temples and weak limbs that she supported with a staff. Then she began to speak thus:

"Not everything that greater age has is to be avoided. Experience comes from late years. Don't spurn my advice. Seek fame among mortals as greatest at making wool. Yield to the goddess and, reckless girl, ask pardon for your words with suppliant voice. She'll give pardon to one who asks."

Arachne looked at her with fierce eyes and left off her begun threads. She barely held back her hand and, confessing anger in her expression, answered disguised Pallas with such words:

"You come senseless and worn out by long old age, and having lived too long harms you. Let your daughter-in-law, if you have one, or your daughter, if you have one, hear these words. I have enough counsel in myself. Don't think you've helped by warning. My mind is the same. Why doesn't she herself come? Why does she avoid this contest?"

Then the goddess said, "She's come!" and removed her old woman's form and revealed Pallas. The nymphs and Phrygian women worshiped the divinity. Only the maiden wasn't terrified. Yet she blushed. A sudden blush marked her unwilling face and faded again—as the sky usually becomes purple when Aurora first moves and, after a brief time, grows white at the sun's rising.

She persisted in her plan and, from foolish desire for victory, rushed into her own fate. For Jupiter's daughter didn't refuse, nor warned further, nor now delayed the contest.

Without delay, both took positions in different places and stretched twin webs on slender warp. The web was bound to the beam, a reed separated the threads. The woof was inserted in the middle by sharp shuttles, which their fingers sped, and drawn through the warp, the notched teeth of the struck comb beat it into place.

Both hurried, their garments belted to their chests, their skilled arms moving, eagerness making them forget labor. There was woven purple that had felt the Tyrian bronze, and fine shades of small distinction—like the arc that rainbows usually paint across the long curve of vast sky when struck by sunlight. In it, though a thousand varied colors shine, the transition itself deceives watching eyes. So much is what touches the same, yet the ends differ. There too pliant gold was sent through the threads, and an ancient story was drawn in the web.

---

Pallas painted the Martian rock on the Cecropian citadel and the ancient dispute about the land's name. Twelve gods sat on high seats with Jupiter in the middle, in august dignity. She inscribed each god with his own appearance. Jupiter's image was regal. She made the god of the sea stand and strike rough rocks with his long trident, and from the middle of the rock's wound, seawater leaped forth—by which pledge he claimed the city.

But to herself she gave a shield, gave a spear with sharp point, gave a helmet to her head. Her breast was defended by the aegis. She showed the earth, struck by her spear, bringing forth the fruit-bearing olive with gray berries, and the gods marveling. Victory was the work's end.

Yet so that her rival for praise might understand from examples what reward she should hope for such mad attempts, she added four contests to the four corners, clear in their own color, distinguished with small pictures.

One corner had Thracian Rhodope and Haemus—now frozen mountains, once mortal bodies who had assigned themselves the names of the highest gods. Another part had the Pygmy mother's miserable fate. Juno, when she'd defeated her in contest, ordered her to be a crane and declare war on her own people.

She painted Antigone too, who once dared to compete with great Jupiter's consort. Royal Juno changed her into a bird. Nor did Ilium help her, nor her father Laomedon—instead, taking white feathers, she, as a stork, applauds herself with clattering beak.

The corner that remained alone had Cinyras, bereft—him embracing the temple steps, his daughters' limbs, and lying on stone, he seemed to weep. She surrounded the edges with peaceful olives (that was the boundary) and finished her work with her own tree.

---

Lydian Arachne portrayed Europa deceived by the bull's image. You'd think it a real bull, real waters. She herself seemed to look at the abandoned lands and call her companions and fear the touch of leaping water and draw back her timid feet.

She made Asterie held struggling by an eagle, made Leda reclining beneath a swan's wings. She added how Jupiter, hidden in a satyr's image, filled beautiful Nycteis with twin offspring, was Amphitryon when he took you, Tirynthian woman, was golden to deceive Danaë, was fire to trick Asopis, a shepherd to Mnemosyne, a spotted serpent to Deois.

You too, Neptune, changed to a fierce bull, she placed with the Aeolian maiden. You, seeming to be Enipeus, fathered the Aloads. A ram, you deceived the Bisaltid. And you, golden-haired mother of crops, most gentle, felt you as a horse. The snake-haired mother of the winged horse felt you as a bird. Melantho felt you as a dolphin.

To all these she gave their own appearance and the appearance of their places. There in rustic image was Phoebus, and how he'd worn now a hawk's feathers, now a lion's hide, how as a shepherd he'd deceived Macarean Isse, how Bacchus had deceived Erigone with false grapes, how Saturn as a horse created twin Chiron.

The last part of the web, surrounded by a thin border, had flowers interwoven with clinging ivy.

Neither Pallas nor Envy could criticize that work. The golden warrior-maiden grieved at the success and tore the embroidered cloth—the crimes of gods—and, as she held the shuttle from Mount Cytorus, three and four times struck Idmonian Arachne's forehead.

The unlucky girl couldn't bear it. Spirited, she tied a noose around her throat. As she hung, Pallas pitied her and lifted her and said, "Live, yes, but hang, wicked girl, and let this same law of punishment, lest you be secure about the future, be declared for your race and distant descendants!"

After that, departing, she sprinkled her with juices of Hecate's herb. Immediately, touched by the sad drug, her hair fell off, and with it her nose and ears. Her head became very small. Her whole body too was tiny. Slender fingers stuck to her side as legs. The rest was belly, from which nevertheless she sent thread and, as a spider, practices her ancient webs.

All Lydia roared, and through Phrygian towns rumor of the deed spread and occupied the great world with talk.

---

Niobe had known Arachne before her marriage, when as a maiden she'd lived in Maeonia and at Sipylus. Yet, warned by the punishment of her countrywoman Arachne, she wasn't advised to yield to gods and use humbler words.

Many things gave her spirit. But neither her husband's arts nor the lineage of both nor their great kingdom's power pleased her thus (though all these things pleased her) as her own offspring. Niobe would have been called the most fortunate of mothers if she hadn't seemed so to herself.

For Manto, daughter of Tiresias, prophet of the future, moved by divine impulse, had prophesied through the middle of the streets: "Women of Ismenos, go in crowds and give incense to Latona and Latona's two children with pious prayer and bind your hair with laurel. Latona commands through my mouth."

They obeyed. All Theban women adorned their temples with the ordered leaves and gave incense and praying words to the holy flames.

Look—Niobe came with a most celebrated crowd of companions, spectacular in Phrygian garments woven with gold and, as much as anger allowed, beautiful. Moving her lovely head, her hair flowing over both shoulders, she stopped. Casting her proud eyes around on high, she said:

"What madness is this—to prefer heard gods to seen? Or why is Latona worshiped at altars while my divinity is still without incense? Tantalus is my father—he alone was allowed to touch the gods' tables. My mother is the Pleiads' sister. Greatest Atlas is my grandfather, who bears the heavenly axis on his shoulders. Jupiter is my other grandfather, and I glory in this father-in-law too.

"The Phrygian peoples fear me. The royal house of Cadmus is under me as mistress. The walls, committed to my husband's lyre, along with the people are ruled by me and my husband. Wherever I turn my eyes to any part of my house, immense riches are seen. Add to this a face worthy of a goddess. To this add seven daughters and as many sons and soon sons-in-law and daughters-in-law!

"Now ask what cause our pride has! And dare to prefer to me Latona—I don't know, some Titan's daughter, child of Coeus—to whom the vast earth once denied a tiny seat when she was about to give birth! Your goddess wasn't received in sky nor earth nor waters. She was an exile from the world until Delos pitied her wandering and said, 'You wander on lands as a guest, I on waves,' and gave her an unstable place.

"She became parent of two—that's one-seventh of my womb. I'm fortunate (who would deny this?) and I'll remain fortunate (who would doubt this too?). Abundance has made me safe. I'm too great for Fortune to harm. Though she might snatch much, she'll leave me much more. My blessings have passed beyond fear.

"Imagine something could be taken from this population of my children. Stripped, I still won't be reduced to the number of two—Latona's crowd! How much does that differ from childless? Go—the sacred rites are done enough for the matter—and put down the laurel from your hair!"

They put it down and left the rites unfinished and, as much as was allowed, they worshiped the divinity with silent murmur.

---

The goddess was indignant. On Cynthus' highest peak, she spoke with these words to her twin offspring:

"Look, I your mother, proud in having created you and yielding to no goddess except Juno—I'm doubted whether I'm a goddess, and through all ages I'm barred, O children, from worshiped altars unless you help me. Nor is this my only grief. Tantalus' daughter has added insults to terrible deed and dared to set you beneath her children and called me childless (may that fall back on herself!) and showed her wicked father's tongue."

Latona was about to add prayers to these complaints, but Phoebus said, "Stop! Long delay of punishment is the complaint!" Phoebe said the same, and in swift glide through air they reached Cadmus' citadel, covered with clouds.

There was a plain, flat and spreading wide near the walls, beaten down by constant horses, where the crowd of wheels and hard hoof had softened the ground beneath. Part there of the seven born from Amphion, brave boys, mounted horses and pressed backs reddened with Tyrian dye and guided reins heavy with gold.

Of these, Ismenus, who once had been his mother's first burden, while he steered the four-footed course in a sure circle and restrained the foaming mouth, cried "Alas!" and bore a weapon fixed in his middle chest and, letting the reins slip from his dying hand, gradually slid from his right shoulder to the side.

Next, Sipylus, hearing the sound of the quiver through empty air, gave reins, as when a captain, foreseeing rain, flees when he's seen a cloud and, as steersman, furls all hanging sails lest any light breeze escape. Yet giving reins, the unavoidable weapon followed him. The arrow, trembling, stuck in his highest neck and the bare iron protruded from his throat.

He, as he was, leaning forward through the mane over the loosened legs, rolled and stained the earth with warm blood. Unlucky Phaedimus and Tantalus, heir of his grandfather's name, when they'd put an end to their usual labor, had passed to the work of bright youth—the wrestling ground. And now they'd brought their struggling chests together in tight embrace when an arrow, driven from the taut string, as they were joined, pierced them both.

They groaned together. Together they laid their limbs, bent with pain, on the ground. Together, lying, they turned their last eyes and together breathed out their souls.

Alphenor saw them and, beating his torn chest, flew to them to lift the cold limbs in his embrace, and fell in his dutiful act. For the Delian god broke his innermost heart with death-bearing iron. When this was drawn out, part of his lung, torn on the barbs, was pulled out, and blood was poured into air with his soul.

But not a simple wound afflicted unshorn Damasichthon. He was struck where the leg begins and where the sinewy knee makes the soft joint. While he tried with his hand to draw out the deadly weapon, another arrow, driven through his throat to the feathers. Blood expelled this and, shooting high, spurted out and leaped far through the pierced air.

Last, Ilioneus lifted arms that wouldn't help by praying and said, "O gods, all together" (saying this unknowing that all shouldn't be asked), "spare me!" The archer was moved when now the arrow couldn't be called back. Yet he died from the smallest wound, the arrow not having struck deep into his heart.

---

Rumor of the disaster and her people's grief and tears of her own made the mother certain of such sudden ruin—marveling that they'd dared this, that the gods had so much right. For father Amphion, driving iron through his chest, had ended in dying both life and grief together.

Alas, how much this Niobe differed from that Niobe who just before had driven people from Latona's altars and carried her steps, head high, through the middle of the city, envied by her own! But now pitied even by an enemy!

She lay upon the cold bodies and without order gave last kisses, distributed to all her children. From these, raising bruised arms to heaven, she said:

"Feed on our grief, cruel Latona, feed! And sate your heart with my mourning! [Sate your savage heart! Through seven deaths] I'm carried out. Exult, victorious enemy, and triumph! But why victorious? More remain to me, wretched, than to you, fortunate. After so many deaths too, I conquer!"

She'd spoken, and the bowstring sounded from the drawn bow. This terrified all except Niobe alone. She was bold from disaster. The sisters stood with black clothing before their brothers' biers, hair hanging down. One of them, drawing the arrow sticking in her vitals, collapsed dying with her mouth on her brother laid beneath.

Another, trying to console her wretched mother, suddenly fell silent and was doubled over by an unseen wound. [And compressed her mouth after the breath had gone.] This one, fleeing in vain, collapsed. That one died upon her sister. One hid. You'd see that one trembling.

With six given to death and suffering various wounds, the last remained. With her whole body, her whole clothing, the mother covered her and cried out, "Leave one, the smallest! Of many I ask for one, the smallest."

While she prayed, the one for whom she prayed died. Bereft, she sat down among her lifeless sons and daughters and husband and stiffened from disasters. No breeze moved her hair. The color in her face was bloodless. Her eyes stood motionless in sad cheeks. Nothing in the image was alive.

Her very tongue too froze with her hard palate inside, and her veins ceased to be able to move. Her neck couldn't bend, nor her arms give back motion, nor her foot go. Inside too her vitals were stone.

Yet she wept. Surrounded by a whirlwind of strong wind, she was snatched to her homeland. There, fixed on a mountain's peak, she melts, and even now the marble streams with tears.

Then truly all—woman and man—feared the goddess's manifest anger, and with more intent worship all venerated the great divinity of the twin-bearing goddess. As happens, from a more recent deed they retold earlier ones.

---

One of them said: "Lycian farmers too, in fields fertile, once didn't spurn the goddess without punishment. The matter is obscure indeed from the men's humble status, yet marvelous. I myself, present, saw the pool and the place famous from the prodigy.

"For my father, now older in years and unable to travel, had ordered me to drive chosen cattle from there, and had given himself a guide from that race. While I was surveying the pastures with him, look—in the middle of the lake stood an ancient altar, black with sacred ash, surrounded by trembling reeds.

"My guide stopped and said with fearful murmur, 'Favor me!' And I too said with similar murmur, 'Favor me!' I asked whether the altar was of the Naiads or Faunus or a local god, when my companion told such things:

"'No mountain deity is in this altar, youth. She claims this as her own—she to whom once the royal wife forbade the world, whom wandering Delos scarcely received when she prayed, when the island was still floating light. There, leaning against Pallas' tree with a palm, Latona brought forth twins despite her hostile stepmother.

"'From there too they say the new mother fled Juno and carried in her lap her two children—two divinities. And now when, under Chimaera-bearing Lycia's borders, the sun burned the fields heavily, the goddess, tired from long labor and parched from the starry heat, conceived thirst, and her thirsty nursing children had drunk dry her breasts.

"'By chance she saw a pool of moderate water in a low valley. Rustic people there were gathering bushy osiers with rushes and sedge pleasing to marshes. The Titan's daughter approached and, knee placed, pressed the earth to drink the cool liquids as she was about to quench her thirst.

"'The rustic crowd forbade it. The goddess thus addressed those forbidding: "Why do you forbid me water? Use of water is common. Nature didn't make the sun private, nor air, nor thin waters. I come to a public gift. Yet I ask as a suppliant that you give it. I wasn't preparing to wash my limbs and weary body here but to relieve thirst. As I speak, my mouth lacks moisture and my throat is dry, and scarcely is there a path for voice in it.

"'"A draught of water will be nectar to me, and I'll confess I've received life at the same time. You'll have given life in water. Let these children too move you, who stretch little arms from my lap." And by chance the children were stretching arms.

"'Whom could the goddess's gentle words not have moved? Yet they persisted in forbidding her as she prayed and added threats unless she went far away, and added insults besides. Not enough—they even disturbed the pools themselves with feet and hands and, with malicious leaping, stirred up soft mud from the bottom of the deep pool here and there.

"'Anger drove out thirst. For no longer did Coeus' daughter supplicate the unworthy nor endure to speak words lesser than a goddess. Raising her palms to the stars, she said, "Live forever in that pool!"

"'The goddess's wishes came true. It pleases them to be under water. Now to submerge all their limbs in the hollow marsh, now to put forth their heads, now to swim in the pool's surface, often to stand on the pool's bank, often to leap back into the cool waters.

"'But even now they exercise their foul tongues in quarrels and, shame driven out, though they're under water, they try to curse under water. Their voice too is now hoarse, their swollen throats swell, and their very insults dilate their wide mouths. Their backs touch their heads, their necks seem cut off. Their spine is green, their belly, the body's largest part, is white. They leap as new frogs in the muddy pool.'"

---

After someone or other from the Lycian people had told this destruction, another remembered the satyr whom Latona's son, with Minerva's reed, conquered and punished.

"Why do you tear me from myself?" he said. "Ah, it grieves me! Ah, a flute isn't worth this!" he was shouting. As he shouted, his skin was stripped off over his highest limbs, and he was nothing but a wound. Blood flowed everywhere. Uncovered, his sinews lay open, and his veins, trembling without any skin, throbbed. You could count his leaping vitals and the transparent fibers in his chest.

The country gods, the forest's divinities, fauns and brother satyrs, and Olympus, dear even then, and the nymphs wept for him, and whoever in those mountains tended wool-bearing flocks and cattle with horns. The fertile earth grew wet and, soaked, received the falling tears and drank them with its deep veins.

When it had made them water, it sent them into the open air. From there, seeking the sea with rapid course down sloping banks, Marsyas has his name—the clearest river of Phrygia.

---

From such words the crowd immediately returned to present things and mourned Amphion, extinct with his line. The mother was blamed. Yet then too, one is said to have wept for her—Pelops. After he drew the garment from his chest, he showed ivory on his left shoulder.

This shoulder, at the time of birth, had been the same color as the right and was of flesh. Soon, they say, when his limbs were cut by his father's hands, the gods joined the parts. With others found, the place that's between the neck and top of the arm was missing. Ivory was placed in use of the missing part, and Pelops was made whole by that deed.

---

Neighboring nobles gathered. Nearby cities begged their kings to go for consolation: Argos and Sparta and Pelopid Mycenae and Calydon not yet hated by fierce Diana, fertile Orchomenus and Corinth famous for bronze, fierce Messene and humble Patrae and Cleonae, and Nelean Pylos and not yet Pitthean Troezen, and whatever other cities are enclosed by the two-sea'd Isthmus or seen from outside the two-sea'd Isthmus.

Who could believe it? Athens alone held back. War opposed the duty. Barbarian bands, brought over sea, were terrifying the Mopsopian walls. Thracian Tereus with auxiliary arms had scattered these and, by conquering, had a famous name.

Pandion, powerful in wealth and men and tracing his race by chance from great Gradivus, joined him in marriage to Procne. But Juno the bride-maker wasn't present, nor Hymenaeus, nor the Grace at that bed. The Furies held torches snatched from a funeral. The Furies spread the couch. A profane owl settled on the roof and sat on the marriage chamber's peak.

With this bird Procne and Tereus were joined. With this bird they became parents. Thrace indeed congratulated them, and they themselves gave thanks to the gods. The day when Pandion's daughter was given to the famous tyrant, and when Itys was born, they ordered to be called festivals—so much does usefulness hide.

Now Titan had led through five autumns the returning year's seasons, when Procne, coaxing her husband, said, "If any favor is mine, either send me to visit my sister, or let my sister come here. You'll promise to your father-in-law she'll return in brief time. You'll give me the equivalent of a great gift if I see my sister."

He ordered ships launched into the waters and, with sail and oar, entered the Cecropian port and touched Piraeus' shores. As soon as the chance of seeing his father-in-law was given, right hand was joined to right hand, and conversation began with good omen.

He'd begun to relate the reason for his coming, to report his wife's commands, and to promise the sent one's swift return—when, look, Philomela came, rich in great preparation, richer in beauty—like the naiads and dryads we usually hear of walking through the middle forests, if only you'd give them similar dress and similar adornment.

---

Not otherwise did Tereus burn on seeing the maiden than if someone put fire under dry grain or burned leaves and hay stored in barns. Worthy indeed was her appearance, but his innate lust also spurred him, and that region's race is prone to Venus. He burned with his people's vice and his own.

His impulse was to corrupt the care of her companions and the nurse's loyalty, and also to solicit her herself with great gifts and spend his whole kingdom, or to seize her and defend the seized one with savage war. There was nothing that, seized by unbridled love, he didn't dare, nor could his chest contain the enclosed flames.

And now he barely endured delays and, with eager mouth, returned to Procne's commands and pursued his own desires beneath hers. Love made him eloquent. Whenever he asked for more than was just, he said Procne wanted it thus. He added tears too, as if she'd commanded those as well.

O gods above, how much blind night mortal hearts have! By the very undertaking of his crime, Tereus was believed to be dutiful and took praise from his crime. What's more—Philomela desired the same thing. Coaxing, holding her father's arms around his neck, she sought, for her own welfare and against it, to go to see her sister.

Tereus watched her and, seeing, touched her in advance. Seeing her kisses and arms placed around her father's neck, he took all as goads and torches and food for his madness. Whenever she embraced her father, he wished he were her father—for he'd be no less wicked.

Her father was conquered by the prayers of both. She rejoiced and gave thanks to her father and, unlucky girl, thought what would be sad for both had succeeded for both.

Now little labor remained for Phoebus. His horses struck with feet the slope of descending Olympus. Royal feasts and Bacchus in gold were set on tables. Then they gave their swollen bodies to peaceful sleep.

But the Odrysian king, though he'd withdrawn, burned for her and, repeating her face and movements and hands, he imagined what he wished—what he hadn't yet seen—and fed his own fires, care removing sleep.

Light came, and Pandion, grasping the hand of his departing son-in-law, commended his companion with welling tears:

"Dear son-in-law, since dutiful cause has compelled and both wished it (you too wished it, Tereus), I give her to you. By faith and kindred hearts, as a suppliant, I pray by the gods above, guard her with fatherly love and send back as soon as possible (any delay will be long to me) the sweet solace of my anxious old age. You too, Philomela, if there's any dutifulness, return to me as soon as possible (it's enough your sister is far)!"

He was commanding and at the same time giving kisses to his daughter. Gentle tears fell during his commands. As pledge of faith, he asked for the right hands of both and, joining them given together, begged them to greet his absent daughter and grandson for him with mindful voice. His last farewell he scarcely spoke with mouth full of sobs, and he feared his mind's forebodings.

---

As soon as Philomela was placed on the painted ship and the sea was moved by oars and land was pushed back, "We've won!" he exclaimed. "My desires are carried with me!" The barbarian exulted and scarcely postponed his joys in his mind. Never did he turn his gaze from her—not otherwise than when Jupiter's eagle with hooked talons has placed a hare in its high nest. There's no escape for the captured. The ravisher watches his prize.

And now the journey was done, now they'd left the weary ships on their own shores, when the king dragged Pandion's daughter into high stables, dark with ancient forests. There, pale and trembling and fearing everything and now with tears asking where her sister was, he shut her in and, confessing his wickedness, overpowered her—a maiden and alone—by force.

In vain she called often on her father, often on her sister, most of all on the great gods. She trembled like a frightened lamb that, wounded, shaken from a gray wolf's mouth, doesn't yet seem safe to itself, or like a dove that, its feathers soaked with its own blood, still shudders and fears the greedy talons in which it had stuck.

Soon, when her mind returned, she tore her disheveled hair and, like one mourning, beating her arms with blows, stretching forth her palms, said:

"O barbarian with terrible deeds, O cruel one! Didn't my father's commands with dutiful tears move you, nor care for my sister, nor my virginity, nor marriage rights? You've confused everything! I've been made my sister's rival. You, a double husband. Procne should be my enemy!

"Why don't you, traitor, snatch this soul, so that no crime remains for you? Would that you'd done it before the wicked intercourse! I'd have had shades empty of guilt. If the gods above see this, if the powers of gods are anything, if all things haven't perished with me—whenever you'll pay me penalties!

"I myself, shame thrown aside, will speak your deeds! If chance is given, I'll come to the people. If I'm held shut in the forests, I'll fill the forests and move the conscious rocks. Heaven will hear this, and if any god is in it!"

---

Savage tyrant's anger was stirred by such words, and his fear was no less. Goaded by both causes, he freed his sword from the sheath where it was girded and, seizing her by the hair, forced her to bear bonds with arms fixed behind her back.

Philomela was offering her throat and had conceived hope of her death when she saw the sword. But he, while she was protesting and calling constantly on her father's name and struggling to speak, seized her tongue with tongs and cut it off with his savage sword.

The root of her tongue quivered. The tongue itself lay and murmured, trembling, on the black earth. As the tail of a mutilated snake usually leaps, it throbbed and, dying, sought its mistress's footsteps. After this deed too (I'd scarcely dare believe it), they say he often returned to the mangled body with his lust.

After such deeds he endured to return to Procne. She, seeing her husband, asked for her sister. But he gave false groans and told invented deaths. Tears made it believable. Procne tore from her shoulders her garments gleaming with broad gold and put on black clothes and set up an empty tomb and brought offerings to the false shades and mourned the fate of a sister not thus to be mourned.

---

The god had surveyed the signs through the completed year's twelve passages. What should Philomela do? Guard prevented flight. The stable's walls were built with solid stone. Her mute mouth lacked proof of the deed. Great is grief's ingenuity, and cleverness comes in wretched matters.

Cleverly she hung threads on a barbarian loom and wove purple marks into white threads—evidence of the crime. When it was finished, she handed it to one woman and asked by gesture that she carry it to her mistress. She, asked, carried it to Procne and didn't know what she was handing over in it.

The savage tyrant's wife unrolled the cloth and read her sister's miserable fate. And (marvelous she could!) she was silent. Grief pressed her mouth. Words indignant enough for her tongue failed her seeking them. Nor was there room for tears, but she rushed, confusing right and wrong, and was wholly in the image of punishment.

It was the time when Thracian wives usually celebrated Bacchus' triennial rites. (Night was privy to the rites. At night Rhodope sounded with ringing of sharp bronze.) At night the queen left her home and was equipped for the god's rites and took up furious weapons. Her head was covered with vine, deerskin hung from her left side, a light spear rested on her shoulder.

Swift through the forests with an accompanying crowd of her companions, terrible Procne, driven by grief's furies, Bacchus, feigned yours. She came at last to the remote stable, howled out and sounded "Euhoe!" and broke down the doors and seized her sister. Dressing the seized one with signs of Bacchus, she hid her face with ivy fronds and, dragging the stunned girl, led her within her walls.

When Philomela sensed she'd touched the wicked house, the unlucky girl shuddered and grew pale in her whole face. Procne, finding a place, removed the sacred emblems and unveiled her wretched sister's shameful face and sought an embrace.

But she couldn't raise her eyes against her—she seemed to herself her sister's rival. With her face cast down to the ground and wanting to swear and call the gods to witness that that disgrace was inflicted on her by force, her hand stood for her voice.

Procne burned and couldn't contain her own anger. Rebuking her sister's weeping, she said, "This isn't to be done with tears but with iron, or with something, if you have it, that can overcome iron. I've prepared myself for every wickedness, sister. Either I'll burn the royal dwelling with torches and hurl craftsman Tereus into the middle flames, or I'll snatch tongue and eyes and the limbs that stole your modesty with iron, or I'll drive out his guilty soul through a thousand wounds! Something great I've prepared—what it is, I still doubt."

---

While Procne pondered such things, Itys came to his mother. What she could do, she was warned by him. Looking with pitiless eyes, "Ah, how like your father you are!" she said. Speaking no more, she prepared the sad deed and seethed with silent anger.

Yet when her son approached and brought greeting to his mother and drew her neck with little arms and mixed kisses with boyish blandishments, the mother indeed was moved. Her anger broke and stopped, and her unwilling eyes grew wet with forced tears.

But when she sensed her mind wavering from too much tenderness, she turned again from him to her sister's face and, looking at both in turn, said, "Why does one add blandishments while the other, robbed of tongue, is silent? Why doesn't she call me sister whom he calls mother? See whom you're married to, daughter of Pandion! You degenerate! Dutifulness is a crime in Tereus as husband."

Without delay, she dragged Itys—as a Ganges tigress drags a suckling deer's fawn through dark forests. When they'd reached a remote part of the high house, and as he stretched out hands and now saw his fate and cried "Mother! Mother!" and sought her neck, Procne struck him with a sword where chest joins side, nor did she turn her face away.

That one wound was enough for his fate. But Philomela cut his throat with iron. Still living and retaining something of soul, they tore apart his limbs. Part leaped in hollow bronze, part hissed on spits. The chambers dripped with gore.

To these courses Procne admitted unknowing Tereus. Feigning it a sacred rite of ancestral custom that only a husband was allowed to approach, she removed companions and servants. Tereus himself, sitting on his ancestral throne, feasted and stuffed his own flesh into his own belly.

Such was his mind's blindness—he said, "Call Itys here!" Procne couldn't hide her cruel joys. Now, wanting to be the messenger of her own disaster, she said, "You have inside what you seek."

He looked around and asked where he was. Asking and calling again, just as she was, her hair scattered with furious slaughter, Philomela leaped forth and hurled Itys' bloody head into his father's face. Never at any time did she wish more to be able to speak and testify her joys with deserved words.

The Thracian with a great cry pushed back the tables and called the viperous sisters from the Stygian valley. Now, if he could, with opened chest, he wanted to bring forth the terrible feast and half-eaten flesh from within. Now he wept and called himself his son's miserable tomb. Now he pursued with drawn sword the daughters born of Pandion.

---

You'd think the Cecropid bodies hung on wings—they hung on wings. Of these, one sought the forests, another entered the roof. Not yet had the marks of slaughter left their breasts—the feather was signed with blood.

He, swift from his grief and desire for punishment, was changed into a bird. A crest stands on his head. An immoderately long beak projects instead of his long spear. The bird's name is hoopoe—its face seems armed.

This grief sent Pandion to the Tartarean shades before his day and the end of long old age. Erectheus took the scepter of the place and rule of affairs—doubtful whether more powerful in justice or arms. He indeed had created four sons and as many of female lot, but two daughters' beauty was equal.

Of these, Aeolus' son Cephalus was happy with you as wife, Procris. Boreas was harmed by Tereus and the Thracians. The god long loved Orithyia but was denied—while he asked and preferred to use prayers rather than force.

But when he achieved nothing with blandishments, rough with anger—which is usual for him and too familiar to the wind—he said, "And deservedly! For why did I leave behind my weapons—savagery and strength and angry, threatening spirits—and employ prayers, whose use shames me?

"Force is suited to me. By force I drive away sad clouds, by force I shake the seas and overturn knotted oaks and harden snows and beat lands with hail. I too, when I've met my brothers in open sky (for that field is mine), wrestle with such effort that middle heaven rings with our collisions and fires leap out, struck from hollow clouds.

"I too, when I've entered earth's vaulted holes and, fierce, placed my back beneath the deepest caverns, I disturb the shades and the whole world with tremors. By this help I should have sought marriage. Erectheus should not have been prayed to by me but made my father-in-law."

Boreas spoke these things or no less and shook his wings. By their beating all the earth was blown and the wide sea shuddered. Dragging his dusty cloak over the mountain peaks, he swept the ground and, covered in darkness, loving, embraced Orithyia with tawny wings.

While he flew, his stirred fires burned more strongly. Nor did he stop his airy course's reins before the raptor held the Cicones' people and walls. There the Actaean tyrant's cold wife became a mother too and brought forth twin births—the rest they had from their mother, their father's wings.

Yet these aren't said to have been born with their bodies at once. While beard was absent from their reddish hair, boy Calais and boy Zetes were featherless. Soon, equally, feathers in the manner of birds began to surround each side, equally their cheeks to grow golden.

So when youth's time yielded to their boyhood time, with the Minyans, in the first ship, they sought through the unknown sea the fleece shining with bright wool.