METAMORPHOSES BOOK III
manhood. But of a surety man's last day must ever be awaited, and none be counted happy till his death, till his last funeral rites are paid
One grandson of thine, Actaeon, midst all thy happiness first brought thee cause of grieí, upon whose brow strange horns appeared, and whose dogs greedily lapped their master's blood. But if you seek the truth, you will find the cause of this in fortune's fault and not in any crime of his. For what crime had mere mischance?
Twas on a mountain stained with the blood of many slaughtered beasts; midday had shortened every object's shade, and the sun was at equal distance from either goal. Then young Actaeon with friendly speech thus addressed his comrades of the chase 1s they fared through the trackless wastes: "Both nets and spears, my friends, are dripping with our quarry's blood, and the day has given us good luck enough. When once more Aurora, borne on her saffron car,shall bring back the day, we will resume our proposed task. Now Phoebus is midway in his course and cleaves the very fields with his burning rays Cease then your present task and bear home the well-wrought nets." The men performed his bidding and ceased their toil.
There was a vale in that region, thick grown with pine and cypress with their sharp needles. Twas called Gargaphie, the sacred haunt of high-girt Diana. In its most secret nook there was a well-shaded grotto, wrought by no artist's hand. But Nature by her own cunning had imitated art; for she had shaped a native arch of the living rock and soft tufa. A sparkling spring with its slender stream babbled on one side and widened into a pool girt with grassy banks Here the goddess of the wild woods, when weary with135
