METAMORPHOSES BOOK IV
say much more, but his tongue was of a sudden cleft in two; words failed him, and whenever he tried to utter some sad complaint, it was a hiss: this was the onlv voice which Nature left him. Then his wife smiting her naked breasts with her hands, cried out: "O Cadmus, stay, unhappy man, and put off this monstrous form! Cadmus, what does this mean? Where are your feet? Where are your shoulders and your hands, your colour, face, and, while I speak, your- everything? Why, O ye gods of heaven, do you not change me also into the same serpent form?" She spoke; he licked his wife's face and glided into her dear breasts as if familiar there, embraced her, and sought his wonted place about her neck. All who were there-for they had comrades with them-were filled with horror. But she only stroked the sleek neck of the crested dragon, and suddenly there were two serpents there with intertwining folds, which after a little while crawled off and hid in the neigh bouring woods. Now also, as of yore, they neither fear mankind nor wound them, mild creatures, remembering what once they were.
But both in their altered form found great comfort in their grandson, whom conquered India now wor- shipped, whose temples Greece had filled with adoring throngs. There was one only, Acrisius, the son of Abas, sprung from the same stock, who forbade the entrance of Bacchus within the walls of his city, Argos, who violently opposed the god, and did not admit that he was the son of Jove. Nor did he adnit that Perseus was son of Jove, whom Danaë had conceived of a golden shower. And yet, such is the power of truth, Acrisius in the end was sorry that he had repulsed the god and had not acknowledged his grandson. The one had now been received to a221
