METAMORPHOSES BOOK V “‘N ow kindly Ceres, happy in the recovery of her daughter, asks of you, Arethusa, why you fled, why you are now a sacred spring. The waters fall silent while their goddess lifts her head from her deep ring, and dries her green locks with her hands nd tells the old story of the Elean river's love. used to be one of the nymphs," she says, " who ave their dwelling in Achaia, and no other was nore eager in scouring the glades, or in setting the unting-nets. But althonh I never sought the fame of beauty, although 1 was brave, I had the name of peautiful. Nor did my beauty, all too often praised, give me any joy; and my dower of charming form, n which other maids rejoice, made me blush like a country girl, and I deemed it wrong to please. Wearied with the chase, I was returning, I remem- from the Stymphalian wood; the heat was great and my toil had made it double. I came upon a tream lowing without eddy, and without sound, rystal-clear to the bottom, in whose depths you might count every pebble, waters which you would scarcely think to be moving. Silvery willows and poplars fed by the water gave natural shade to the soft-sloping banks. I came to the water's edge and dipped my feet, then I went up to the knees: ot satisfied with this, 1 removed my robes, and the soft garments on a drooping willow, aked I plunged into the waters. And while I beat then, drawing them and gliding in a thousand turns nd tossing my arms, I thought I heard a kind of murmur deep in the pool. In terror I leaped on the en Alpheus called from his waters: Whither in haste, Arethusa?Whither in such haste? Twice in his hoarse voice he called to me. As I was, without my robes, I filed; for my robes were 279 ber, irst hanging earer bank. Th
