METAMORPHOSES BOOK VIII moss, conchs and purple-shells panelled the ceiling Now had the blazing sun traversed two-thirds of his daily course, when Theseus and his comrades of the chase disposed themselves upon the couches. Ixion's son 1 lay here, and there Lelex, the hero of Troezen, took his place, his temples already sprinkled with grey; and others who had been deemed worthy of equal honour by the Acarnanian river-god, who was filled with joy in his noble guest. Without delay barefoot nymphs set the feast upon the tables, and then when the food had been removed, they set out the wine in jewelled cups. Then the noble hero looking forth upon the wide water spread before his eyes, pointed with his finger and said: "What place is that? Tell me the name which that island bears, And vet it seems not to be one island." The river god replied: " No, what vou see is not one island, l'here are five islands lying there together; but the distance hides their divisions. And, that you may wonder the less at what Diana did when she was slighted, those islands once were nymphs, who, when they had slaughtered ten bullocks and had invited all the other rural gods to their sacred feast, forgot me as they led the festal dance. I swelled with rage, as full as when my flood flows at the fullest; and so, terrible in wrath, terrible irn flood, I tore forests from forests, fields from fields; and with the place they stood on, I swept the nymphs away, who at last remembered me then, into the sea. There my flood and the sea,united,cleft the undivided ground into as many parts as now you see the Echinades yonder amid the waves. But, as you yourself see, away, look, far away beyond the others is one island that I love: the sailors call it Perimele. 1 Pirithoüs. 447
