With its one horn defiled; then Hercules,

Exulting in his triumph, claimed his bride

And bore me off to Argos. Then, it chanced,500

Evenus' stream that wanders through the plain,

Its whirling waters bearing to the sea,

Was swollen beyond its banks[28] with turbid flood.

Here Nessus, well accustomed to the stream,

Required a price for bearing me across;505

And on his back, where beast and human join,

He took me, boldly stemming every wave.