[ BOOK THE NINTH.]
[ FABLE I.]
Deïanira, the daughter of Œneus, having been wooed by several suitors, her father gives his consent that she shall marry him who proves to be the bravest of them. Her other suitors, having given way to Hercules and Acheloüs, they engage in single combat. Acheloüs, to gain the advantage over his rival, transforms himself into various shapes, and, at length, into that of a bull. These attempts are in vain, and Hercules overcomes him, and breaks off one of his horns. The Naiads, the daughters of Acheloüs, take it up, and fill it with the variety of fruits which Autumn affords; on which it obtains the name of the Horn of Plenty.
Theseus, the Neptunian hero,[1] inquires what is the cause of his sighing, and of his forehead being mutilated; when thus begins the Calydonian river, having his unadorned hair crowned with reeds:
“A mournful task thou art exacting; for who, when overcome, is desirous to relate his own battles? yet I will relate them in order; nor was it so disgraceful to be overcome, as it is glorious to have engaged; and a conqueror so mighty affords me a great consolation. If, perchance, Deïanira,[2] by her name, has at last reached thy ears, once she was a most beautiful maiden, and the envied hope of many a wooer; together with these, when the house of him, whom I desired as my father-in-law, was entered by me, I said, ‘Receive me, O son of Parthaon,[3] for thy son-in-law.’ Alcides, too, said the same; the others yielded to us two. He alleged that he was offering to the ix. 14-39. damsel both Jupiter as a father-in-law, and the glory of his labours; the orders, too, of his step-mother, successfully executed. On the other hand (I thought it disgraceful for a God to give way to a mortal, for then he was not a God), I said, ‘Thou beholdest me, a king of the waters, flowing amid thy realms,[4] with my winding course; nor am I some stranger sent thee for a son-in-law, from foreign lands, but I shall be one of thy people, and a part of thy state. Only let it not be to my prejudice, that the royal Juno does not hate me, and that all punishment, by labours enjoined, is afar from me. For, since thou, Hercules, dost boast thyself born of Alcmena for thy mother; Jupiter is either thy pretended sire, or thy real one through a criminal deed: by the adultery of thy mother art thou claiming a father. Choose, then, whether thou wouldst rather have Jupiter for thy pretended father, or that thou art sprung from him through a disgraceful deed?’
“While I was saying such things as these, for some time he looked at me with a scowling eye, and did not very successfully check his inflamed wrath; and he returned me just as many words as these: ‘My right hand is better than my tongue. If only I do but prevail in fighting, do thou get the better in talking;’ and then he fiercely attacked me. I was ashamed, after having so lately spoken big words, to yield. I threw on one side my green garment from off my body, and opposed my arms to his, and I held my hands bent inwards,[5] from before my breast, on their guard, and I prepared my limbs for the combat. He sprinkled me with dust, taken up in the hollow of his hands, and, in his turn, grew yellow with the casting of yellow sand[6] upon himself. And at one moment he aimed at my neck, at another my legs, as they shifted about, or you would suppose he was aiming at them; and he assaulted me on every side. My bulk defended me, and I was attacked in vain; no ix. 39-71. otherwise than a mole, which the waves beat against with loud noise: it remains unshaken, and by its own weight is secure.
“We retire a little, and then again we rush together in conflict, and we stand firm, determined not to yield; foot, too, is joined to foot; and then I, bending forward full with my breast, press upon his fingers with my fingers, and his forehead with my forehead. In no different manner have I beheld the strong bulls engage, when the most beauteous mate[7] in all the pasture is sought as the reward of the combat; the herds look on and tremble, uncertain which the mastery of so great a domain awaits. Thrice without effect did Alcides attempt to hurl away from him my breast, as it bore hard against him; the fourth time, he shook off my hold, and loosened my arms clasped around him; and, striking me with his hand, (I am resolved to confess the truth) he turned me quite round, and clung, a mighty load, to my back. If any credit is to be given me, (and, indeed, no glory is sought by me through an untrue narration) I seemed to myself as though weighed down with a mountain placed upon me. Yet, with great difficulty, I disengaged my arms streaming with much perspiration, and, with great exertion, I unlocked his firm grasp from my body. He pressed on me as I panted for breath, and prevented me from recovering my strength, and then seized hold of my neck. Then, at last, was the earth pressed by my knee, and with my mouth I bit the sand. Inferior in strength, I had recourse to my arts,[8] and transformed into a long serpent, I escaped from the hero.
“After I had twisted my body into winding folds, and darted my forked tongue with dreadful hissings, the Tirynthian laughed, and deriding my arts, he said, ‘It was the labour of my cradle to conquer serpents;[9] and although, Acheloüs, thou shouldst excel other snakes, how large a part wilt thou, but one serpent, be of the Lernæan Echidna? By her very wounds was she multiplied, and not one head of her hundred in ix. 71-100. number[10] was cut off by me without danger to myself; but rather so that her neck became stronger, with two successors to the former head. Yet her I subdued, branching with serpents springing from each wound, and growing stronger by her disasters; and, so subdued, I slew her. What canst thou think will become of thee, who, changed into a fictitious serpent, art wielding arms that belong to another, and whom a form, obtained as a favour, is now disguising?’ Thus he spoke; and he planted the grip of his fingers on the upper part of my neck. I was tortured, just as though my throat was squeezed with pincers; and I struggled hard to disengage my jaws from his fingers.
“Thus vanquished, too, there still remained for me my third form, that of a furious bull; with my limbs changed into those of a bull I renewed the fight. He threw his arms over my brawny neck, on the left side, and, dragging at me, followed me in my onward course; and seizing my horns, he fastened them in the hard ground, and felled me upon the deep sand. And that was not enough; while his relentless right hand was holding my stubborn horn, he broke it, and tore it away from my mutilated forehead. This, heaped with fruit and odoriferous flowers, the Naiads have consecrated, and the bounteous Goddess, Plenty, is enriched by my horn.” Thus he said; but a Nymph, girt up after the manner of Diana, one of his handmaids, with her hair hanging loose on either side, came in, and brought the whole of the produce of Autumn in the most plentiful horn, and choice fruit for a second course.