Book 11

11. The eleventh, watch, and you will mark lovely Ampelos borne off by the man-slaying, snatching bull.

The contest was dissolved; and the lovely youth, glorying

in the sport-loving victory, leapt up, companion of his coeval Bacchus,

shifting his wandering sole around the rolling-footed circle,

leaning his all-white right hand on Dionysus;

and seeing him exulting, prancing on his feet with the double victory,

Iobacchus soothed him with a friendly word:

"Hasten again, dear boy, after the victory of swift feet

and after the contest on foot, to have yet a third other contest,

and swim, unreachable, with your coeval Bacchus as he swims.

Ampelos, having beaten me wrestling on the sands,

be lighter than Dionysus also in the streams,

and leaving the Satyrs still at play with their leapings,

hasten again, alone, to a third other contest;

may you win on land and in the waters, and after victory

I will crown your lovely locks with double clusters,

Lyaeus twice defeated, yet unvanquished.

This lovely stream suited you, it suited your beauty

alone, the beauty of your limbs, that Ampelos might be double,

cleaving the gold-gleaming waters with golden palm;

and as you stretch with naked limbs for victory,

the whole Pactolian water will adorn your beauty.

Grant the river an Olympian honour equal to your own, since Phaethon too

casts his rosy rays upon Ocean;

give Pactolus too your radiance, that Ampelos

may appear rising like the Morning Star; for this stream

flashes in both ways, with the reddening metal,

as you do with your limbs; and let the deep-rich stream

receive a youth of like colour and like form,

mingling beauty with beauty, that I may cry to the Satyrs:

how did rose come to rose? whence is one radiance mingled

both in the reddening skin and the flashing stream?

Would that here too, boy, there were the stream of Eridanus,

where the tears of the Heliades flow rich, that I might wash

your limbs in both, in gold and in amber.

But since I dwell very far from the Hesperian river,

I will come to Alybe, the neighbouring city, where nearby

the Geudis whitens with the draught of its wealth-bearing waters,

that you, washed from the river Pactolus,

Ampelos, I may brighten in the silvery streams too.

Let fair-flowing Hermus be a care to other Satyrs;

for it does not bear a stream of gold; but you alone

were a golden boy, may you have golden water too."

So speaking, he was borne through the water; and from the ground

Ampelos was lifted up and went along with Lyaeus;

and sweet was the course to them both, end from end,

as they swam in circles in the rich river.

And the god, holding a watery contest of swiftness,

ran unsteady in the water, casting his bare

breast on the streams, and shaking his feet and rowing his hands

he scored the unshaken back of the wealthy calm,

now keeping his course in company with the coeval boy,

now darting past, but guarded, only so far as he would leave

Ampelos running near the path, his companion, beside neighbouring Bacchus;

at other times wheeling his palms, as though tiring in the wave,

the swift-kneed god willingly gave the victory to the water-traveller.

And after the river's flood Ampelos went to the midst of the thicket,

holding his neck proud with the river victory.

And he girt his locks with a serpent cluster,

bearing a fearful mimicry of serpent-haired Lyaeus;

and often, seeing the spangled tunic of Bromius,

he fastened on his limbs a counterfeit, embroidered raiment,

and bound his light foot with a purple buskin,

wearing a dappled robe on his skin; and in a mountain-stalled car

watching Iobacchus driving leopards

he proudly displayed the sports of the crag-loving beasts;

now mounting the mane of a mountain bear

he reined back the grim mane of the hurrying beast,

now he lashed the shaggy neck of a lion,

at other times, mounted high upon spangled backs,

unshaken, he delighted to drive an unbridled tiger.

And seeing him, Dionysus, with a gentle threat,

spoke, consoling him with a friendly, prophetic word,

pouring a pitying voice from reproachful lips:

"Where are you borne, dear boy? Why does the wood please you so much?

Stay with me, hunting with hunting Dionysus;

when I touch the feast, feast together with Lyaeus,

reveling, when I rouse the revel for the Satyrs.

The leopard does not trouble me, nor the jaw of the wild bear;

do not tremble at the greedy mouth of the mountain-ranging lioness;

only fear the horns of the implacable bull."

He spoke, pitying bold Ampelos; and the youth

heard the word with his ears, but his mind played within him.

There appeared a great sign to loving Dionysus

announcing Ampelos short-lived; for from a crag

bearing a freshly grown fawn upon its back

a horned serpent rose, broad with scales,

and bearing it above the altar, on top of the foundations,

it dashed it down, thrashed by its fearful horn,

headlong, self-tumbling; and as the mountain-ranging fawn

bleated its shrill cry, its wandering life-breath flew away;

and as a libation was to be, self-heralding, with a draught of blood

the stone altar reddened with bloody dews,

bearing the likeness of wine poured out. And beholding

Euios the serpent, the horned snatcher of the fawn,

learning the horned destroyer of the witless youth,

he mingled laughter with grief, and held an unsteady purpose,

double, and was divided in his heart, lamenting the youth

near to his doom, laughing for the grace of sweet wine.

Yet he went, companion of the lovely boy,

to the mountain, to the flat rock, and to the course of the accustomed hunt.

And seeing him, Bacchus still rejoiced; for the eyes

never bring satiety of loves to those who gaze.

Often too, when Bromius sat beside the table,

the youth piped, rendering an unwonted Muse,

and poured forth the whole song of the reeds; and at the boy's

fair singing, even if he broke the strain of the song,

Bacchus, springing above the floor with a wind-like leap,

clapped with his hands, loud-sounding, and while the youth

was still singing, setting his lip about his mouth

he embraced, on the pretext of harmony, with a loving clasp;

and he swore by Cronides, that so great a rhythm singing Pan

never sang, nor clear-voiced Apollo.

And death-bearing Ate, seeing the bold youth

led astray from Lyaeus hunting in the mountains,

like to the graceful youth, his coeval boy,

soothed Ampelos the deluder with such a word,

doing a favour to the stepmother of Phrygian Dionysus:

"Your friend, fearless boy, is called Dionysus in vain;

what reward of companionship have you won? You do not drive Lyaeus's

wondrous chariot, you do not rein a leopard.

Maron has won the car of your Bromius, stretching his hand

with the beast-driving whip and the well-stoned bridle;

what gift is this you have from straight-thyrsus Lyaeus?

The Pans have the lyre and the din of sweet-sounding pipes,

and to the Satyrs your steward Dionysus gave the loud-roaring

circle of ox-hide, and the mountain-ranging

Bassarids themselves sit upon the backs of lions.

What gifts worthy of your friendship do you bring,

loved in vain by Bacchus, the driver of leopards?

Often, seated high upon the Phoebean car,

Atymnius, conspicuous on high, drove, cleaving the air;

you have heard of Abaris himself, whom into the air-walking course

Phoebus escorted on a flying, wandering arrow;

Ganymede too steered the eagle in the air,

the false winged Zeus, the father of your Lyaeus;

but Bacchus never lifted up Ampelos, the bird of the Loves,

raising your body with unscratching talons.

The Trojan wine-pourer was better, who has the court of Zeus,

the house. But you, boy, still bearing a longing for the car,

refuse to drive a colt into the unsteady course,

because, shaken by the swift-whirling draught of its feet,

the stormy horse shakes off its driver;

the raging horses dashed Glaucus down to the earth,

and Pegasus, swift-flying, sharing the Poseidonian blood

of the common stock, the airy offspring of the Earth-shaker,

shook off Bellerophon headlong.

Come with me to the herd, where clear-voiced herdsmen are,

and lovely oxen; and seated upon a bull

I will make you a conspicuous, ox-driving charioteer;

for your king, watching, will praise you far more,

bull-formed Dionysus, seated on the waist of a bull.

This is a course without fear, since even Europa, being a woman,

a maiden, mounted on bovine backs,

gripping the horn with her hands and not needing a bridle."

So speaking she persuaded him, and the goddess sank into the air.

And from a crag a wandering bull ran down,

unforeseen, and his tongue, the witness of his thirst,

he held forth from his throat with opening lips,

and drank; and about the boy, as though a herdsman present,

he stood, wholly like one who knew him; nor did he hold his horn

slantwise from his brow; and as the resistless bull

drank thickly, belching up the draught from his capacious gullet,

the dripping moisture of the dew wetted the youth,

as though a prophet of things to come, that with an earthly draught the oxen,

toiling about one endless circling turning-post,

water the vine-clad fruit with their waters.

And the bold boy stood above the bovine brow,

handling the curved horn with a fearless hand;

and goaded by the sweet sting of the woodland-grazing ox,

he wished to drive the unyoked, mountain-running bull.

And plucking leaves beside the deep-rushed grass

he wove a counterfeit scourge of green withies

with sharper shoots, and with a much-twisted cluster

bending the crooked rings he made the shape of a bridle;

and with dewy leaves he adorned the body of the bull,

and bound reddening roses round about its back,

and hung lilies and narcissus on its brow,

draping a purpling anemone on its neck;

and on either side he gilded both horns,

drawing up with his deep-digging hands yellow clay

from the neighbouring river. And spreading on high upon its back

a spangled hide, he mounted the spine of the bull;

and stretching a counterfeit whip along the bovine sides,

as though a fine-maned colt, he lashed his own bearer.

And the bold one cried out a word to bull-faced Mene:

"Yield to me, horned Selene, driver of oxen;

for I too am become horned in both ways, and I drive a bull."

Such a boastful word he cried to the rolling Moon.

And jealous Selene watched through the air with her eye

Ampelos borne by the man-slaying, snatching bull,

and sent him an ox-driving gadfly; and he, scored

in his body by the bitter, restless, roaming sting,

ran about the rough ridge, like a horse.

And the boy, seeing the unyoked bull with maddening sting

striking his track upon the high-crested hills,

terrified, before his doom, prayed with a wailing voice:

"Stand still today, bull, and tomorrow you will go swiftly;

do not kill me on a desolate height of rock,

that Bacchus may not hear of my doom unannounced.

Do not be angry, bull, because I gilded your horn;

do not be jealous, because Bacchus guards my friendship.

But if you kill me and care nothing for Dionysus,

and no pity holds you for a wailing charioteer,

because I am young, because I am also a friend of Lyaeus,

carry me to the Satyrs, and there, bull, you will overpower me,

that I may obtain, after death, my dust much-bewailed;

yes, I beseech you, dear bull; and I will think it a consolation,

that Dionysus, tearless, laments my doom.

If you deceive your horned charioteer

who has a likeness in form to your bull-faced shape,

become voiced and tell my death to Lyaeus:

bull, hostile to your Demeter and to Dionysus,

while Bromius grieves, bountiful Deo grieves with him."

Such a word the rosy youth spoke, neighbour of Hades,

ill-fated; and darting with the twin hoof of his feet

over the mountain's high peaks, hard to climb, the raging ox

shook off the youth headlong from his back;

and he fell self-tumbling; and as he fell upon his neck-joint

his slanting neck was split, faintly creaking;

and rolling him back over the ground in a whirl

with the sharp point of its horn it cast him down.

And the corpse was headless; and of the unburied corpse

the white body reddened with the reddening gore.

And one of the Satyrs, seeing lovely Ampelos

lying in the dust upon the ground, came as ill messenger to Bacchus.

And the god, hearing, ran swiftly like the breezes;

not so great a course did Heracles accomplish, when the Nymphs

hid soft Hylas in their jealous streams,

a bridegroom kept by the wet, snatching girl,

as then Bacchus rushed, mountain-running; and in the dust

he wept over the boy lying there, watching him as though alive.

And he wrapped a cloak about him, the breathless one, fastening from his shoulder

the fawnskin upon the cold breast,

and, though he was a corpse, bound buskins on his feet;

and roses and lilies he scattered on his skin, and about his hair,

as for a short-lived one fallen by a sharp sting,

he hung up the flower of the swift-perishing anemone;

and he gave a thyrsus to his hand, and covered him with his own robe

of purple; and as a gift from his uncut head

he cut one lock and laid it on the witnessing corpse

as a last offering; and taking ambrosia from his mother Rhea

he poured it on the wounds, whence the youth, changing his form,

transferred the fragrant ambrosia into his own fruit.

And as the graceful corpse was stretched upon the ground,

no pallor was poured about the rosy body; and of the swift-fated one

the graceful locks of the love-bearing head

quivered upon his face in the sparing breezes;

and there was a lovely one, dust-covered. And about the corpse

the Sileni groaned, and the Bacchae wailed.

Nor did beauty leave him, even though he died; and he lay

a corpse like a Satyr, wholly like one laughing, as though ever

pouring from voiceless lips a honey-sweet voice.

And gazing on the corpse, grief-soothing Dionysus

raised a wailing voice, holding a mirthless look:

"Let the jealous thread of the Fates fall; do bulls themselves too

prove jealous over youths, like the winds?

What Zephyrus, after Phoebus, assailed Dionysus too?

Blessed was Phoebus's Atymnius; for from a youth

he won this name; and of a Therapnaean youth himself

Apollo lifts a flower named for the medicine of the youth,

inscribing the dirge upon the petals of the hyacinth;

what garland have I too for my locks, or what flowers

do I wield that are voiced, consolations of my boy's grief?

But avenging your death, dragging him to slaughter,

I will lead the wandering bull to your tomb, untimely one.

I would not kill your slayer with an ox-axe,

that he might win a doom equal, his brow battered,

to bulls being slaughtered; but I would tear open the whole

bitter belly of the bull with the point of my own horn,

because it cast you down with its long-horned spike.

Blessed is the Earth-shaker, since he loved a neighbour of the homeland

of my boy, a Phrygian youth, and bearing him

led him up to the golden house of Zeus, a citizen of Olympus,

and to him, when he hastened to the horsemanship of Aphrodite,

he gave the dry car, the bridal chariot of Hippodameia.

I alone have a young one untimely; for lovely

Ampelos saw no life-giving marriage, nor did this youth

yoke my bridal car upon the marriage-bed,

but dying he left grief to the once-griefless Dionysus.

Not yet, dear boy, has Persuasion left your mouth,

but even though you are dead it dwells on your breathless lips;

and though you are a corpse your cheeks still glisten,

your eyes still laugh, and the snowy palms

of your two hands are still there,

and the shrill breezes still stir your lovely locks;

the death-bearing season has not quenched the roses of your limbs,

but all these things are still kept for you. Alas for the Loves,

what need was there that you should drive an implacable bull?

If the longing for storm-footed horses dismayed you,

why did you not tell me, that from neighbouring Ida

I might bring a chariot here, and from the ancient stock

might bring to you the Trojan race of heavenly horses,

plundering the homeland of Ganymede, whom Ida reared

with a body equal to yours, whom from the man-slaying bulls

high-flying Zeus lifted with sparing talons;

if you truly longed to slay beasts in the mountains,

why did you not tell me that there was need of a car?

And then you would have driven the harmless circle of my chariot,

and, receiving the untouched reins of my Rhea,

unshaken, would have lashed the car of gentle serpents.

No longer do you sing the wine-song with the Satyrs,

no longer do you command the castanet-loving Bassarids,

no longer do you hunt together with Dionysus hunting.

Alas, that Hades is not gentle, nor over a corpse

does he receive the splendid gifts of the deep-rich metal,

that I might make Ampelos, who died, alive again;

alas, that Hades is never persuaded; but if he should wish it,

I would freely give him all the gleaming wealth of Eridanus,

plundering the river trees, and I would bring

the flashing, gleaming Erythraean stone of the Indians

and all the silver of wealthy Alybe, and in exchange for the corpse

of my boy I would give the whole golden Pactolus."

So speaking he lamented the sweet corpse; and seeing him

lying in the dust he cried again with a mournful voice:

"Father Zeus, if you love me, and if you know the toil of loves,

set Ampelos speaking again for one hour,

a last hour and only, that he may utter one word:

'Why do you grieve, Dionysus, the one you do not raise with groanings?

I have ears, and I do not hear you crying out,

I have eyes, and I do not see you grieving;

grief-soothing Dionysus, do not shed tears for me,

but leave off your grief, since beside the murderous spring

the Naiads groan and Narcissus does not hear,

Phaethon does not know the mournful grief of the Heliades.'

Alas, that my father did not beget me a mortal, that I might be

a companion of the youth even in Hades, nor in Lethe

leave lovely Ampelos, fallen, alone.

In longing for a youth, Apollo is more blessed,

holding the beloved name of his boy; would that I too

were Ampeloeis, as Apollo is Hyacinthius.

How long do you sleep, and no longer, boy, do you dance?

Why today do you no longer go to the streams of the river

holding a fine-watered pitcher? In the mountain-stalled thicket

your season has come again for the accustomed dance.

If you are angry, dear boy, with love-stricken Dionysus,

speak to the Sileni, that I may hear your word.

If a lion overpowered you, I will destroy them all,

all that the crag of Tmolus bears, nor will I ever spare

the lions of our own Rhea, but I will overpower them,

if your slayers were born with grim jaws;

if a leopard cast down your body, flower of the Loves,

no longer will I drive the spangled body of leopards;

there are other beasts, and Artemis, mistress of the whole hunt,

drives a horn-drawn car of deer;

wearing a fawnskin robe I will ride on a car of fawns;

if shameless boars slew you, seizing them in one

I will kill them all, and I will not leave one boar alone

still living, left to the Archer-goddess;

but if a wanton bull slew you, with a sharp thyrsus

I would utterly destroy the bovine race, root and branch."

So he lamented. But Love stood near him

bearing the form of a shaggy, horn-drawn Silenus,

holding a thyrsus, and fastening a dappled skin on his body

he propped his frame on an old man's fennel-staff;

and to wailing Bromius he cried a consoling voice:

"With another love loose the sparks of your loves,

changing your goad to a new youth, a fresh one,

forgetting the dead; for of an older love

the medicine is always a new love; for time

does not know how to destroy love, even if it learns to hide all things.

But if you wish the pain-killing remedy of your grief,

embrace a better boy; desire knows how to wither desire.

The Laconian youth troubled Zephyrus; but when he died,

lovely Aetes, seeing Cyparissus the youth,

found a consolation for Amyclaean Hyacinthus.

If you wish, ask the gardener; for when he sees

a dust-covered flower lying on the ground, the ploughman

plants another, newer, as a medicine for the perished one.

Listen, that I may tell you a tale of men of old:

there was once a soft boy, surpassing his coeval youth,

beside the flood of Maeander, the many-branched river,

tall in his delicate form, swift of foot, with hair

straight, downless; and on both his cheeks

a natural Grace was leaping upon his face

with modest eyes, and from his eyelids ever

a far-shooting radiance flowed as his beauty cast its darts;

and he had a body wholly like milk, and about the white

a rose flushed, half-seen, with a two-coloured glow.

Him his dear father called Calamus, who through the earth

billowing below, drawing his crooked stream into the light,

creeping unseen, a slanting traveller beneath the ground,

leaping up sharply lifts his neck above the earth,

inner-recessed Maeander, leading his bosom-hidden water.

Such was lovely Calamus the swift. And the youth,

rosy-armed, delighted in his lovely coeval Carpus,

who won so great a beauty as no mortal man has won;

for if this youth had been among the men of former times,

he would have become the bridegroom of fair-haired Dawn,

holding a fairer form, with rosy skin alone surpassing

the splendour of Cephalus and the look of Orion;

nor would Deo have embraced with fruitful palm

Iasion as bridegroom, nor Selene Endymion;

but that youth, perhaps, on account of his nobler form,

as one husband of both, would have wedded the beds of both goddesses,

sharing the much-furrowed bed of fair-haired Deo,

and holding jealous Mene as a common bedfellow.

Such was the lovely one, dear to Calamus, flower of the Loves,

holding beauty; and both coevals upon the bank

of the neighbouring much-winding river sported together.

For them there was a winding course of the double track, and for both

there was strife; Calamus ran on like the breezes,

and bearing the elm as starting-line and the olive as turning-post

he ran along the river's banks from end to end . . .

and swift-kneed Calamus willingly fell to the ground,

and left a willing victory to graceful Carpus.

And as the boy bathed, the playful youth bathed with him,

and again they held another like contest in the waters,

and slow he swam in the streams, leaving Carpus

to go ahead, that swimming behind, cleaving the swell with his hands,

he might come second beside the ankles of swimming Carpus,

watching the free back of the youth running before.

And there was a course from the watery starting-line; both contended,

which would beat which, that he might come back returning

to the bank, crossing both ends of the twin turning-post,

to the land on the other side, with their palms rowing;

and the flood was his path; but ever coming near him

the boy, sparing the rush of his hurrying hand,

watched the rosy-skinned fingers of their swimming hands;

and Calamus, leading the way, reined back his rush,

and yielded to the youth; and he ran on rowing his hands,

the storm-like boy, stretching his neck above the swell;

and now Carpus would have mounted from the surge onto the land,

and after the victory on land would have gained the river victory,

but Aetes, blowing against him, dashed him down,

and the implacable one slew the sweet boy; for as the youth's

throat opened, numberless water rushed in.

And Calamus, fleeing the storms of the jealous wind,

sank, away from the youth, onto the neighbouring shores;

and perceiving his friend not present and not hearing,

groaning lovingly he bellowed with a mournful voice:

"Naiads, speak, what Aetes snatched away Carpus?

Yes, I beseech you, grant me a last favour, come to another

spring, and flee the death-bearing water of my father,

nor drink the stream that slew Carpus.

Surely my begetter did not slay the youth; but in envy

Aetes, after Phoebus, destroyed Carpus for Calamus too,

and perhaps, longing for him, struck him with a jealous storm,

bringing a contrary breeze upon the youth after the discus.

Not yet has my star risen, bathed in the streams,

not yet has my Morning Star shone; but with Carpus

sinking in the streams, why should I still look on the light?

Naiads, speak, who quenched the light of the Loves?

Do you still linger, boy? Why does the water please you so much?

Surely you have not found a better friend in the waters, with whom staying

you have cast the longings of wretched Calamus to the winds?

If one love-stricken Naiad-Nymph snatched you,

tell me, and I will arm against them all; but if the wedding hymn

of marriage with our sister of the Loves delights you,

tell me, and even in the streams I will light your bridal chamber.

Carpus, do you float past me, forgetting the accustomed bank?

I grew weary calling you, and you do not hear me crying out.

If Notus or bold Eurus blew, let him wander himself,

pitiless, danceless, wanton, an enemy of the Loves;

if Boreas overpowered you, I will go to Oreithyia.

But if a wave covered you and did not reverence your form,

and my father took you with the unsparing draught of the wave,

let him receive his own son too in the man-slaying waters,

and let him hide Calamus near perished Carpus.

But falling headlong, where wandering Carpus died,

I will quench my hot love, drinking the Acherousian water."

He spoke, gushing forth the stream of his eyes; and about the corpse

he cut his dark lock with mournful iron,

which he had grown, which he had tended, and held out the mourning hair

to his father Maeander, and spoke his last word:

"Receive, after my locks, my body too; for I cannot

look upon the light for one dawn apart from Carpus;

Carpus and Calamus have one life, and both have won

a like goad of Love upon the earth; and let one watery

death be for us both, even in the streams.

Make, Naiads, on the high river-bank

a common cenotaph for us both, and about the tomb

let a word be inscribed in mournful letters:

'I am the grave of Carpus and Calamus, whom of old, both

longing for each other, the implacable water slew.'

And for love-stricken Calamus, though he is a brother,

dying, tear off one small cluster of his hair,

but for perished Carpus shear all his locks."

He spoke, and self-tumbling slipped into the stream,

drinking the child-slaying water of his refusing father.

And Calamus gave to reeds the shape named for him,

of like growth, and Carpus grew the fruit of the field.

Such things consoling, with a friendly word

did impetuous Eros soothe, lightening the sweet sting for Dionysus.

And his heart was lashed all the more with mournful grief

through the untimely doom of the youth.—And the unsteady

daughters of Lycabas, the storm-footed father,

the rosy-faced Hours, went to the house of the Sun;

of whom one, sending around her snow-shaded face

a thin gleam of dark-clouded radiance,

joined her cold feet to a hailstorm sandal,

and binding her locks upon her wet head

fastened a rain-bearing veil upon her brow,

and held a green wreath on her head, and with a snowy

white girdle covered her frosted breast;

and another spat out the mortal-delighting breeze

of the swallow-winds, breathing, and of her Zephyr-loving head

she girt the springtime hair with a dewy bond,

laughing flowery, and quivering through her robe

the long-shadowed fragrance of the morning, opening rose,

she wove a double revel for Adonis and Cytherea;

another Hour, together with her sisters, came as the harvest-Hour,

and the ear of grain, bristling round about with topmost clusters,

she lifted in her right hand, and the blade of the sharp-cutting sickle,

the messenger of the harvest, and the girl's body was girt

with white linen, and as she whirled in the dance

through her thin raiment the mysteries of her thighs appeared,

and as her face was loosed, the moist sweats

were dampened on her cheeks by the hotter Phaethon;

and another, the leader of the well-ploughed dance,

bound an olive shoot on her hairless temple

drenched with the waters of the seven-channeled river Nile,

and tending the thin, withering hair of her temple

she had a parched body, since, being autumnal,

she had shorn her tree-like hair to the leaf-shedding winds;

for not yet, with the plaited clusters of golden tendrils,

did vine-clusters flow upon the neck of the nymph,

nor, made drunk beside the wine-loving wine-press,

did the moisture of the dew of purple Maronian wine intoxicate her,

nor did the wandering ivy run up in a whirl;

but then the appointed time came, for the sake of which the Hours themselves

ran together in company to the house of the Sun.