Metamorphoses (Books I-XIV)
The Story of Coronis, and Birth of Aesculapius
2:663 The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
2:664 White as the whitest dove's unsully'd
breast,
2:665 Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
2:666 Soft as the swan; a large and
lovely fowl;
2:667 His tongue, his prating tongue
had chang'd him quite
2:668 To sooty blackness, from the
purest white.
2:669 The story of his change shall here be told;
2:670 In Thessaly there liv'd a nymph
of old,
2:671 Coronis nam'd; a peerless maid
she shin'd,
2:672 Confest the fairest of the fairer
kind.
2:673 Apollo lov'd her, 'till her guilt
he knew,
2:674 While true she was, or whilst
he thought her true.
2:675 But his own bird the raven chanc'd
to find
2:676 The false one with a secret rival
joyn'd.
2:677 Coronis begg'd him to suppress
the tale,
2:678 But could not with repeated pray'rs
prevail.
2:679 His milk-white pinions to the
God he ply'd;
2:680 The busy daw flew with him, side
by side,
2:681 And by a thousand teizing questions
drew
2:682 Th' important secret from him
as they flew.
2:683 The daw gave honest counsel,
tho' despis'd,
2:684 And, tedious in her tattle, thus
advis'd:
2:685 "Stay, silly bird, th' ill-natur'd
task refuse,
2:686 Nor be the bearer of unwelcome
news.
2:687 Be warn'd by my example: you
discern
2:688 What now I am, and what I was
shall learn.
2:689 My foolish honesty was all my
crime;
2:690 Then hear my story. Once upon
a time,
2:691 The two-shap'd Ericthonius had
his birth
2:692 (Without a mother) from the teeming
Earth;
2:693 Minerva nurs'd him, and the infant
laid
2:694 Within a chest, of twining osiers
made.
2:695 The daughters of king Cecrops
undertook
2:696 To guard the chest, commanded
not to look
2:697 On what was hid within. I stood
to see
2:698 The charge obey'd, perch'd on
a neighb'ring tree.
2:699 The sisters Pandrosos and Herse
keep
2:700 The strict command; Aglauros
needs would peep,
2:701 And saw the monstrous infant,
in a fright,
2:702 And call'd her sisters to the
hideous sight:
2:703 A boy's soft shape did to the
waste prevail,
2:704 But the boy ended in a dragon's
tail.
2:705 I told the stern Minerva all
that pass'd;
2:706 But for my pains, discarded and
disgrac'd,
2:707 The frowning Goddess drove me
from her sight,
2:708 And for her fav'rite chose the
bird of night.
2:709 Be then no tell-tale; for I think
my wrong
2:710 Enough to teach a bird to hold
her tongue.
2:711 But you, perhaps, may think I was remov'd,
2:712 As never by the heav'nly maid
belov'd:
2:713 But I was lov'd; ask Pallas if
I lye;
2:714 Tho' Pallas hate me now, she
won't deny:
2:715 For I, whom in a feather'd shape
you view,
2:716 Was once a maid (by Heav'n the
story's true)
2:717 A blooming maid, and a king's
daughter too.
2:718 A crowd of lovers own'd my beauty's
charms;
2:719 My beauty was the cause of all
my harms;
2:720 Neptune, as on his shores I wont
to rove,
2:721 Observ'd me in my walks, and
fell in love.
2:722 He made his courtship, he confess'd
his pain,
2:723 And offer'd force, when all his
arts were vain;
2:724 Swift he pursu'd: I ran along
the strand,
2:725 'Till, spent and weary'd on the
sinking sand,
2:726 I shriek'd aloud, with cries
I fill'd the air
2:727 To Gods and men; nor God nor
man was there:
2:728 A virgin Goddess heard a virgin's
pray'r.
2:729 For, as my arms I lifted to the
skies,
2:730 I saw black feathers from my
fingers rise;
2:731 I strove to fling my garment
on the ground;
2:732 My garment turn'd to plumes,
and girt me round:
2:733 My hands to beat my naked bosom
try;
2:734 Nor naked bosom now nor hands
had I:
2:735 Lightly I tript, nor weary as
before
2:736 Sunk in the sand, but skim'd
along the shore;
2:737 'Till, rising on my wings, I
was preferr'd
2:738 To be the chaste Minerva's virgin
bird:
2:739 Preferr'd in vain! I am now in
disgrace:
2:740 Nyctimene the owl enjoys my place.
2:741 On her incestuous life I need not dwell
2:742 (In Lesbos still the horrid tale
they tell),
2:743 And of her dire amours you must
have heard,
2:744 For which she now does penance
in a bird,
2:745 That conscious of her shame,
avoids the light,
2:746 And loves the gloomy cov'ring
of the night;
2:747 The birds, where-e'er she flutters,
scare away
2:748 The hooting wretch, and drive
her from the day."
2:749 The raven, urg'd by such impertinence,
2:750 Grew passionate, it seems, and
took offence,
2:751 And curst the harmless daw; the
daw withdrew:
2:752 The raven to her injur'd patron
flew,
2:753 And found him out, and told the
fatal truth
2:754 Of false Coronis and the favour'd
youth.
2:755 The God was wroth, the colour left his look,
2:756 The wreath his head, the harp
his hand forsook:
2:757 His silver bow and feather'd
shafts he took,
2:758 And lodg'd an arrow in the tender
breast,
2:759 That had so often to his own
been prest.
2:760 Down fell the wounded nymph,
and sadly groan'd,
2:761 And pull'd his arrow reeking
from the wound;
2:762 And weltring in her blood, thus
faintly cry'd,
2:763 "Ah cruel God! tho' I have
justly dy'd,
2:764 What has, alas! my unborn infant
done,
2:765 That he should fall, and two
expire in one?"
2:766 This said, in agonies she fetch'd
her breath.
2:767 The God dissolves in pity at her death;
2:768 He hates the bird that made her
falshood known,
2:769 And hates himself for what himself
had done;
2:770 The feather'd shaft, that sent
her to the Fates,
2:771 And his own hand, that sent the
shaft, he hates.
2:772 Fain would he heal the wound,
and ease her pain,
2:773 And tries the compass of his
art in vain.
2:774 Soon as he saw the lovely nymph
expire,
2:775 The pile made ready, and the
kindling fire.
2:776 With sighs and groans her obsequies
he kept,
2:777 And, if a God could weep, the
God had wept.
2:778 Her corps he kiss'd, and heav'nly
incense brought,
2:779 And solemniz'd the death himself
had wrought.
2:780 But lest his offspring should her fate partake,
2:781 Spight of th' immortal mixture
in his make,
2:782 He ript her womb, and set the
child at large,
2:783 And gave him to the centaur Chiron's
charge:
2:784 Then in his fury black'd the
raven o'er,
2:785 And bid him prate in his white
plumes no more.
Metamorphoses (Books I-XIV)
The Story of Coronis, and Birth of Aesculapius
2:663 The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
2:664 White as the whitest dove's unsully'd
breast,
2:665 Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
2:666 Soft as the swan; a large and
lovely fowl;
2:667 His tongue, his prating tongue
had chang'd him quite
2:668 To sooty blackness, from the
purest white.
2:669 The story of his change shall here be told;
2:670 In Thessaly there liv'd a nymph
of old,
2:671 Coronis nam'd; a peerless maid
she shin'd,
2:672 Confest the fairest of the fairer
kind.
2:673 Apollo lov'd her, 'till her guilt
he knew,
2:674 While true she was, or whilst
he thought her true.
2:675 But his own bird the raven chanc'd
to find
2:676 The false one with a secret rival
joyn'd.
2:677 Coronis begg'd him to suppress
the tale,
2:678 But could not with repeated pray'rs
prevail.
2:679 His milk-white pinions to the
God he ply'd;
2:680 The busy daw flew with him, side
by side,
2:681 And by a thousand teizing questions
drew
2:682 Th' important secret from him
as they flew.
2:683 The daw gave honest counsel,
tho' despis'd,
2:684 And, tedious in her tattle, thus
advis'd:
2:685 "Stay, silly bird, th' ill-natur'd
task refuse,
2:686 Nor be the bearer of unwelcome
news.
2:687 Be warn'd by my example: you
discern
2:688 What now I am, and what I was
shall learn.
2:689 My foolish honesty was all my
crime;
2:690 Then hear my story. Once upon
a time,
2:691 The two-shap'd Ericthonius had
his birth
2:692 (Without a mother) from the teeming
Earth;
2:693 Minerva nurs'd him, and the infant
laid
2:694 Within a chest, of twining osiers
made.
2:695 The daughters of king Cecrops
undertook
2:696 To guard the chest, commanded
not to look
2:697 On what was hid within. I stood
to see
2:698 The charge obey'd, perch'd on
a neighb'ring tree.
2:699 The sisters Pandrosos and Herse
keep
2:700 The strict command; Aglauros
needs would peep,
2:701 And saw the monstrous infant,
in a fright,
2:702 And call'd her sisters to the
hideous sight:
2:703 A boy's soft shape did to the
waste prevail,
2:704 But the boy ended in a dragon's
tail.
2:705 I told the stern Minerva all
that pass'd;
2:706 But for my pains, discarded and
disgrac'd,
2:707 The frowning Goddess drove me
from her sight,
2:708 And for her fav'rite chose the
bird of night.
2:709 Be then no tell-tale; for I think
my wrong
2:710 Enough to teach a bird to hold
her tongue.
2:711 But you, perhaps, may think I was remov'd,
2:712 As never by the heav'nly maid
belov'd:
2:713 But I was lov'd; ask Pallas if
I lye;
2:714 Tho' Pallas hate me now, she
won't deny:
2:715 For I, whom in a feather'd shape
you view,
2:716 Was once a maid (by Heav'n the
story's true)
2:717 A blooming maid, and a king's
daughter too.
2:718 A crowd of lovers own'd my beauty's
charms;
2:719 My beauty was the cause of all
my harms;
2:720 Neptune, as on his shores I wont
to rove,
2:721 Observ'd me in my walks, and
fell in love.
2:722 He made his courtship, he confess'd
his pain,
2:723 And offer'd force, when all his
arts were vain;
2:724 Swift he pursu'd: I ran along
the strand,
2:725 'Till, spent and weary'd on the
sinking sand,
2:726 I shriek'd aloud, with cries
I fill'd the air
2:727 To Gods and men; nor God nor
man was there:
2:728 A virgin Goddess heard a virgin's
pray'r.
2:729 For, as my arms I lifted to the
skies,
2:730 I saw black feathers from my
fingers rise;
2:731 I strove to fling my garment
on the ground;
2:732 My garment turn'd to plumes,
and girt me round:
2:733 My hands to beat my naked bosom
try;
2:734 Nor naked bosom now nor hands
had I:
2:735 Lightly I tript, nor weary as
before
2:736 Sunk in the sand, but skim'd
along the shore;
2:737 'Till, rising on my wings, I
was preferr'd
2:738 To be the chaste Minerva's virgin
bird:
2:739 Preferr'd in vain! I am now in
disgrace:
2:740 Nyctimene the owl enjoys my place.
2:741 On her incestuous life I need not dwell
2:742 (In Lesbos still the horrid tale
they tell),
2:743 And of her dire amours you must
have heard,
2:744 For which she now does penance
in a bird,
2:745 That conscious of her shame,
avoids the light,
2:746 And loves the gloomy cov'ring
of the night;
2:747 The birds, where-e'er she flutters,
scare away
2:748 The hooting wretch, and drive
her from the day."
2:749 The raven, urg'd by such impertinence,
2:750 Grew passionate, it seems, and
took offence,
2:751 And curst the harmless daw; the
daw withdrew:
2:752 The raven to her injur'd patron
flew,
2:753 And found him out, and told the
fatal truth
2:754 Of false Coronis and the favour'd
youth.
2:755 The God was wroth, the colour left his look,
2:756 The wreath his head, the harp
his hand forsook:
2:757 His silver bow and feather'd
shafts he took,
2:758 And lodg'd an arrow in the tender
breast,
2:759 That had so often to his own
been prest.
2:760 Down fell the wounded nymph,
and sadly groan'd,
2:761 And pull'd his arrow reeking
from the wound;
2:762 And weltring in her blood, thus
faintly cry'd,
2:763 "Ah cruel God! tho' I have
justly dy'd,
2:764 What has, alas! my unborn infant
done,
2:765 That he should fall, and two
expire in one?"
2:766 This said, in agonies she fetch'd
her breath.
2:767 The God dissolves in pity at her death;
2:768 He hates the bird that made her
falshood known,
2:769 And hates himself for what himself
had done;
2:770 The feather'd shaft, that sent
her to the Fates,
2:771 And his own hand, that sent the
shaft, he hates.
2:772 Fain would he heal the wound,
and ease her pain,
2:773 And tries the compass of his
art in vain.
2:774 Soon as he saw the lovely nymph
expire,
2:775 The pile made ready, and the
kindling fire.
2:776 With sighs and groans her obsequies
he kept,
2:777 And, if a God could weep, the
God had wept.
2:778 Her corps he kiss'd, and heav'nly
incense brought,
2:779 And solemniz'd the death himself
had wrought.
2:780 But lest his offspring should her fate partake,
2:781 Spight of th' immortal mixture
in his make,
2:782 He ript her womb, and set the
child at large,
2:783 And gave him to the centaur Chiron's
charge:
2:784 Then in his fury black'd the
raven o'er,
2:785 And bid him prate in his white
plumes no more.