Metamorphoses IX.1-112
Acheloüs tells Theseus how Hercules removed his horn in their battle for Deianira.
Quae gemitus truncaeque deo Neptunius heros
causa rogat frontis; cui sic Calydonius amnis
coepit inornatos redimitus harundine crines:
‘triste petis munus. quis enim sua proelia victus
commemorare velit? referam tamen ordine, nec tam 5
turpe fuit vinci, quam contendisse decorum est,
magnaque dat nobis tantus solacia victor.
nomine siqua suo fando pervenit ad aures
Deianira tuas, quondam pulcherrima virgo
multorumque fuit spes invidiosa procorum. 10
cum quibus ut soceri domus est intrata petiti,
“accipe me generum,” dixi “Parthaone nate”:
dixit et Alcides. alii cessere duobus.
ille Iovem socerum dare se, famamque laborum,
et superata suae referebat iussa novercae. 15
contra ego “turpe deum mortali cedere” dixi—
nondum erat ille deus—:dominum me cernis aquarum
cursibus obliquis inter tua regna fluentum.
nec gener externis hospes tibi missus ab oris,
sed popularis ero et rerum pars una tuarum. 20
tantum ne noceat, quod me nec regia Iuno
odit, et omnis abest iussorum poena laborum.
nam, quo te iactas, Alcmena nate, creatum,
Iuppiter aut falsus pater est, aut crimine verus.
matris adulterio patrem petis. elige, fictum 25
esse Iovem malis, an te per dedecus ortum.”
talia dicentem iamdudum lumine torvo
spectat, et accensae non fortiter imperat irae,
verbaque tot reddit: “melior mihi dextera lingua.
dummodo pugnando superem, tu vince loquendo” 30
congrediturque ferox. puduit modo magna locutum
cedere: reieci viridem de corpore vestem,
bracchiaque opposui, tenuique a pectore varas
in statione manus et pugnae membra paravi.
ille cavis hausto spargit me pulvere palmis, 35
inque vicem fulvae tactu flavescit harenae.
et modo cervicem, modo crura, modo ilia captat,
aut captare putes, omnique a parte lacessit.
me mea defendit gravitas frustraque petebar;
haud secus ac moles, magno quam murmure fluctus 40
oppugnant; manet illa, suoque est pondere tuta.
digredimur paulum, rursusque ad bella coimus,
inque gradu stetimus, certi non cedere, eratque
cum pede pes iunctus, totoque ego pectore pronus
et digitos digitis et frontem fronte premebam. 45
non aliter vidi fortes concurrere tauros,
cum, pretium pugnae, toto nitidissima saltu
expetitur coniunx: spectant armenta paventque
nescia, quem maneat tanti victoria regni.
ter sine profectu voluit nitentia contra 50
reicere Alcides a se mea pectora; quarto
excutit amplexus, adductaque bracchia solvit1,
inpulsumque manu—certum est mihi vera fateri—
protinus avertit, tergoque onerosus inhaesit.
siqua fides,—neque enim ficta mihi gloria voce 55
quaeritur—inposito pressus mihi monte videbar.
vix tamen inserui sudore fluentia multo
bracchia, vix solvi duros a corpore nexus.
instat anhelanti, prohibetque resumere vires,
et cervice mea potitur. tum denique tellus 60
pressa genu nostro est, et harenas ore momordi.
inferior virtute, meas devertor ad artes,
elaborque viro longum formatus in anguem.
qui postquam flexos sinuavi corpus in orbes,
cumque fero movi linguam stridore bisulcam, 65
risit, et inludens nostras Tirynthius artes
“cunarum labor est angues superare mearum,”
dixit “et ut vincas alios, Acheloe, dracones,
pars quota Lernaeae serpens eris unus echidnae?
vulneribus fecunda suis erat illa, nec ullum 70
de centum numero caput est inpune recisum,
quin gemino cervix herede valentior esset.
hanc ego ramosam natis e caede colubris
crescentemque malo domui, domitamque reclusi.
quid fore te credis, falsum qui versus in anguem 75
arma aliena moves, quem forma precaria celat?”
dixerat, et summo digitorum vincula collo
inicit: angebar, ceu guttura forcipe pressus,
pollicibusque meas pugnabam evellere fauces.
sic quoque devicto restabat tertia tauri 80
forma trucis. tauro mutatus membra rebello.
induit ille toris a laeva parte lacertos,
admissumque trahens sequitur, depressaque dura
cornua figit humo, meque alta sternit harena.
nec satis hoc fuerat: rigidum fera dextera cornu 85
dum tenet, infregit, truncaque a fronte revellit.
naides hoc, pomis et odoro flore repletum,
sacrarunt; divesque meo Bona Copia cornu est.’
Dixerat: et nymphe ritu succincta Dianae,
una ministrarum, fusis utrimque capillis, 90
incessit totumque tulit praedivite cornu
autumnum et mensas, felicia poma, secundas.
lux subit; et primo feriente cacumina sole
discedunt iuvenes, neque enim dum flumina pacem
et placidos habeant lapsus totaeque residant 95
opperiuntur aquae. vultus Achelous agrestes
et lacerum cornu mediis caput abdidit undis.
Huic tamen ablati doluit iactura decoris,
cetera sospes habet. capitis quoque fronde saligna
aut superinposita celatur harundine damnum. 100
at te, Nesse ferox, eiusdem virginis ardor
perdiderat volucri traiectum terga sagitta.
namque nova repetens patrios cum coniuge muros
venerat Eueni rapidas Iove natus ad undas.
uberior solito, nimbis hiemalibus auctus, 105
verticibusque frequens erat atque inpervius amnis.
intrepidum pro se, curam de coniuge agentem
Nessus adit, membrisque valens scitusque vadorum,
‘officio’ que ‘meo ripa sistetur in illa
haec,’ ait ‘Alcide. tu viribus utere nando!’ 110
pallentemque metu, fluviumque ipsumque timentem
tradidit Aonius pavidam Calydonida Nesso.
The Neptunian hero2 asked the god why he groaned and what was the cause of his mutilated forehead; to whom the Calydonian river, binding up his rough locks with a band of reeds, thus replied: “’Tis an unpleasant task you set; for who would care to chronicle his defeats? Still I will tell the story as it happened: nor was it so much a disgrace to be defeated as it was an honour to have striven at all, and the thought that my conqueror was so mighty is a great comfort to me. Deianira (if you have ever heard of her) was once a most beautiful maiden and the envied hope of many suitors. When along with them I entered the house of the father3 of the maid I sought, I said: ‘Take me for son-in-law, O son of Parthaon.’ Hercules said the same, and the others yielded their claims to us two. He pleaded the fact that Jove was his father, pleaded his famous labours and all that he had overcome at the command of his stepmother. In reply I said: ‘It is a shame for a god to give place to a mortal’ (Hercules had not yet been made a god); ‘you behold in me the lord of the waters which flow down their winding courses through your realm. If I wed your daughter, it will be no stranger from foreign shores; but I shall be one of your own countrymen, a part of your own kingdom. Only let it not be to my disadvantage that Queen Juno does not hate me and that no labours are imposed upon me in consequence of her hate. For Jove, from whom you boast that you have sprung, O son of Alcmena, is either not your father, or is so to your disgrace. Through your mother’s sin you claim your father. Choose, then, whether you prefer to say that your claim to Jove is false, or to confess yourself the son of shame.’ As I thus spoke he eyed me for a long while with lowering gaze and, unable to control his hot wrath longer, he answered just these words:’ My hand is better than my tongue. Let me but win in fighting and you may win in speech’; and he came at me fiercely. I was ashamed to draw back after having spoken so boldly; and so I threw off my green coat, put up my arms, held my clenched hands out in front of my breast in position, and so prepared me for the fight. He caught Up some dust in the hollow of his hand and threw it over me and in turn himself became yellow with the tawny sand. Now he caught at my neck, now at my legs, now at my loins (or you would think he did), and attacked me at every point. My weight protected me and I was attacked in vain. Just like a cliff I stood, which, though the roaring waves dash against it, stands secure, safe in its own bulk. We draw apart a little space, then rush together again to the fray and stand firm in our tracks, each determined not to yield. Foot locked with foot, fingers with fingers clenched, brow against brow, with all my body’s forward-leaning weight I pressed upon him. Like that have I seen two strong bulls rush together when they strive for the sleekest heifer in the pasture as the prize of conflict. The herd looks on in fear and trembling, not knowing to which one victory will award so great dominion. Three times without success did Alcides strive to push away from him my opposing breast; at the fourth attempt he shook off my embrace, broke my hold, and, giving me a sharp buffet with his hand (I am determined to tell it as it was), he whirled me round and clung with all his weight upon my back. If you will believe me (for I am not trying to gain any credit by exaggeration), I seemed to bear the weight of a mountain on my back. With difficulty I thrust in my arms streaming with sweat, with difficulty I broke his hard grip from my body. He pressed close upon me as I panted for breath, gave me no chance to regain my strength, and got me around the neck. Then at length I fell to my knees upon the earth and bit the dust. Finding myself no match for him in strength, I had recourse to my arts, and glided out of his grasp in the form of a long snake. But when I wound my body into twisting coils, and darted out my forked tongue and hissed fiercely at him, the hero of Tiryns only laughed, and mocking at my arts he said: ‘It was the task of my cradle days to conquer snakes; and though you should outdo all other serpents, Acheloüs, how small a part of that Lernaean monster would you, just one snake, be? For it throve on the wounds I gave; nor was any one of its hundred heads cut off without its neck being the stronger by two succeeding heads. This creature, branching out with serpents sprung from death and thriving on destruction, I overmastered and, having overmastered, cut up. And what do you think will become of you who, having assumed but a lying serpent form, make use of borrowed arms, who are masked in a shifting form?’ So saying he fixed his vice-like grip upon my throat. I was in anguish, as if my throat were in a forceps’ grip, and struggled to tear my jaws from his fingers. Conquered in this form also, there remained to me my third refuge, the form of a savage bull. And so in bull form I fought him. He threw his arms around my neck on the left, kept up with me as I ran at full speed, dragging upon me; and, finally, forced down my hard horns and thrust them into the earth and laid me low in the deep dust. Nor was this enough: holding my tough horn in his pitiless right hand, he broke it off and tore it from my forehead, mutilating me. This horn the naiads took, filled it with fruit and fragrant flowers, and hallowed it. And now the goddess of glad Abundance is enriched with my horn.”
So spoke the river-god; and lo, a nymph girt like Diana, one of the attendants with locks flowing free, appeared and served them from her bounteous horn with all autumn’s harvest, and delicious fruit for the second course. The dawn came on, and, as the first rays of the sun smote the mountain-tops, the youths took their departure; for they did not wait until the river should flow in peaceful current and all the flood-waters should subside. And Acheloüs hid his rustic features and his head, scarred from the wrenched-off horn, beneath his waves.
Still his only sorrow was the loss of his beauteous horn, which had been taken from him, though scathless in all else, a loss which he could hide with willow boughs and reeds entwined about his head. But, O savage Nessus, a passion for the same maiden utterly destroyed you, pierced through the body by a flying arrow. For, seeking his native city with his bride, the son of Jove had come to the swift waters of Euenus. The stream was higher than its wont, swollen with winter rains, full of wild eddies, and quite impassable. As the hero stood undaunted for himself, but anxious for his bride, Nessus came up, strong of limb and well acquainted with the fords, and said: “By my assistance, Alcides, she shall be set on yonder bank; and do you use your strength and swim across!” The Theban accordingly entrusted to Nessus’ care the Calydonian maid, pale and trembling, fearing the river and the centaur himself.
So Merkel: Ehwald volvit.
Theseus was the reputed son of Aegeus; but there was a current tradition that he was really the son of Neptune.
Oeneus.