a flight, looking upon the waters of Peneus, she says, "Give
me, my father, thy aid, if you rivers have divine power. Oh Earth,
either yawn {to swallow me}, or by changing it, destroy that form, by
which I have pleased too much, and which causes me to be injured."

Hardly had she ended her prayer, {when} a heavy torpor seizes her limbs;
{and} her soft breasts are covered with a thin bark. Her hair grows into
green leaves, her arms into branches; her feet, the moment before so
swift, adhere by sluggish roots; a {leafy} canopy overspreads her
features; her elegance alone[84] remains in her. This, too, Phoebus
admires, and placing his right hand upon the stock, he perceives that
the breast still throbs beneath the new bark; and {then}, embracing the
branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood, {and}
yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the God said: "But since
thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my
lyre,[85] my quiver shall always have thee, oh laurel! Thou shalt be
presented to the Latian chieftains, when the joyous voice of the
soldiers shall sing the song of triumph,[86] and the long procession
shall resort to the Capitol. Thou, the same, shalt stand as a most
faithful guardian at the gate-posts of Augustus before his doors,[87]
and shalt protect the oak placed in the centre; and as my head is {ever}
youthful with unshorn locks, do thou, too, always wear the lasting
honors of thy foliage."

Paean had ended {his speech}; the laurel nodded assent with its new-made
boughs, and seemed to shake its top just like a head.

[Footnote 73: _The Delian God._--Ver. 454. Apollo is so called,
from having been born in the Isle of Delos, in the AEgean Sea. The
Peneus was a river of Thessaly.]

[Footnote 74: _A fillet tied together._--Ver. 477. The 'vitta' was
a band encircling the head, and served to confine the tresses of
the hair. It was worn by maidens and by married women also; but
the 'vitta' assumed on the day of marriage was of a different form
from that used by virgins. It was not worn by women of light
character, or even by the 'libertinae,' or female slaves who had
been liberated; so that it was not only deemed an emblem of
chastity, but of freedom also. It was of various colors: white and
purple are mentioned. In the later ages the 'vitta' was sometimes
set with pearls.]

[Footnote 75: _Hymen._--Ver. 48