her." Urania[27]
replies, "Whatever, Goddess, is the cause of thy visiting these abodes,
thou art most acceptable to our feelings. However, the report is true,
and Pegasus is the originator of this spring;" and {then} she conducts
Pallas to the sacred streams. She, long admiring the waters produced by
the stroke of his foot, looks around upon the groves of the ancient
wood, and the caves and the grass studded with flowers innumerable; and
she pronounces the Mnemonian[28] maids happy both in their pursuits and
in their retreat; when one of the sisters {thus} addresses her:

"O Tritonia, thou who wouldst have come to make one of our number, had
not thy valor inclined thee to greater deeds, thou sayest the truth, and
with justice thou dost approve both our pursuits and our retreat; and if
we are but safe, happy do we reckon our lot. But (to such a degree is no
denial borne by villany) all things affright our virgin minds, and the
dreadful Pyreneus is placed before our eyes; and not yet have I wholly
recovered my presence of mind. He, in his insolence, had taken the
Daulian and Phocean[29] land with his Thracian troops, and unjustly held
the government. We were making for the temple of Parnassus; he beheld us
going, and adoring our Divinities[30] in a feigned worship he said (for
he had recognized us), 'O Mnemonian maids, stop, and do not scruple,
I pray, under my roof to avoid the bad weather and the showers (for it
was raining); oft have the Gods above entered more humble cottages.'
Moved by his invitation and the weather, we assented to the man, and
entered the front part of his house. The rain had {now} ceased, and the
South Wind {now} subdued by the North, the black clouds were flying from
the cleared sky. It was our wish to depart. Pyreneus closed his house,
and prepared for violence, which we escaped by taking wing. He himself
stood aloft on the top {of his abode}, as though about to follow us, and
said 'Wherever there is a way for you, by the same road there will be
{one} for me.' And then, in his insanity, he threw himself from the
height of the summit of the tower, and fell upon his face, and with the
bones of his skull thus broken, he struck the ground stained with his
accursed blood."

{Thus} spoke the Muse. Wings resounded through the air, and a voice of
some saluting them[31] came from the lofty boughs. The daughter of
Jupiter looked up, and asked whence tongues that speak so distinctly
made that noise, and t