ffection! What pain
did I {then} endure in my heart, as her uncle, and what consolations did
I give to my affectionate brother? These the father received no
otherwise than rocks do the murmurs of the ocean, and he bitterly
lamented his daughter {thus} snatched from him. But when he beheld her
burning, four times had he an impulse to rush into the midst of the
pile; thence repulsed, four times did he commit his swift limbs to
flight, and, like an ox, bearing upon his galled neck the stings of
hornets, he rushed where there was no path. Already did he seem to me to
run faster than a human being, and you would have supposed that his feet
had assumed wings. Therefore he outran all; and, made swift by the
desire for death, he gained the heights of Parnassus.
"Apollo pitying him, when Daedalion would have thrown himself from the
top of the rock, made him into a bird, and supported him, hovering {in
the air} upon {these} sudden wings; and he gave him a curved beak, and
crooked claws on his talons, his former courage, and strength greater
{in proportion} than his body; and, now {become} a hawk, sufficiently
benignant to none, he rages {equally} against all birds; and grieving
{himself}, becomes the cause of grief to others."
While the son of Lucifer is relating these wonders about his brother,
hastening with panting speed, Phocaean Antenor, the keeper of his herds,
runs up to him. "Alas, Peleus! Peleus!" says he, "I am the messenger to
thee of a great calamity;" and {then} Peleus bids him declare whatever
news it is that he has brought; and the Trachinian hero himself is in
suspense, and trembles through apprehension. The other tells {his
story:} "I had driven the weary bullocks to the winding shore, when the
Sun at his height, in the midst of his course, could look back on as
much of it as he could see to be {now} remaining; and a part of the oxen
had bent their knees on the yellow sands, and, as they lay, viewed the
expanse of the wide waters; some, with slow steps, were wandering here
and there; others were swimming, and appearing with their lofty necks
above the waves. A temple is hard by the sea, adorned neither with
marble nor with gold, but {made} of solid beams, and shaded with an
ancient grove; the Nereids and Nereus possess it. A sailor, while he was
drying his nets upon the shore, told us that these were the Gods of the
temple. Adjacent to this is a marsh, planted thickly with numerous
willows, which the water of
|