commends their love, preserved to the end {of their
existence}. One, close by, or the same, if chance so orders it, says,
"This one, too, which you see, as it cuts through the sea, and having
its legs drawn up," pointing at a didapper, with its wide throat, "was
the son of a king. And, if you want to come down to him in one
lengthened series, his ancestors are Ilus, and Assaracus, and
Ganymede,[59] snatched away by Jupiter, and the aged Laomedon, and
Priam, to whom were allotted the last days of Troy. He himself was the
brother of Hector, and had he not experienced a strange fate in his
early youth, perhaps he would have had a name not inferior to {that} of
Hector; although the daughter of Dymas bore this {last}. Alexirhoe, the
daughter of the two-horned Granicus,[60] is said secretly to have
brought forth AEsacus, under shady Ida.

"He loathed the cities, and distant from the splendid court, frequented
the lonely mountains, and the unambitious fields; nor went but rarely
among the throngs of Ilium. Yet, not having a breast either churlish, or
impregnable to love, he espies Hesperie, the daughter of Cebrenus,[61]
on the banks of her sire, who has been often sought by him throughout
all the woods, drying her locks, thrown over her shoulders, in the sun.
The Nymph, {thus} seen, takes to flight, just as the frightened hind
from the tawny wolf; and {as} the water-duck, surprised at a distance,
having left her {wonted} stream, from the hawk. Her the Trojan hero
pursues, and, swift with love, closely follows her, made swift by fear.
Behold! a snake, lurking in the grass, with its barbed sting, wounds her
foot as she flies, and leaves its venom in her body. With her flight is
her life cut short. Frantic, he embraces her breathless, and cries
aloud,-- "I grieve, I grieve that {ever} I pursued {thee}. But I did not
apprehend this; nor was it of so much value to me to conquer. We two
have proved the destruction of wretched thee. The wound was given by the
serpent; by me was the occasion given. I should be more guilty than he,
did I not give the consolation for thy fate by my own death." {Thus} he
said; and from a rock which the hoarse waves had undermined, he hurled
himself into the sea. Tethys, pitying him as he fell, received him
softly, and covered him with feathers as he swam through the sea; and
the power of obtaining the death he sought was not granted to him. The
lover is vexed that, against his will, he is obliged to live