my early years escape me {now},
yet I remember most {of them}; and there is nothing, amid so many
transactions of war and peace, that is more firmly fixed in my mind than
that circumstance. And if extended age could make any one a witness of
many deeds, I have lived two hundred[23] years, {and} now my third
century is being passed {by me}. Caenis, the daughter of Elatus, was
remarkable for her charms; the most beauteous virgin among the
Thessalian maids, and one sighed for in vain by the wishes of many
wooers through the neighbouring {cities}, and through thy cities,
Achilles, for she was thy countrywoman. Perhaps, too, Peleus would have
attempted that alliance; but at that time the marriage of thy mother had
either befallen him, or had been promised him. Caenis did not enter into
any nuptial ties; and as she was walking along the lonely shore, she
suffered violence from the God of the ocean. 'Twas thus that report
stated; and when Neptune had experienced the pleasures of this new
amour, he said, 'Be thy wishes secure from all repulse; choose whatever
thou mayst desire.' The same report has related this too; Caenis replied,
'This mishap makes my desire extreme, that I may not be in a condition
to suffer any such thing {in future}. Grant that I be no {longer} a
woman, {and} thou wilt have granted me all.' She spoke these last words
with a hoarser tone, and the voice might seem to be that of a man, as
{indeed} it was.

"For now the God of the deep ocean had consented to her wish; and had
granted moreover that he should not be able to be pierced by any wounds,
or to fall by {any} steel. Exulting in his privilege, the Atracian[24]
departed; and {now} spent his time in manly exercises, and roamed over
the Peneian plains. {Pirithoues}, the son of the bold Ixion, had married
Hippodame,[25] and had bidden the cloud-born monsters to sit down at the
tables ranged in order, in a cave shaded with trees. The Haemonian nobles
were there; I, too, was there, and the festive palace resounded with the
confused rout. Lo! they sing the marriage song, and the halls smoke with
the fires;[26] the maiden, too, is there, remarkable for her beauty,
surrounded by a crowd of matrons and newly married women. We {all}
pronounce Pirithoues fortunate in her for a wife; an omen which we had
well nigh falsified. For thy breast, Eurytus, most savage of the savage
Centaurs, is inflamed as much with wine as with seeing the maiden; and
drunkenness, redouble