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water gives beauty to the pebbles, showing all silver above them.

Alpheius. How accurately well you know the Fountain, Poseidon! I am now off to her side.

Poseidon. Well, away then, and good luck to you in your wooing. But tell me this, where did you have a sight of your Arethusa, seeing that you yourself are Arcadian, and she is at Syracuse?

Alpheius. You are detaining me, in haste as I am, with your superfluous questions.

Poseidon. You are right. Away to your beloved, and emerging from the sea, mingle harmoniously with your Fountain, and become one water.

IV.

MENELAUS EXPRESSES TO PROTEUS HIS INCREDULITY IN REGARD TO THE ALLEGED MIRACULOUS TRANSFORMATIONS OF THAT DIVINITY.

Menelaus and Proteus.1

Menelaus. Well, that you become water, Proteus, is not incredible, seeing you belong to the sea; and that you become a tree, too, may pass-nay, when you get changed into a lion, yet even that is not beyond my powers of belief. But whether it is possible for you to become fire while living in the sea-that I very much wonder at and doubt.

Proteus. Don't wonder, my dear Sir, for I do become such.

Menelaus. I, indeed, saw it with my own eyes. But you appear to me for I must confess it to you—to apply some kind of jugglery to the business, and to deceive the eyes of the spectators, while yourself become nothing of

the sort.

1 Cf.'Od. iv. 450. Ov. Metam. viii. 730-737. Virg. Georg. iv. 418-452. Diodorus, Biß. 'IoT. 1. In the Odyssey the meeting of Menelaus and Proteus, and the prophecies of the sea-divinity, are related at length. He figures on two important occasions-as the guardian of Helen, and in the annunciation of the birth of Apollonius of Tyana. The dialogue may be supposed to take place in the island of Pharos.

Proteus. And what deception could there be in a case so clear? Did you not with open eyes see into what I transfigured myself? And if you doubt, and the thing seem to you to be unreal, a sort of phantasmagoria placed before your eyes, when I become fire, give me your hand, my excellent Sir: for you shall know whether I am a mere spectral illusion, or whether, in fact, the property of burning then belongs to me.

Menelaus. The experiment is scarcely a safe one, Sir

Proteus.

Proteus. But you seem to me never to have seen the polypus even, or to know what are the peculiarities of

that creature of the sea."

Menelaus. Yes, I have seen the polypus; but what are its peculiarities I should be glad to learn from you.

Proteus. Whatever rock it approaches and fastens its suckers on, and hangs clinging to in coils, to that it assimilates itself; and it changes its colour in mimicry of the rock, so that it may escape the notice of the fishermen, being thus not at all different, or conspicuous, but closely resembling the stone.

Menelaus. So they say. But your case is far more strange, my friend Proteus.

Proteus. I don't know, Menelaus, whom else you would believe, if you don't believe your own eyes.

Menelaus. Since I saw it, I saw it, it is true; but the thing is miraculous—the same person to become both fire and water!

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1 The poet of the Odyssey represents the "old man of the sea as assuming, success ively, the forms of a "lion," a dragon or serpent," leopard," a " boar," "water," and a "tree." Ovid adds "fire."

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2 For the natural history of the polypus, or octopus, in Greek science, and for the large space it occupied in Greek gastronomy, the reader is referred to Athenæus, Deipnosophists (Bohn's Series), where the Comic poets, as usual, are largely drawn upon. Cf. Aristotle, Z. I., Pliny, Hist. Nat. ix. 29. Plutarch (Пepi τns Zapкopayías) represents Diogenes the Cynic as swallowing one of these creatures uncooked.

V.

PANOPE RELATES TO GALENE THE SCENE OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE GOLDEN APPLE BY ERIS INTO THE NUPTIAL FEAST OF PELEUS AND THETIS, THE DISCORD BETWEEN THE THREE RIVAL GODDESSES, AND THEIR DISMISSAL TO MOUNT IDA FOR JUDGMENT.

Panope and Galene.

Panope. Did you see, Galene, yesterday, what Eris did. at the banquet in Thessaly, because she was not, also, invited to the feast?

Galene. I was not at the banquet with you, for Poseidon ordered me, Panope, to keep the sea unagitated meanwhile; but what, then, did Eris, for not being present as a guest?

Panope. Thetis and Peleus had already gone off to their bridal chamber, escorted by Amphitrite and Poseidon. But Eris, meanwhile, unobserved by any-and she could easily be so, while some were drinking, others making a clatter, or giving all their attention to Apollo playing on the cithara, or to the Muses as they sang-threw into the midst of the banqueting-hall a certain very beautiful apple, all of gold,' Galene. And it was inscribed: "Let the beautiful one have me." And rolling along, as though intentionally, it came where Hera and Aphrodite and Athena were reclining; and when Hermes, taking it up, read out the inscription, we Nereids held our tongues, for what were we to do, in the presence of those Goddesses? Then they began to put forward each one her pretensions, and each claimed the apple to be her own. And had not Zeus separated them, the affair would have ended even in blows. But, says he, "I will not myself judge in the matter [although they earnestly called upon him to do so]; but go away with you to Ida to the presence of the youth Paris, who, as he is a connoisseur in female charms, knows how to distinguish the superior beauty, and he would not give wrong judgment."

1 See 0. A. xx.

Galene. What, pray, did the Goddesses do, Panope? Panope. This very day, I believe, they are off to İda, and somebody will come shortly to announce to us the winner.

Galene. As I stand here now, I tell you, no other will be victorious, with Aphrodite for competitor, unless the umpire be altogether dull-eyed.1

2

VI.

THE RAPE OF AMYMONE BY POSEIDON.

Triton, Amymone, and Poseidon.

Triton. Every day, Poseidon, there comes a virgin to Lerna to draw water-a very beautiful sort of creature. I don't know, for my part, that I have seen a more beautiful girl.

Poseidon. Some lady, do you mean, Triton, or is the girl of the pitcher some maid-servant?

Triton. No, indeed-but a daughter of that celebrated Danaus, herself one of the Fifty, Amymone by name: for I inquired what her name is, and her family. Now, Danaus brings up his daughters hardily, and teaches them to work for themselves, and both sends them to draw water and educates them, in other respects, not to be idle.

3

1 One of the most interesting of Roman paintings that have come down to us has for subject this fatal marriage of Peleus and Thetisthe Noce Aldobrandine. It was found at Rome, in the seventeenth century, on the site of the gardens of Mæcenas. It consists of ten figures, that of Thetis carrying away the palm of excellence. See Recueil des Peintures Antiques Trouvées à Rome. Par Pietro Bartoli, Paris, 1783. Cf. the Peleus and Thetis of Catullus.

2 A place near Argos, famous as the haunt of the monster killed by Heraklês. Amymone was one of the fifty daughters of Danaus, the issue of his various wives, whose names are recorded, together with those of their doomed husbands, by Apollodorus, ii. 1, 5. Cf. Philost. Eikoves; Pausanias, ii. 37; Strabo, viii.; Pliny, Hist. Nat. iv. 5. The Danaides, it may be observed, have received their highest immortalisation from Eschylus in his 'IKérides. For a description of a Triton, see Apollonius, 'Apy. iv. 1588-1612.

3 Le Clerc here observes that, in the most ancient times, it was a common custom for girls of high birth to be sent to draw water, and quotes the authorities of Homer and Genesis xxiv. 13-15. "So that," remarks Lehmann, "Le Clerc knows more about antiquity than Lucian himself."

Poseidon. But does she travel all alone so long a journey from Argos to Lerna?

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Triton. All alone. Argos is " very thirsty,' as you know so it is necessary to be always fetching water.

Poseiden. My dear Triton, in no small degree have you agitated me by your account of the girl. So let us start at once for her.

Triton. Let us be off. Just now, in fact, is the time for fetching the water, and she is pretty nearly in the middle of her journey, on her way to Lerna.

Poseidon. Harness the chariot, then: or, stay, that involves much loss of time, to harness the horses and to get the equipage ready. Do you bring me rather one of your swiftest dolphins; for I shall mount and ride it in the quickest possible time.

Triton. See, here you have the fleetest of dolphins.

Poseidon. Bravely done! Let us drive away, and do you swim by my side, Triton.-And now we are arrived at Lerna, I will lie in ambush somewhere here, and do you keep a look out. As soon as ever you perceive her approach

Triton (looking out from his hiding-place). She is close by you.

Poseidon. A lovely and blooming girl, Triton. But we have to capture her (seizes her).

Amymone. Fellow, why have you thus forciby seized me, and where are you taking me? You are a kidnapper,2 and I suppose you have been commissioned by my uncle, Ægyptus: so I will call out to my father for help (screaming).

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Triton. Hush! this moment, Amymone. It is Poseidon. Amymone. Why do you talk to me of Poseidon? Why you offer me this violence, fellow, and drag me down thus

1 Hoλvditov, the Homeric epithet for the capital of Diomedes, 'IX. iv. Athenæus and Strabo interpret it as πολυπόθητον, 66 much thirsted for" (by the absent Greeks).

171.

2

'Avdparodiσrns. For the extent and success of this sort of recognised piracy, or trade, among the Greeks, see the Comedies of Plautus and of Terence, and the romances of Heliodorus and other Greek romancists.

3 Whose fifty sons came to Argos in search of their reluctant brides.

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