Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/120

112 were motionless on their crystal chairs; but before the rest of the sisterhood Arethusa glanced forth, lifting her golden head above the wave, and cried from far: O not vainly startled by so heavy a moan, Cyrene sister, he thine own, thy chiefest care, mourning Aristaeus stands in tears by ancient Peneus' wave, and calls thee cruel and names thy name. To her the mother, stricken in soul with fresh alarm, Lead him, quick, lead him to us; he, she cries, may unforbidden tread the threshold of gods. With that she bids the deep streams retire, leaving a broad path for his steps to enter in. But round him the mountain-wave stood curving and clasped him in its mighty fold, and sped him beneath the river. And now marvelling at his mother's home and watery realm, cavern-locked pools and roaring forests, he passed on, and, stunned by the vast whirl of waters, gazed on all the great floods of distant regions rolling under earth, Phasis and Lycus, and the spring head whence breaks forth high Enipeus' source, whence the lord of Tiber and whence the streams of Anio, and Hypanis roaring over his rocks, and Mysian Caïcus and, with the twin gilded horns on his bull's forehead, Eridanus, than whom no other river flows fiercer down through his rich tilth into the shining sea. After they entered the chamber with its hanging roof of rock, and Cyrene heard her son's idle tale of tears, her sisters duly pour clear spring-water on his hands and bring towels with close-cut fleece: others pile the banquet on the board and array the brimming cups; flame of