Page:Metamorphoses.djvu/157

METAMORPHOSES BOOK III the chase, was wont to bathe her maiden limbs in the crystal water. On this day, having come to the grotto, she gives to the keeping of her armour-bearer among her nymphs her hunting spear, her quiver, and her unstrung bow; another takes on her arm the robe she has laid by; two unbind her sandals from her feet. But Theban Crocale, defter than the rest, binds into a knot the locks which have fallen down her mistress' neck, her own locks streaming free the while. Others bring water, Nephele, Hyale and Rhanis, Psecas and Phiale, and pour it out from their capacious urns. And while Titania is bathing there in her accustomed pool, lo! Cadmus' grandson, his day's toil deferred, comes wandering through the unfamiliar woods with unsure footsteps, and enters Diana's grove; for so fate would have it. As soon as he entered the grotto bedewed with fountain spray, the naked nymphs smote upon their breasts at sight of the man, and filled all the grove with their shrill, sudden cries. Then they thronged around Diana, seeking to hide her body with their own; but the goddess stood head and shoulders over all the rest. And red as the clouds which flush beneath the sun's slant rays, red as the rosy dawn, were the cheeks of Diana as she stood there in view without her robes. Then, though the band of nymphs pressed close about her, she stood turning aside a little and cast back her gaze; and though she would fain have had her arrows ready, what she had she took up, the water, and flung it into the young man's face. And as she poured the avenging drops upon his hair, she spoke these words foreboding his coming doom; "Now you are free to tell that you have seen me all unrobed-if you can tell." No more than this she spoke; but on the head which she had sprinkled she caused to grow the 137